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lots and lots of bodies, and lots and lots of radiation and latent energy!
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That is very exciting!
I cannot resist an attempt to talk on this subject.
So, in that case, be it true as much as they say, we might want to more learn to access a resource more proximate to our location than to so much try to directly go to another star.
Once upon a time I was AjaxWoji somewhere. Here I think I was someone else. I forget. Anyway, I did suggest that such worlds, could be mined for their ice, and from the ice and fibers of minerals, could be created substance strong, to use in the construction of hollow worlds. The inner lining could be of an insulation material. Inside of the hollow shell could be an atmosphere, and at the center spinning vessels to generate artificial gravity.
That is not to say that the objects themselves would be ignored, but typically they would be covered in ices, and to be efficient, the ice being removed to expose the rocky core, could be recycled to provide hollow shell worlds.
This all presumes that some type of fusion power, or some unknown power source could be utilized by the civilization preforming this "Terraforming" process. (Approximate notion).
I like Ice as a construction material www.outerspaceplace.blogspot.com
Void
Last edited by Void (2012-02-18 06:27:49)
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There's no need to use nuclear fusion, there's plenty of energy out there. Read some of the comments on this Centauri Dreams post - http://www.centauri-dreams.org/?p=21719. Before the Great Crash, we were discussing Proteroforming Pluto (giving it a warm, thick, non-toxic, non-oxygenated Nitrogen atmosphere). I seem to recall that there's enough energy contained in Nyx and Hydra's orbits to vaporise and warm such an atmosphere, which could then be kept warm with very powerful grey absorbing greenhouse gases, such as N2O, kept that way using biological engineering to produce N2O. It might be feasible to use the entire planet then to trap the suns energy, and use heat engines extending above the atmosphere to generate power. Perhaps, this far from the sun, we'll need some sort of tree/grass symbiote, where the grass part serves to give the tree several hectares for photosynthesis while the tree part does all the work with that energy, including producing some kind of carbohydrate nuts for sustaining animal life - at 500AU, each hectare will be exposed to approx. 50W. Humans need 100W to survive, so assuming the system is 10% efficient, we're talking about 5 Ha per person... if the planet was tidal locked to the sun. It's not going to be, so we're looking at more like a population of 1 person per square kilometer, especially if they want meat. That's for fully biological terraforming running entirely off solar energy, though. If the plants can tap the large thermal stockpile of such planets, then maybe less is needed. If we colonise a subsurface engine, it's a different environment. I think we're going to have to decelerate mass for energy out there.
“Terraformer, the potential gravitational energy of those moons really does look enticing now that you mention it. Can you think of a way to tap it rapidly that does not take too massive an infrastructure?”
Nothing that doesn’t involve an orbital ring system and space elevators, no. Or maybe a system of momentum exchange tethers to pass material from the moons to the surface at a high efficiency of conversion. If it’s a double planet or tidal locked system like Pluto-Charon or Orcas-Vanth, it should be possible to build a bridge between the two and just use that to decelerate mass on to the primary. Alas, I can’t claim credit for the idea – I got it from karov (on NewMars) and he got it from Paul Birch.Of course, if you’re Proteroforming the body (giving it a thick, non-toxic, warm atmosphere), you can dump the heat into the body by impacting small bodies directly. I thinkNyx and Hydra each have enough kinetic energy to vaporise and heat a small Nitrogen atmosphere (0.1-1 bars). Certainly, one would have to disassemble them to terraform Pluto, but that’s not much of a loss…
Hopefully, binary sysems will be sufficiently common that slow accretion of the two bodies via a space bridge will be able to provide sufficient energy to sustain a civilisation for millenia, and if they’re not tidal locked… maybe we could tap their rotation for energy? If such bodies are differentiated, they may have subsurface oceans that can be colonised, and maybe even cores that are enriched enough in elements such as Uranium and Thorium for nuclear reactors to be made (for spacecraft, probably). Certainly, it means getting at metals will be easier, and we won’t have to heat them up to melt the water.
