Ceres

Terraformer · 2007-11-18 02:47:23

Maybe not. Remember you have to keep the superconductor very cold.

Maybe two Solenoids sunk at the poles down to the core would be more efficient. I've yet to try making a pemanant Solenoid with steel wire but I see no reason for it not to work. Build to, decide which way's North, sink a Solenoid there with South downwards, do the same South with North downwards, run a current through them to produce a magnet and Ceres has a magnetic field. Steel can easily be produced Space-side from Iron asteroids. Maybe some gold thrown in to improve its conductive properties. If it has loads of turns on the coil it will have a massive field.

RickSmith · 2007-11-18 03:05:52

Hi Terraformer, everyone.
Or you could make a solenoid with superconductors. Modern superconductors work at soft cryogenic temperatures. They can be cooled with liquid nitrogen which is fairly inexpensive. The major problem is not the temperature, but the amount of current that they can carry. A modest current going around a solenoid (a iron bar inside an electric coil to strengthen the magnetic field) might be enough to get your job done.

The question is if the cost of cooling the superconducting ribbon is more than the cost of wasted power to resistance if you don't use it. Either way you could give Ceres a magnet field if you want one.

Warm regards, Rick.

JoshNH4H · 2007-12-31 14:00:53

Here's how you terraform ceres:

1. Smash Ceres into Mars
2. Say that mars smashed into ceres, making mars ceres
3. Terraform Mars, and be greatful for the heat, volatiles etc. brought in.

If it doesn't destroy planet mars and asteroid ceres, you're golden.

In other words, you don't terraform ceres. The only way to terraform it would be paraterraforming, and that means miracle domes.

Terraformer · 2007-12-31 15:29:43

And yet another example of Psuydoscientific jumpboy11j crackpot ideas.

Ceres could be terraformed. Well, not Terraformed, in the sense that terraforming means 'to make it like Earth' and that is impossible without increasing its mass, moving it closer to the sun etc. I would go as far as to say it would be easier to terraform than mars. Pile a few of the earths nuclear warheads in the mantle to melt it, add salt, iron, or other conductive mineral in its (now molten) mantle, and you have a magnetic field. Its location in the asteroid belt allows the easy importation of volatiles from asteroids. Add plants and animals, and, hey presto, you've terraformed it. None of those problems that you have on Mars like lack of a magnetic field.

JoshNH4H · 2007-12-31 15:43:32

And yet another example of Psuydoscientific jumpboy11j crackpot ideas.
Ceres could be terraformed. Well, not Terraformed, in the sense that terraforming means 'to make it like Earth' and that is impossible without increasing its mass, moving it closer to the sun etc. I would go as far as to say it would be easier to terraform than mars. Pile a few of the earths nuclear warheads in the mantle to melt it, add salt, iron, or other conductive mineral in its (now molten) mantle, and you have a magnetic field. Its location in the asteroid belt allows the easy importation of volatiles from asteroids. Add plants and animals, and, hey presto, you've terraformed it. None of those problems that you have on Mars like lack of a magnetic field.

If this continues, soon, I will feel as if I am being personally attacked, and I will report you, I guess .

Ceres is too small to terraform. The atmosphere would escape, the core would cool (somewhat quickly, I might add), and have fun w/ 1/9 the sunlight, I personally see an antarctic world at best, failing other miracle technologies.

I agree with Tom Kalbfus on this one: If you are going to terraform ceres, just don't waste your time and money; turn it into x rotating space stations.

Terraformer · 2007-12-31 16:04:59

Why not? You act like my ideas are unscientific.

The radioactive elements from the explosians *should* produce enough heat to stop the core cooling. The purpose of the magnetic field is to keep the atmosphere from escaping. Ceres has an escape velocity of roughly 1/16 that of Earth so a magnetic field 16 times as strong would be needed.

And good luck with the Martian sunlight. On Mars the atmosphere would escape guite quickly without a magnetic field to hold it in place.

JoshNH4H · 2008-01-01 07:49:42

However, the mag field for mars could easily be provided by a few M2P2's

Terraformer · 2008-01-01 08:21:39

M2P2s? Waht are they?

And when refering to the escape velocity of Ceres I got it wrong. Ceres has a surface gravity 2.4% that of Earth so the escape velocity should be 2.4% that of Earth. Earths escape velocity is mach 24, giving, Ceres an escape velocity of mach 0.576 which means Ceres would need a mag field 42 times stronger (not sure if that is the case, any expert who can help?)

And by the time humanity is capable of moving a planet like Ceres, we will have already terraformed the other two main planets to live on (Mars, Earth (already terraformed), and Venus), gone to another solar system, and probably terraformed Ceres for aesthetic purposes anyway. So your idea was unscientific.

