Jupiters Realms

Void · 2025-02-04 09:24:50

Elsewhere, there is interest in Callisto. I also consider that the Asteroid Belt is sort of under the dominance of Jupiter, so I will deal with that as well.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Callisto_(moon)

It seems reasonable to me that much of the materials on the surface, may include materials from the asteroid belt and comets.

So, unlike many worlds, the surface of Callisto may have a good distribution of types of materials, in quantities of each that are suitable to human needs.

A simple form of energy of course could be robotic mirrors, for solar heat and electricity. The solar flux is very low, but the gravity also being low, robots with motors that aim mirrors, might be reasonably sensible to use. If there are frozen brines somewhere perhaps they have dissolved Uranium in them, but I am not counting on that.

In some ways it is better than Mars. Radiation is less a problem. Solar Energy is clockwork in nature, not as random as would be for Mars.

Unlike for the Asteroid Belt, you would not need to use space propulsions to do many things. Wheeled machines might do very well.

However if you should want to make habitats and solar power stations in the orbits of Jupiter that may be very possible.

Ending Pending

Last edited by Void (2025-02-04 09:51:27)

Void · 2025-02-04 10:54:39

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Callisto_(moon)
I am glad that some members may have a mutual interest in this topic. I see questions about Axial Tilt::: Quote:

Axial tilt <1°[6] (to Jupiter's equator)

I agree that this number is confusing. However, for our Moon????

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Axial_tilt

So, yes it is annoying, as the number I want is what does the sun do in the sky, per horizon. But of course they are being proper to reference to the tilt relative to the orbit around a planet.

Ceres is not a moon, and so it is somewhat straightforward: https://astrobiology.com/2024/04/histor … traps.html If I understand then Ceres has a current Axis of 4 degrees.

I guess what I want is "How much work does a solar robot have to do on a world to capture the best solar energy available?".

The Earth having a shorter year, and a greater axis tilt than most moons and Ceres, makes the effort expended greater.
Ceres also has a lesser gravity, of course which also helps, as a robot must by some means hold a mirror or solar panel up against gravity, and into the best lighting direction relative to the sun.

Alright, I guess I will go with the

Axial tilt <1°[6] (to Jupiter's equator)

Here are numbers for the planets: https://www.answers.com/astronomy/What_ … ystem_have
Quote:

Jupiter's axis tilt is 3.1°.

So, I am going to make the guess that for Callisto it is 3.1 +/- <1 degree, so probably not more than 4 degrees or so. Close to 4 degrees at the maximum. I would be very happy to become better educated.

https://www.skymania.com/how-long-is-a-year-on-jupiter/
Jupiter's year is quote:

11.86 Earth years
According to 2 sources

So, for Jupiter the winter summer tilt is 11.86 times as long in time, and so a robot on Callisto would not have to react nearly as fast per season.

We might try this for Ceres and Callisto:

As a visual, imagine a trough that is dug entirely around the circumference of such a world. Not likely in practical reality, but a way to visualize it. Other ways would be available but in this case the carved trench being of frozen materials, but with an overlay of reflective metal foil, may concentrate light on the black plate, which is hinged on the bottom. The seasonal axial tilt being small and distributed over a long period of time, the tilting of the plate can be very slow. The trough is imagined to pass East<>West, and in this case at the equator.

Obviously the rotation of Ceres and the orbit of Callisto will matter as well. There are many ways to compensate for that, and it matters if you are collecting heat for a heat engine or electricity from solar panels. You could have hinged flaps on the plate, or solar panels could move a bit on the plate.

You could have a convection cavity inside the plate where maybe CO2 is heated in a spot and the hot gas flows up to the top to be collected. In that case you might want hinged thermal insulating tiles that only open where the sunlight touches. Ha Ha, a thermal convection wall. Maybe that should be given a try on Earth.

Anyway the slow seasons the low gravity and the small axis tilt may make solar power on Ceres and Callisto more practical than many people might think.

My best guess is that you could have a network of tunnels and vaults underground on Callisto that you might travel though. They might be pressurized, if they were far enough down. You might even have spin gravity devices on the surface or underground.