I think we’re looking, then, at binary systems with differentiated bodies and ideally a subsurface ocean in one of the bodies, with a significant size difference between the two, if we are to viably colonise interstellar space without the use of fusion. If we have fusion, of course, all bets are off…
Use what is abundant and build to last
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Hi Terraformer. LTNS
That seems like a interesting notion. Curious, I was just thinking about harnessing the energy in a lagrangian point of Callisto, the moon of Jupiter. So, parallel paths I guess.
In that case, I was hoping that the inerita of that moon could oppose the spinning magnetic field of Jupiter, so that coils could harness that differential motion. This could of course be used to good effect in a Brown Dwarf solar system, and also just possibly if their is an object in the Oort cloud with a magnetic field and moons. My only concern is that it might not be possible to keep the coils in the Lagrangian point, some are unstable, and of course in any case if you put too much magnetic drag on the system, it will be dragged out of that point, and will then not be coupled with Callisto's graviational well, so then not able to use it's inertia.
I don't totally grasp how your notion works to harness the energy, but I expect that your notions are sensible. I will look them over further.
Of course in such a case I am a hollow planet nut. The reason being that a shell hundeds of miles thick is good protection from the harsh nature of space out there. Then also, the gravitational effects would be nullified in the cernter of this hollow object, so you could have "Metal Artificial World Machines" there, which would spin and produce artificial graviation of Earth normal if that was desired. You could fly inside of the hollow world, if you had wings, and it contained an atmosphere. And of course my plan leaves behind Pluto, less a bunch of excess ice, so that you may do the terraform thing to it should you desire.
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First of all, Terraformer is talking about a solar-powered system.This thread is about nomad planets in interstellar space, right? So no-go anywhere outside the sphere of influence of a star for his plans (he talks about 500AU's from a Sol-type star).
Secondly, about your idea about using coils to harness energy from a huge rotating dynamo like Jupiter: That's all fine and dandy, but the energy has to come from somewhere. In this case, the de-orbiting force your magnet experiences. So maybe if you de-orbit some massive moon by using magnetic fields (it can surely be done, google electrodynamic tether), you would get it's gravitational potential energy back in the form of electric current in your coils. But then your moon is no more, on account of having collided with the planet. That seems like a waste of good processable mass (it's not trapped under a huge gravity field and several bars of pressure, for starters). Conservation of energy is always a bitch, I know.
So for true nomad terraforming, or colonization or whatever, you either use the planet's heat waste as powersource (cause by gravitational compression, mainly, and hence limited) or you have some external power source like fusion/fission reactors. Which, assuming you got to the nomad in the first place, crossing interstellar distances, is a fair bet.
Rune. I mean, Pluto is very much inside a star-system comparatively, these nomads are in the ass end of nowhere, quite literally.
In the beginning the universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a "bad move"
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Well you are not wrong, in the end that is the end.
However the Spin of Jupiter and the tides of Jupiter have to be kept in mind. In effect with Io erupts a volcano, and also has lakes of molten sulphur or magma on the surface, it is radiating heat to the cold universe, energy which was previously stored in the spin of Jupiter.
Jupiters tides keep trying to push Io and Europa into higher orbits, but the gravitational interactions of the two moons, keeps converting that spin/push from Jupiter into heated interiors, and they both radiate that heat ultimately into the universe.
Everything as we concieve it in terms of Energy and Matter has it's time limit.
However so called western civilization (Or any known civilization) is not more than 2000 or if you like 10,000 years old.
Anyway, I do share your concern to a degree, I was thinking of a collection of inhabitants at such a location of perhaps 5000 people. Just a first settlement of the Jupiter system. The advantages being that it is a convenient place to get energy, a convenient place to generate 1 gee simulated gravitation with spinning habitats, and also proximate to a moon, Callisto, which can supply ices and minerals, and also it is not too deep in the radiation belt of Jupiter.
So, if the Jupiter system were to become habitated in general, this would be a very good place to "Ignite" the fires of habitation. How much inertial energy would be consumed would have to be determined by any such inhabitants.
