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1. Plasmoids - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plasmoid
2. Jupiter - http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/0 … phere.html
3. M2P2 - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M2P2
Such artificial plasmoid fed with power & material by the solar radiation & particle wind, or / and by local magnetic / magnetospheric phenomena MUST be able to hold certain amount of breathable pressure range atmosphere in intself.
I mean huge artificial magnetosphere around small body or no body at all.
You see from the Jupiter link ( p.2. ) how the magnetosohere of the giant is handling spitted by the satelites material via cooling and slowing it down to orbital velocities = keeping it within its gravitational sphere of domination.
Go back to the posting of mine about the possibility to be built plasmic hardware machinery -- i.e. such "living" plasmoids to possess quite complex behaviour and thus the atmosphere contained in it to be actrivelly kept/confined within certain spatial boundaries up to the depletion rate of the massive planets, incl. utilizing the usually devastating factors of the solar radiation and wind for power source and material replenishing.
Note: When I say NO BODY at all , have in mind really huge mass of volatiles - a drop of water, mud, gases, etc. with mass of 10exp15 ( guess! ) with diameter of hundreds of km, possessing substantial self-gravity, and surrounded by living plasmoid or plasmoids circuit, which to execute the retention&reclamation&replenishing service.
Ceres provided with global plasmoid self-generated magnetosphere of say, Jupiter size ( but not intensity, although it is not excludable figure given the overall capture of solar wind and radiation if "dusty plasma" "photovoltaics" "suspended" into the plasmoid ) possesses calculable and affordable manifold of states in which Ceres holds around its surface range of breathable pressures atmosphere.
Such worlds so low in the Nordley-scale of surface gravity deffinitelly would be strange == imagine human-compatible biochemically biosphere onto and hundreds of kilometers around ~0.03 gees world == rather 3D life-site etc., AND humans deffinitelly would be affected by the low gravity,
BUT
the low gravity is personal problem, solvable by elegant, REVERSIBLE and TEMPORARY means of anti-microgravity tech.
The problem for shirt-sleeve micro-gravity macro-environments is PERSONAL not global against the habitability conditions. What we need is the humans there:
1. To not be harmed by the low surface gravity
2. the means to withstand the negative effects of the lo-gees to be not species altering or permanent, cause than we loose the essence of "human colonizable".
Of course also we have to add that fluo-sphere habitable by humans has VERY wide means. And that the array / spectrum of colonizability DO NOT necesserily includes GLOBAL change... To hit what I mean -- say, Ceres, Vesta, Higeya, Pallas, Sedna, Oberon... are better with atmosphere blanket of say minus 50 degrees celsium CO2 atmosphere blanket of 150-200 milibars , than naked into the vacuum. It is easier to create brreatghable / warm pockets ( indeed huge - dozens of km wide and long ) into such blanketed environment than to try to blow baloon structures into the radiation sweeped vacuum.
To generalize: EVERYTHING is terraformable.
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Good post Karov. Your style of writing makes your post a little difficult to follow, but interesting none the less.
The implications are that the limits on terraforming will be set by economics (ie, the cost of providing an atmosphere of given column density in relation to the value of the land underneath).
One implication of a magnetically trapped atmosphere is that it could presumably gather solar energy over a much wider area than would be set by its physical surface area alone. As the ions spiral into the poles and re-enter the atmosphere, much of this energy would presumably be released as visible light and heat.
Maybe the polar regions of worlds like Sedna and Pluto would melt into warm, salty oceans containing the majority of the biosphere, whereas the cooler, twilight equatorial regions would remain solid. The majority of the inhabitants would settle around the 'shores' of the polar seas, living on marine crops and arctic-fish.
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Good post Karov. Your style of writing makes your post a little difficult to follow, but interesting none the less.
The implications are that the limits on terraforming will be set by economics (ie, the cost of providing an atmosphere of given column density in relation to the value of the land underneath).
ANY terraformation effort will be limited by economical reasoning. BUT
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... the value of land increases proportionally to the ratio the gees are decreasing.
Example: Earth == With traditional materials ( steel and concrete ) you can build no higher than some kilometers and to reinforce cavities against the hydrostatic pressure no deeper than some kilometers. Pressure which stresses the cavity or the tower is proportional of the gees.
Ceres == at approx. 3.5% gees, one could build 30 times higher and to make tunnels on ~30 times deeper than on Earth. So utilizing the LAND is favoured by lo-gees. In direct ratio. Land utilization is usually construction - in lo-gees environment the hight-depth = the 3rd Dimension is as much times more accessible as much times the surface gravity is lower than 1gee. ( Indeed even better cause on smaller world the utilizable hight / depth consists of BIGGER part of the planetary radius, so here also the shear gees falling down with going deeper or higher are better. == on Ceres a building say 500km high already enjoys 1/4 the surface gravity of less than 1% gee.)
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One implication of a magnetically trapped atmosphere is that it could presumably gather solar energy over a much wider area than would be set by its physical surface area alone.
Yes. Again as an example Ceres: Lets simplify presuming that the plasmoid-confined ceresian atmosphere is earth-like , hence the earth`s one scaled up 30-fold, i.e. the exosphere conditions over Ceres at ~50 000 km hight would be roughly the same as these around Earth on ~1000km hight. The plasmoid would compactify the total linear dimensions to ~ 100 000 radius. That gives ~200 000 km wide solar wind capture "sail".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_wind
The Sun emits 1 000 000 tonnes per second of solar wind at average speed of 450km/s. At Ceres distance a 200 000km wide capture area represents 1:64 000 000 of the total sphere into which these 1 bln kilograms a second are distributed. That roughly gives 16 kg a second. At 450 000 m/s that gives = 1.620 trillion Watts / 1.620x10Exp12 / 1.62 TerraWatt , in 100% energy efficiency... which is:
1.7 TW - Geo: average electrical power consumption of the world in 2001
The solar constant at Earth`s vicinity is 1.5kW / m2 , the above figure of 1.6TW is enough to illumnate area of > 100mln. sq.km-s.
In that sence
As the ions spiral into the poles and re-enter the atmosphere, much of this energy would presumably be released as visible light and heat.
your idea of Two polar rings of "neon" solar-wind powered "lamps" will be enough for Ceres even in case of only ~20 000 km radius of the capture area at 100% or in case of only 5-6% solar wind kinethic energy to light transformation ratio.
and for Sedna, etc..,. superdistant bodies IF THEY ARE within the solar magnetopause radius the accounts fit -- the M2P2 plasmoids radius is proportional to the distance... so
Maybe the polar regions of worlds like Sedna and Pluto would melt into warm, salty oceans containing the majority of the biosphere, whereas the cooler, twilight equatorial regions would remain solid. The majority of the inhabitants would settle around the 'shores' of the polar seas, living on marine crops and arctic-fish.
Arctic or tropic depends only to the Plasmoid properties adjustment.
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... the illumination / energy capture mechanism would be further amplified by "dusty plasma" photovoltaic or photosynthetic nano- or/and micro-devices hovering onto the magnetosphere or as aerostats onto the thin but lo-gees atmosphere...
The MHD mechanism could be utilized electrically or chemo-synthetically, with dusty plasmoid you gain almost full control over the environmental OPTICS.
On Ceres again: Ceres is from 2.5 to 3 AU from the sun, getting 6 to 9 times less light, resp, solar wind per unit of crossection area. Proportionally so much bigger must be optical of MHD machinery radius for the body.
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