Some parts of the vast magnetic field of Jupiter could be considered a protective resource, especially if you could have water to shield, orbital habitats. And those again could have concentrating mirrors to collect solar energy. The water more likely coming from Callisto, but perhaps also Ganymede. The entire solar flux that must travel though the Jupiter Hill Sphere must be vast. Though it must be concentrated with mirrors, in orbit that is a relatively small task.

Ending Pending

Last edited by Void (2025-02-04 12:05:43)

Calliban · 2025-02-04 12:48:33

I often wondered why neither Ganymede or Callisto had any appreciable atmosphere, despite being larger than Mercury. Recently it occured to me. Jupiter has a magnetic moment 20,000x greater than Earth's. It rotates once every nine hours and its magnetic field presumably rotates with it. At Ganymede distance, those magnetic field lines would sweep across any exosphere very rapidly. This would tend to pick up and accelerate atmospheric ions. Over millions of years, this would wittle down any atmosphere that the moons originally had.

Void · 2025-02-04 13:03:50

I think that that is true Calliban. At first having no atmosphere may be a blessing as I would like to export materials from these moons.

But later perhaps a magnetic field for such a moon might allow an atmosphere.

I would like to suggest a two buckets synthetic gravity machine for orbit of Jupiter.

Easy to imagine. Two buckets connected by cables, spinning around a common pivot point.

Fill the buckets with water from a moon of Jupiter. This then allows for light to enter from the tops. The tops may be covered in a transparency which also will be pressed "Down" by centrifugal force.

A choice can be made water that supports living things, or water kept clear.

In the clear water situation, then you can put transparent diving bells into the bottoms of the water. And the centrifuging of the water will pressurize the situation.

And of course if you made a ring of buckets, you would have a toroidal habitat(s).

This may be well suited to the protected magnetic shell of Jupiter, as some locations in that shell are more merciful per radiation.

Ending Pending

Last edited by Void (2025-02-05 11:11:23)

Calliban · 2025-02-04 13:20:46

Void wrote:

Alright, I guess I will go with the
Axial tilt <1°[6] (to Jupiter's equator)
Here are numbers for the planets: https://www.answers.com/astronomy/What_ … ystem_have
Quote:
Jupiter's axis tilt is 3.1°.
So, I am going to make the guess that for Callisto it is 3.1 +/- <1 degree, so probably not more than 4 degrees or so. Close to 4 degrees at the maximum. I would be very happy to become better educated.
https://www.skymania.com/how-long-is-a-year-on-jupiter/
Jupiter's year is quote:
11.86 Earth years
According to 2 sources
So, for Jupiter the winter summer tilt is 11.86 times as long in time, and so a robot on Callisto would not have to react nearly as fast per season.
We might try this for Ceres and Callisto: https://i.imgur.com/Buu2s4F.png
As a visual, imagine a trough that is dug entirely around the circumference of such a world. Not likely in practical reality, but a way to visualize it. Other ways would be available but in this case the carved trench being of frozen materials, but with an overlay of reflective metal foil, may concentrate light on the black plate, which is hinged on the bottom. The seasonal axial tilt being small and distributed over a long period of time, the tilting of the plate can be very slow. The trough is imagined to pass East<>West, and in this case at the equator.
Obviously the rotation of Ceres and the orbit of Callisto will matter as well. There are many ways to compensate for that, and it matters if you are collecting heat for a heat engine or electricity from solar panels. You could have hinged flaps on the plate, or solar panels could move a bit on the plate.
You could have a convection cavity inside the plate where maybe CO2 is heated in a spot and the hot gas flows up to the top to be collected. In that case you might want hinged thermal insulating tiles that only open where the sunlight touches. Ha Ha, a thermal convection wall. Maybe that should be given a try on Earth.
Anyway the slow seasons the low gravity and the small axis tilt may make solar power on Ceres and Callisto more practical than many people might think.
Ending Pending

Void, your post is very interesting. Does the orbital plane of satellites change as the primary's axial tilt oscillates? My understanding was that the moon's orbit does not tilt up and down as the Earth goes through seasons. If it did, it would imply a huge effective velocity change relative to the plane of the solar system.