If they could dampen the radiation belts (A Russian proposed a way to eject the particles from the magnetic field of Jupiter, and make it safer), then they could access IO, and turn it into a power plant (Intecept the energy being radiated anyway).
Also there may be Fusion later.
Further, I understand that using new solar cells energy of that type is available. That could be improved with Solar concentrators.
So, I am just saying that the Jupiter system looks very lucrative to me. And of course I would do hollow ice worlds as well.
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Rune, it's my understanding that if we use very, very effective grey absorbers, we can keep planets warm even in interstellar space. Though that's just for the atmosphere, we'll need to provide a lot more energy to actually sustain life. The waste heat ought to be enough to keep the atmosphere warm (after it's been warmed initially by impactors), with maybe even starlight being enough. For our life support energy, either tap the subsurface ocean, or use the gravitational energy of the moons.
If we terraform the subsurface ocean, we don't even need an atmosphere. Just build habitable pockets of air into the ice, linked by ships. Mining the rocky core 1-200km down won't be a problem with typical dwarf planet gravities, and people may wish to colonise the rock itself - not me, mind, not with a kilobar of water above me, but some people might. Certainly, the economic payoffs might be significant.
Use what is abundant and build to last
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Yes,
And we should not forget the light concentration options - optics, mirrors and lenses. Even plastic sheet ones, if the mass of the planet is the upper limit for the optics mass, than we can relly upon steady influx of light not only on interstellar, but intergalactic distances,i.e. ain't a place in the entire universe dim enough to not support life... not to speak about dusty plasma optics, which are with thousands and thousands of times lower areal density than the solid matter ones.
And ... the finding uses "100 000 plutos per start" as only a figure of speech. The grand vision is that the mass spectrum of bodies is continuous and the star-bound planets are the exception, not the rule. Pluto is at least 10 times bigger ( more massive ) than the smallest body in which the self-gravity overwhelms the elastic forces, i.e. is rounded by the attraction of its own mass. Acc. to the Universal Mass Function there must be 10 000 000 dwarf planets per star in any galaxy. The galaxies are swirls of not only star systems, but of any bodies of different mass, and as-bigger-the-rarer is the universal law.
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Hmmm... colonising ~500km diameter objects that have subsurface oceans ~100km diameter tidal locked moons? Such a system would be ideal (aside from the gravity of less than 0.1g, of course...) - easily accessible rocky core, warm-ish environment (the ocean), and abundant energy via space bridge between the planet and the moon. Assuming the ocean is 100km thick, we're dealing with, what, 100 bars of pressure when we reach the rock? We can deal with that.
Now, if such systems are relatively common, maybe a 100AU away from each other... give them hybrid worldhouses with lighted roofs, why not, and put habitats around them, using the central world for growing food and mining. Then, give them torchships capable of getting from one world to another in a few months... nuclear fission is good enough for this. The end result is that you can have a multi-planetary civilisation in interstellar space. Something of a cheat, yes, but you can still claim to have an interstellar empire...
Use what is abundant and build to last
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I would like to add that once upon a time I read a Sci Fi where mining was done on the moon to very deep debths, by filling the mine shaft with mineral oil so that it would not collapse. I am not reccommending that, but at some point, I have suggested something similar, in a post that I since put in my archives.
For an ice moon or planet with a thick ice layer, melting a hole is not a great option, as the water is heavier than the ice, and the water column would sag, and I think the shaft would be unstable.
If you make a shaft filled with air, then that is also going to be at risk of collapse.
You might consider some very strong metal lining, but while that is an OK thing, for thick shells, I reccommend an oil fill, where the average weight of the oil is equal in specific gravity to the ice shell. In this way the shaft could stay open, and also would not be as inclined to freeze shut.
Crafts moving up and down the shaft would most likely be like gear railroads, but verticle, gripping the shaft walls which could indeed be metal lined.
Just a suggestion.
Reaching the liquid ocean there may be some energy and mineral asset made accessable by such methods.
Void.
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Void,
Yes -- example Enceladus ( exactly at the boundary between planemo and rock ).
Radius: 250km,
surface gravity: 1% earth's one,
mean density: 1.6 g/cm3 ( half "rock" / half ice ).
