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  • A Habitable Version of the Old Mercury

    From Quadibloc@21:1/5 to All on Sat Feb 11 19:50:31 2023
    This article https://www.techspot.com/news/97568-new-potentially-habitable-planet-discovered-scientists-but-half.html
    speaks of the discovery of an exoplanet that recieves only 65% of the radiation from its sun that our Earth recieves - but because one side of it always faces its sun, it could be habitable.
    Of course, at 31 light-years away, this hardly matters, even if it's close in relative terms.

    John Savard

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Chris L Peterson@21:1/5 to [email protected] on Sat Feb 11 22:04:28 2023
    On Sat, 11 Feb 2023 19:50:31 -0800 (PST), Quadibloc
    <[email protected]> wrote:

    This article >https://www.techspot.com/news/97568-new-potentially-habitable-planet-discovered-scientists-but-half.html
    speaks of the discovery of an exoplanet that recieves only 65% of the radiation
    from its sun that our Earth recieves - but because one side of it always faces >its sun, it could be habitable.
    Of course, at 31 light-years away, this hardly matters, even if it's close in >relative terms.

    The weather on a planet tidally locked to its sun might be quite
    interesting.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Quadibloc@21:1/5 to Chris L Peterson on Tue Feb 14 05:29:38 2023
    On Saturday, February 11, 2023 at 10:04:33 PM UTC-7, Chris L Peterson wrote:

    The weather on a planet tidally locked to its sun might be quite
    interesting.

    I can imagine that such a planet would be an inspiratiion to science-fiction writers. But thinking about it: we have weather because due to day and night, and over the longer term, the seasons, places on the Earth alternate between hot and cold.
    If every place on a planet was at a constant temperature, even if different places were at different temperatures, an equilibrium would be reached.
    Since the Moon has libratiions, and the Earth has the Equation of Time, of course, this situation doesn't apply to a tidally-locked planet, there will be some shuffling around of insolation.
    But it could be that despite the huge temperature difference, the weather
    would actually be quite dull on such a world, as it would always be the
    same thing.
    Of course, "interesting" has more than one meaning. That huge temperature difference means a huge convection cycle. So the weather would be the same every day... but can, say, 200 mph winds (or more!) ever really be considered boring?

    John Savard

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Chris L Peterson@21:1/5 to [email protected] on Tue Feb 14 10:48:59 2023
    On Tue, 14 Feb 2023 05:29:38 -0800 (PST), Quadibloc
    <[email protected]> wrote:

    On Saturday, February 11, 2023 at 10:04:33 PM UTC-7, Chris L Peterson wrote:

    The weather on a planet tidally locked to its sun might be quite
    interesting.

    I can imagine that such a planet would be an inspiratiion to science-fiction >writers. But thinking about it: we have weather because due to day and night, >and over the longer term, the seasons, places on the Earth alternate between >hot and cold.
    If every place on a planet was at a constant temperature, even if different >places were at different temperatures, an equilibrium would be reached.
    Since the Moon has libratiions, and the Earth has the Equation of Time, of >course, this situation doesn't apply to a tidally-locked planet, there will be >some shuffling around of insolation.
    But it could be that despite the huge temperature difference, the weather >would actually be quite dull on such a world, as it would always be the
    same thing.
    Of course, "interesting" has more than one meaning. That huge temperature >difference means a huge convection cycle. So the weather would be the same >every day... but can, say, 200 mph winds (or more!) ever really be considered >boring?

    John Savard

    I agree equilibrium of some kind is to be expected. But like you
    say... if that equilibrium involves never ending cyclones, especially
    near the terminator... well, interesting.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)