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Author Topic: Suggestion: Atmospheric density on the surface  (Read 2239 times)

Plutonium

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Suggestion: Atmospheric density on the surface
« on: August 09, 2015, 04:22:58 AM »
Recently I have come across this discussion https://www.physicsforums.com/threads/hypothetical-flying-and-gliding-animals-of-planets-with-higher-atmospheric-pressure.658711/

Some interesting ideas in there, so I thought it would be nice to have the density of the atmosphere dynamically calculated for the given planet and gas mix.

DiamondMiner10

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Re: Suggestion: Atmospheric density on the surface
« Reply #1 on: August 10, 2015, 09:09:20 AM »
Might be hard to simulate if you have a rocky planet slowly crashing into it

Plutonium

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Re: Suggestion: Atmospheric density on the surface
« Reply #2 on: August 10, 2015, 11:11:29 AM »
Might be hard to simulate if you have a rocky planet slowly crashing into it

This is more related to climate than to collisions.

Darvince

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Re: Suggestion: Atmospheric density on the surface
« Reply #3 on: August 10, 2015, 01:43:41 PM »
During collisions I'm sure you wouldn't care if the atmospheric density of a planet was 1 atmosphere or 80, so ideally this would be a toggle for each body, turning off when they are colliding and turning back on after they're done.

DiamondMiner10

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Re: Suggestion: Atmospheric density on the surface
« Reply #4 on: August 11, 2015, 10:13:26 AM »
Might be hard to simulate if you have a rocky planet slowly crashing into it

This is more related to climate than to collisions.
I know but the climate should change a lot during collisions... I could imagine the atmosphere being mixed with tons of ash and molten rock

Plutonium

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Re: Suggestion: Atmospheric density on the surface
« Reply #5 on: August 11, 2015, 09:08:45 PM »
Might be hard to simulate if you have a rocky planet slowly crashing into it

This is more related to climate than to collisions.
I know but the climate should change a lot during collisions... I could imagine the atmosphere being mixed with tons of ash and molten rock

Looks like we are talking about different subjects: Collisions do not last long enough to be worried about "during the collision" time. Climate may change after a collision but that doesn't mean the atmospheric pressure and composition will change. Ash will affect the opacity but not the composition and the molten rock is not going to do anything because it doesn't stay in the air long and hot enough to cause any planetary scale changes in the atmosphere's chemistry. This is all under an assumption that we are not considering collisions large enough to rip the planet apart or cause crust/mantle level changes.

Besides, one may want to simulate different climate/atmospheric conditions without having any collisions. The software already simulates the atmospheric pressure, so to have the density one only needs to add the gas mix which is currently not possible.