It is easy to calculate the conditions at the metal-silicate core. At approx. half the planemo's mass it is roughly at debt of 1/3rd to half the radius, i.e. 100ish km bellow the surface. Every 10m of ice gives you 1% of a bar pressure-wise. Thus the pressure gradient is a bar per km only and on the core's surface the pressure would be 100 000m divided on 10 divided on 100,i.e. only 100 bars -- pretty livable and pretty accesible! Hundreds of thousdands of square kilometres core surface area.
Interstellar enceladus-es would relly only upon gravitational ( compression AND chemical differentiation / sedimentation i.e. latent coalescence / formation ) energy + the available fissible nuclides, because in most cases tidal flexing won't be available as energy source. I do not have data how long such body can hold big temperature gradient, but I expect due to the slower gravity = slower differentiation, smaller surface due to the nevertheless round shape ... perhaps billions of years are thinkable? Anyway even if frozen completely solid for several billions of years, it always exists the option to dump imported mass on it and to utilize the liberated potential gravitational and collision kinethic energy.
If the interstellar planemo dwarf is already quite a few chilled down, a balmy 200-300k temperature down at the core still gives lots of lebensraum and energy flux to maintain entire country-wise of a colony there.
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http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/chand … 2-049.html
another lead that the galaxies are heavily "dandruffed" with small bodies in continuous / uninterrupted mass spectrum from dwarf / satelite galaxies via stellar clusters... individual stars ( multiple and singular ) , free-floating / rogue planets ... down to comets / asteroids... meteoroids, dust ...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oort_cloud seems to be not stellar, but a galactic phenomenon -- the distinct stellar cometary clouds are mere "swirls" of this all-galaxy permeating "gas" / "coloid" of small ( and not so small ) bodies around more massive ones ( fusors and lighter substellar mass / planemos -- http://www.nature.com/news/2011/110518/ … 1.303.html -- smaller than Jupiter mass nomad planemos must be quadrillions and more ... ).
wiki quote :: "In June 2010 Harold F. Levison and others have suggested on the basis of enhanced computer simulations that the Sun "captured comets from other stars while it was in its birth cluster." Their results imply that "a substantial fraction of the Oort cloud comets, perhaps exceeding 90%, are from the protoplanetary discs of other stars." [30]"
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It seems to imply that the outer Oort cloud is limited in mass, but does not specify the mass of the inner disk of the Oort cloud.
My interest would be to find significant objects (Ceres, or Juno size or bigger) with metal cores, 1/8, 1/4, 1/2, and so on from our star "Sol" to another star. If a signficant planet, especially a gass giant with moons existed with a magnetic field, or even an Earth or Mars with a magnetic field, then of course that would not just be a stepping stone, but a location of major interest in itself.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-13416431
Jupiter sized at least twice more common than Main sequence stars... Smaller ones ( smaller gas giants, ice giants, terrestrials, ice dwarfs... ) - proportionally to the universal mass function times more common?
Notice that the notion that planemos ( and even lesser bodies ) perhaps coalesce together and independently of stars out of spontaneous nucleation in the "birth clusters" / thick molecular clouds starts to catch grip in the astronomical society...
The Oort cloud structure is hypothesed to be roughly - 85% of the bodies in the Inner ( Hill cloud ), 15% - the Outer cometary halo.
wiki quote :: " The Oort cloud is thought to occupy a vast space from somewhere between 2,000 and 5,000 AU (0.03 and 0.08 ly)[11] to as far as 50,000 AU (0.79 ly)[3] from the Sun. Some estimates place the outer edge at between 100,000 and 200,000 AU (1.58 and 3.16 ly).[11] The region can be subdivided into a spherical outer Oort cloud of 20,000–50,000 AU (0.32–0.79 ly), and a doughnut-shaped inner Oort cloud of 2,000–20,000 AU (0.03–0.32 ly). "
The Sun's Hill radius ( sphere of gravitational dominance ) is estimated to be between 1 and 3 ly in radius.