If a body has only 1° of axial tilt over the course of a year, then trough solar concentrators built at the equator would not need to track the sun. On airless worlds with low gravity, they could be made from very thin reflectors. Maybe these factors will compensate somewhat for the low solar flux beyond the orbit of Mars.

Void · 2025-02-04 16:17:12

Perhaps you are correct. The way I would want to look at it is how far north or south does the sun wander? For the Earth it is considerable, requiring a fair amount of manipulations. So you could have an annual manipulation and a daily manipulation. I don't know at this time if <1% applies to Callisto. Your reasoning is seeming good to me.

As robotics become more and more capable, we might regard sun followers as robots. A lower gravitation is favorable, and a longer season is favorable, and longer days are favorable to reducing the amount of manipulation and effort to follow the sun. And a world without atmosphere then also does not have clouds or dust storms.

If my head is screwed on strait for this concept, a device would only need a relatively small change for seasonal on Callisto. The motor for that might not be enclosed in the local device(s), but you might have a clock-keeping robot that make small adjustments periodically by some sort of temporary engagement.

That is a thing I allowed for with the plate in my diagram of post #77. Other methods are possible.

I suppose one way to evaluate a system would be manipulations needed vs. calories collected.

And of course I have overlooked wind. On Earth we not only have a situation where gravity and variance of sun position are relatively unfavorable, but wind would very much like to uproot any machine which is light weight and delicate. We could get away with a lot more on certain worlds such as Ceres and some moons, perhaps including our Moon.

Different environments that we have not yet adapted our minds to yet, I think.

Ending Pending

For instance, for our Moon a rocking horse could do some good.

This is only to illustrate tracking the sun which in North<>South is to change only a little on Ceres or many moons including our Moon, I think.

A solar device has to be mounted on something in any case.

We could be talking solar panel or mirrors as included, and maybe heat engine.

A day for Callisto is about 16.7 days but of course only half of that in sunlight but still the speed of rocking is very slow, and I think that the adjustments of seasons are for a very long year, about 11.86 Earth years

If my head is screwed on correctly then the North<>South adjustment could be done by a roving robot that could simply turn a crank periodically on multiple rocking horse devices, following the seasons, to get the optimal output from the solar device.

But I am open to have my mind adjusted, if you see a need for it. I am still confused about how the seasons of Jupiter may affect the axis of Callisto relative to the sun, or if it even does.

Ending Pending

Last edited by Void (2025-02-04 16:50:39)

Void · 2025-02-04 20:34:57

Auxiliary resources for Callisto could come from Ganymede, such as salts that may have erupted to the surface. During the freezing process, it is possible that certain salts may have come out of solution before others. This just might indicate that if Uranium Salts were in the mix, they may have been concentrated and may be somewhere in the crust. Ganymede would be a dangerous place for humans, at least on the surface but under the surface and with the use of robots perhaps such a resource could be accessed.

I am focused on Uranium as it might be a better way to run spaceships than fusion or certainly solar at the orbits of Jupiter.

While early on it might be best to tap solar on the surface of Callisto, I anticipate that it may be convenient to build very large concentrating mirrors that could be in orbits convenient to dump power to Callisto. And the materials of Callisto may be convenient to make orbital habitats.

I have a tendency to like water filled habitats, sea worlds perhaps, with human habitations within them. Methods to direct sunlight into them are possible but also artificial lighting and chemicals could drive a biosphere(s).

Ending Pending

Methods like these might be suitable for larger icy asteroids as well.

Ending Pending

Last edited by Void (2025-02-04 20:38:44)

Void · 2025-02-04 21:00:40

Well this fell into my lap, and since I am putting effort into this I will put it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wc9p4ys4I3c

Some good information in it they suggest a settlement on the side that Jupiter could be seen from.

I have further thought that perhaps the poles may be best. Not to get water as on our Moon, but because you may have peaks of eternal light, even though no real mountains are on Callisto.