JoshNH4H · 2008-01-01 09:24:04

either

A)google it
B)http://www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M2P2
It makes a large and powerful magnetic field for propulsion. Many could be placed in orbitish, maybe on balloons or towers or something.

I used that to illistrate a point, that ceres is basically unterraformable. BTW, Have you looked up how much iron/salt/nickel/thermonuclear bombs it will take to give ceres a molten core?

Honestly, just mining ceres and leaving it is the best way to go in my opinion.

Terraformer · 2008-01-01 09:55:37

Using an M2P2 would be more trouble than it is worth. Honestly, not even just mining Mars and leaving it as it is would be economical. It would be better to spend the cash on living on/in asteroids, and building free floating colonies. My reasoning is this: I would rather see humanity in one big basket and many smaller baskets than one big basket and one medium one. Espeicalily if the medium one is near the asteroid belt.

JoshNH4H · 2008-01-01 10:04:20

honestly, the daanger of asteroid impacts is over exaggerated. I personally, am not a fan of terraforming anyway. Paraterraforming is really the only way to go, start with a few domes, then add and add and add. The domes would have to start with pretty high closure rates, but it's really the easiest way.

Terraformer · 2008-01-01 10:06:41

Which means it would be pointless to live on Mars under your 'idea'.

Yes, humanity does have enough nukes to restart Ceres. The one problem being Ceres would shrink (Ice is less dense than water.)

JoshNH4H · 2008-01-01 11:08:23

That's goodfor you- Smaller volume= higher gravity. BTW, are you planning to have a water world? There would be no continents on ceres.

Terraformer · 2008-01-01 13:04:04

The ice already on the surface would drain away into the mantle. Ceres would become a mini Earth. Stockd with the same types of animals. Think of it as an ark. Mars would be used for hi-tech living, think of Ceres as the solar sytems zoo.

Terraformer · 2008-01-03 09:35:03

Rick, if I used a superconducting ring would it be more efficient to have it in orbit where the Temp. of space would keep it cold?

Antius · 2008-01-16 07:55:41

Rick, if I used a superconducting ring would it be more efficient to have it in orbit where the Temp. of space would keep it cold?

If polywell fusion ever gets off the ground so to speak, the energy consumption of the ring would become almost irrelevant. It may then be cheaper to go with a non-superconducting aluminium cable threaded around the equator. A wire with cross sectional area of 1m2 could carry a current of 1million amps at a PD of 1000volts.

Antius · 2008-01-16 08:05:00

Given that virtually any solid-surface world could be terraformed using magnetically confined ionospheres, it would be interesting to explore the parameters of using this technique. For instance, Ceres has 2% of Earth's gravity and 0.7% its surface area. So terraforming Ceres to 1 bar at the surface would require one third of Earth's atmosphere to provide less than 1% of its land.

At what point does it become no longer worth it? It would also be interesting to model the properties of an atmosphee with 50 times the earth's column density on a world with 2% earth gravity and less than 1000km in diameter. How much light would get down to the surface and waht would the structure of the atmosphere be like? Would we get terrible winds in the upper atmosphere?

nickname · 2008-01-16 09:59:23

Antius,

Do we need fusion and planet cables at all?

1 decent sized iron asteroid pulverized to dust in a geo ring should power itself and produce it's own magnetic field.
The charges on the iron dust will make a nice ring that resists degradation in geo.

Beyond Mars i think the sunlight will be so feeble that terra forming is a mute point, but at mars this might work well.

Interesting thought about large bar pressures on small worlds though.
Sure would make for some unusual weather.
What about 1 bar of methane on Ceres?
Who says we have to make planets or moons resemble Earth?
Semi warm and thick atmosphere might be all we need and can achieve in the outer solar system.
Then conventional nuclear fission to power the lights and domes we live and grow food in.

Terraformer · 2008-01-16 12:47:17

And who said it has to be one bar?

JoshNH4H · 2008-01-16 15:43:04

1 bar iss the assumed for terraforming, which is literally making a new earth. The minimum humans could live in with any amount of oxygen is 500 millibars. I suggest somewhere in the area of 650.

nickname · 2008-01-16 17:07:46

Terraformer,
jumpboy11j,

No real reason to have 1 bar on Ceres.
1 bar is nice for creating easy to assemble domes with earth like pressures indoors, but no other real reason for 1 bar.

I think it's more of a question of 1 bar of what will keep Ceres warm.?
Or 650mb of what will keep Ceres warm?

Another good question is what do us humans think of as a minimum temperature that is bearable on the surface with just warm clothing and oxygen equipment.?

Would 650mb of C02 keep Ceres warm or 1 bar or 2 bars?
We could make that on Ceres or most of the moons maybe.

Collecting earthlike light for domes is rather simple.
Mylar surrounding the dome will capture earthlike amounts of light on almost any moon or planet.
The further away from the sun the more mylar you need for each dome.