If Callisto were as spherical as a cue ball, then you could sit on the rotational pole and put a vertical solar panel up and spin it to catch the sun. But of course there is some texture on Callisto.

Peaks of eternal light for our Moon could suggest the conditions that may be available on each pole of Callisto. But there is less of an amount of texture, I expect.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peak_of_eternal_light
Quote:

A peak of eternal light (PEL) is a hypothetical point on the surface of an astronomical body that is always in sunlight. Such a peak must have high latitude, high elevation, and be on a body with very small axial tilt. The existence of such peaks was first postulated by Beer and Mädler in 1837. The pair said about the lunar polar mountains: "...many of these peaks have (with the exception of eclipses caused by the Earth) eternal sunshine".[1] These polar peaks were later mentioned by Camille Flammarion in 1879, who speculated that there may exist pics de lumière éternelle at the poles of the Moon.[2] PELs would be advantageous for space exploration and colonization due to the ability of an electrical device located there to receive solar power regardless of the time of day or day of the year, and the relatively stable temperature range.
Detailed lunar topography collected by the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) suggests that no points on the Moon receive perpetual light during both the winter and summer. However, there are points on crater rims which have very extended periods of sunlight.[3][4]

I would guess that you might be able to erect tall scaffolds, and support mirrors on them to do the work of heliostats.
They would probably not have continuing power but might have solar power for the majority of the spin of Callisto.

Perhaps this could be a thing to do on the Dwarf Planet Ceres, as well.

Ending Pending

If Callisto is not completely differentiated that might be very valuable: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LGcllv9il0g

You might eventually take it completely apart and make artificial worlds of many different kinds.

Ending Pending

My preference is that Callisto would not have a sea, as this would stop the weird people from interfering with human use of it.

Ending Pending

Ceres: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eNiuscilsaA

Ending Pending

Last edited by Void (2025-02-04 21:35:22)

Calliban · 2025-02-05 14:40:01

The Juno radiation vault was a 1cm thick titanium cube, designed to reduce the dose uptake of electronics by a factor of 800.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juno_Radiation_Vault

Titanium has a density of 4.5g/cm3. So a 1cm thick sheets provides an areal density of 45kg/m2. This suggests to me that an atmosphere with comparable column density on Ganymede would reduce surface doserate from 80mSv/day to 0.1mSv/day, or 36.5mSv/year. A 45kg/m2 atmosphere is a 4.5mbar atmosphere under Earth gravity and roughly a 0.7mbar atmosphere under Ganymede gravity.

One way of providing this would be to warm the surface of Ganymede. This will release radiolysis gases produced by Jupiter radiation over aeons and trappedwithin the ice. Most of this is oxygen and hydrogen peroxide (which decays into oxygen and water). A 1mbar atmosphere is too thin to breath. But it would protect surface people on the surface from hard Jupiter radiation and micrometeorites. We could warm Ganymede by releasing flourocarbons, SF6 and NF3 into its atmosphere. Such gases are powerful greenhouse gases. We might not need more than single digit microbars of such gases to provide the required warming. On the order of hundredsof millions of tonnes. As Jupiter is further from the sun and receives only 5% of the UV flux that Earth does, atmospheric lifetime of these gases would be longer. So we could build up the required levels over a linger period, maybe a million tonnes per year. Similar techniques could be employed on Callisto. In this case, we would get a CO2 atmosphere of comparable pressure. Enough to screen out the worst of the cosmic rays and micrometeorites.

Last edited by Calliban (2025-02-05 14:50:36)

Void · 2025-02-05 18:17:53

The item I would hope to access on Ganymede might be Uranium Salts, but I don't know at all if they would be in the concentrated brine that apparently erupted on the surface a long time ago.

Your thin atmosphere might be protective from micro impactors, of course.

But you could easily make an igloo of ice that could be protective of equipment.

Ending Pending

I see you have evaluated Ceres per trough solar mirrors. Of course the easy stuff comes first, probably the asteroids and major tiny worlds of the belt before too much interest in Callisto and Ganymede.

Ending Pending

Last edited by Void (2025-02-05 18:21:52)

Calliban · 2025-02-06 05:26:38

If uranium concentration is comparable to that in Earth oceans then this is certainly an option. By the time we get to Ganymede, we will almost certainly have perfected fast neutron reactors, accelerator driven reactors and fusion-fission hybrids. Any of which allows access to 100% of the energy content of uranium.

Void · 2025-02-06 08:56:16

I will consider that to be a very good thing.

I took a quick look at Uranium salts on Mars and one source indicated that Mars may have more of it than Earth. This then leads to the question, where did the salt of the Oceans go?

It seems to me that for worlds that have or had oceans the Uranium Salts may be a important resource.

Even on Dwarf Planets very far out, perhaps.

The things I read indicate that the ability to extract Uranium from sea water is improving but not competitive yet. However on a outer world such an energy source would be more valuable than in competition with other energy sources on Earth.

The amount of Uranium in sea water is supposed to be very large.

Some additional things I have read, are that our oceans hold about 4 to 4.5 billion tons of Uranium, and if you could extract it from the sea water, then more would dissolve out of rocks, to replace it, so this Uranium is

This means that Uranium in seawater is essentially renewable, it seems.

So, if Titan has Cryovolcano's then perhaps Uranium.

To melt a sea on Mars may be to get Uranium which may lead to being able to melt a sea on Mars.

Ending Pending

Last edited by Void (2025-02-06 09:08:06)

tahanson43206 · 2025-02-06 09:07:39

For Void re interesting question:

where did the salt of the Oceans go?

The question that seems to logically flow from that question, is whether the data gathering probes at Mars might have already found any deposits that might exist, but perhaps analysis of the data has not "seen" them?

Or might other kinds of data gathering methods reveal the presence of desirable minerals?

This forum does not presently include a topic dedicated to technology that can discover the nature of the interior of a Solar System body.

The electromagnetic spectrum is available for certain kinds of study.

Sound waves in the material of an object can reveal tantalizing hints about the nature of the interior.

The gravitational properties of an object can be measured with great precision these days.

Perhaps there are other ways to tease out information about Solar System objects.

(th)

Void · 2025-02-06 09:28:18

Well, the choices may be that it is like this: https://www.earth.com/news/the-mediterr … years-ago/ Quote:

About 6 million years ago, an extraordinary event occurred that restructured the Mediterranean and its water. This phenomenon, known as the Messinian Salinity Crisis, transformed the sea into a massive salt basin.

Or it went underground with much of the water.

There is one known salt dome on Mars.

I am tempted by Korolev Crater once again.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korolev_(Martian_crater)
Quote:

Giving attention to the inner rim at the top of the image, this, I expect faces the equator or the sun. The frosty portions at the bottom probably face the north pole.

If mirrors were mounted on the south facing inner rim wall then it may be possible to melt a canal at the edge of the ice mass.

Quote:

Ice formation
The ice is permanently stable because the crater acts as a natural cold trap. The thin Martian air above the crater ice is colder than air surrounding the crater; the colder local atmosphere is also heavier so it sinks to form a protective layer, insulating the ice, shielding it from melting and evaporation.[2][3] Research published in 2016 indicates that the ice deposit formed in place within the crater and was not previously part of a once-larger polar ice sheet.[4] The ice in the crater is part of the vast water resources at the poles of the planet.[3]

The crater is thought to be about 3 billion years old so it formed when Mars may still have had some water on occasion.

So, their may be salt deposits in its bottom. In any case melting a canal would apparently dissolve Uranium from the rocks, and eventually if a method to extract it from salt water were available then you might source Uranium by making a salty body of water.

Certain tricks might be tried. For instance greenhouses on top of the ice of a body of salt water that the heliostats would shine on.

But the downside is ice collapse might obliterate any such thing you might build.

The greenhouses of course might be also suitable at times to grow something in like algae or cyanobacteria.

Ending Pending

Last edited by Void (2025-02-06 09:50:11)

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