If we are separating h20 ice to create a c02 atmosphere, then we have a pure source of hydrogen to heat the domes and power everything as a byproduct.

It's not really terra forming, more like terra reordering, each place with it's own specific needs that waste products make it a nicer place over time.

It does open lots of territory in the solar system to start on a small scale and expand.

JoshNH4H · 2008-01-17 15:14:06

I just meant 'full' terraforming. I doubt 1 bar can or will be achieved any time soon in our solar system.

nickname · 2008-01-17 16:24:29

jumpboy11j,

I don't know 1 bar of c02 is quite possible on many of the moons if they have a magnetic shield in place before we start.

C02 as a deliberate waste product will build over time.
Sure it will take time to build to 1 bar, but on a growing colony c02 will grow at that rate of population growth.
Many thousands of years to have 1 bar is my guess on just an expanding colony.
A deliberate all out C02 effort could decrease that time to a few hundred years.

Only a couple moons are to hostile like io, or so cold that c02 freezes like triton.

Most of the moons even with 1 bar of C02 i think are still going to be cold places, but maybe in the bearable zone for humans and equipment.
Then again with 1 bar of outdoor pressure it's pretty easy to dome and heat large areas.
So i don't think the outdoor temperatures will be that big an issue as long as the machines are happy outdoors.

qraal · 2008-01-17 23:41:28

Hi All

Why are you guys so confident that Ceres can hang on to an atmosphere? I've tried to follow your discussion in the archive, but I've come up with very little insight into the argument. That's assuming you're not talking about covering the place in cold CO2 or SF4 or something heavier.

Antius · 2008-01-18 07:41:55

Hi All
Why are you guys so confident that Ceres can hang on to an atmosphere? I've tried to follow your discussion in the archive, but I've come up with very little insight into the argument. That's assuming you're not talking about covering the place in cold CO2 or SF4 or something heavier.

Atmospheric escape from a body like Ceres would not happen in a split second. Gas atoms/molecules in the lower atmosphere would be constrained by collision with the molecules above them. A gas atom must have a free path in order to escape. We can therefore expect the atmosphere to slowly evapourate, with ions gradually escaping from the ionosphere. The atmosphere would thin over a timescale of centuries.

Given that most of the species escaping reside within the ionosphere prior to escape, we are talking about the escape of ions rather than neutral gas molecules. By surrounding Ceres with a magnetic field, the escaping ions can be trapped and will eventually spiral into the polls of the magnetic field re-entering the atmosphere. Hence the atmosphere is recycled continuously.

Using a magnetic trapping, even relatively small bodies can be made to hold dense atmospheres for geological timescales. Ultimately, for very small bodies, the mass of atmosphere required to produce a breathable surface pressure would exceed the mass of the body being terraformed and you have a mini gas-giant. For Ceres for example, a mass of gas equivelent to 1% the mass of ceres would be required to produce a 1 bar surfcae pressure. For asteroids just 300km in diamter, the mass of the atmosphere would be 30% the mass of the asteroid. For a body like Phobos, the atmospheric mass would greatly exceed the mass of the asteroid and atmospheric radius would greatly exceed the diameter of phobos. So there are clearly practical and economic limits to the size of body that can reasobaly be considered terraformable without tented enclosures.

In principle, most large moons and asteroids with diamter 500km> could be given oxygen atmospheres and could be made to hold onto those atmospheres for geological timescales. Whether this will ever be practical and economic is another matter.

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#26 2007-11-18 02:47:23

Re: Ceres

#27 2007-11-18 03:05:52

Re: Ceres

#28 2007-12-31 14:00:53

Re: Ceres

#29 2007-12-31 15:29:43

Re: Ceres

#30 2007-12-31 15:43:32

Re: Ceres

#31 2007-12-31 16:04:59

Re: Ceres

#32 2008-01-01 07:49:42

Re: Ceres

#33 2008-01-01 08:21:39

Re: Ceres

#34 2008-01-01 09:24:04

Re: Ceres

#35 2008-01-01 09:55:37

Re: Ceres

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#37 2008-01-01 10:06:41

Re: Ceres

#38 2008-01-01 11:08:23

Re: Ceres

#39 2008-01-01 13:04:04

Re: Ceres

#40 2008-01-03 09:35:03

Re: Ceres

#41 2008-01-16 07:55:41

Re: Ceres

#42 2008-01-16 08:05:00

Re: Ceres

#43 2008-01-16 09:59:23

Re: Ceres

#44 2008-01-16 12:47:17

Re: Ceres

#45 2008-01-16 15:43:04

Re: Ceres

#46 2008-01-16 17:07:46

Re: Ceres

#47 2008-01-17 15:14:06

Re: Ceres

#48 2008-01-17 16:24:29

Re: Ceres

#49 2008-01-17 23:41:28

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#50 2008-01-18 07:41:55

Re: Ceres

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