There must be thousands of "moons" and "marses" Out-there , and dozens of "earths" and "neptunes" per Main sequence star.
Magnetic field not a bonus for such real estate. 100km of ice provide radiation protection as much as 100 000 km of earth's atmosphere.
Quote :: <<<then of course that would not just be a stepping stone, but a location of major interest in itself.>>>
Well, even a 100km wide chunk of primordial material ( 30% mud, 30% petroleum, 30% water + lighter ices according to Anthony C. Zuppero ( www.neofuel.com ) -- i.e. everything from the Periodic table, less most of the initial helium and unbounded hydrogen ... ( i.e. huge pile of all the astronomical "metals" ) ... is "a location of major interest in itself", containing many and many OPECs of oil / hydrocarbons, millennia and millennia of the global metals industry ... ...
100km body is inexorable recourse, it is equal in natural wealth to a country the size of , say, France ( if we assume the half million square kilometres of France's area, with fully accessible every gram of mass down to a depth of 1km ).
We have 100 000+ such 100+ km wide bodies only in our KB. + perhaps 1000 times that in our star's Hill sphere + several times these 1000 times in the Pan-Galactic Oort halo.
...
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http://nextbigfuture.com/2012/02/possib … gfuture%29
Imagine Earth-size planet in the Outer Oort cloud of Sol , say, about 0.1 ly distance from the Sun, i.e. roughly 5000 AU. In order to illuminate such body with Earth-level of natural solar radiation, one needs optics with aperture 5000 times wider than the diameter of the target body. For Earth-size planet this is 60-ish million km wide mirror or lense, or roughly 1/2 AU.
It is easy to calculate how huge would the Hill sphere of such Earth's mass planet, be at such distance from the central fusor. The center of the optical capture system would be in the Lagrange point Sun-planet. It would be supported on place dynamically by annular counter-mirror on the other side of the planet from the Sun ( www.paulbirch.net style ).
The main mirror lense may consist of mirriad of sub-units ... or other designs but the imporant thing is how masive it would be. With an area of approx 4x10exp21 m2 :
1. if used "standard" solar sail material ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_sail#Sail_materials ), the total mass of the Birch-ean optics would be:
1.1. 12x10exp18 kg for "new carbon fiber" or a mass twice the mass of the Earth's atmosphere ( millionth of the mass of the target body ), or twice the mass of a body like http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperion_(moon) or roughly one third of the mass of the Rings of Saturn ...
1.2. 48x10exp18 kg for "aluminized Kapton"
1.3. 28x10exp18 kg for "5 micrometre thick Mylar sail material"
1.4. 4x10exp17 kg for nanotube mesh.
1.5. 4x10exp16 for ~100% reflecting advanced dusty plasma ( http://proceedings.aip.org/resource/2/a … horized=no ) system of 0.01g/m2 ... or the mass of sat, half Prometheus moon...
There are zillions of little bodies to utilize for the mirror-lenses construction around using Bronze age level of tech.
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The original article :: http://arxiv.org/pdf/1201.2687
"Nomads of the Galaxy
by
Louis E. Strigari, Matteo Barnabe, Philip J. Marshall, Roger D. Blandford
(Submitted on 12 Jan 2012)
We estimate that there may be up to ~10^5 compact objects in the mass range 10^{-8} -10^{-2} solar mass per main sequence star that are unbound to a host star in the Galaxy. We refer to these objects as nomads; in the literature a subset of these are sometimes called free-floating or rogue planets. Our estimate for the number of Galactic nomads is consistent with a smooth extrapolation of the mass function of unbound objects above the Jupiter-mass scale, the stellar mass density limit, and the metallicity of the interstellar medium. We analyze the prospects for detecting nomads via Galactic microlensing. The Wide-Field Infrared Survey Telescope (WFIRST) will measure the number of nomads per main sequence star greater than the mass of Jupiter to ~ 13%, and the corresponding number greater than the mass of Mars to ~25%. All-sky surveys such as GAIA and LSST can identify nomads greater than about the mass of Jupiter. We suggest a dedicated drift scanning telescope that covers approximately 100 square degrees in the Southern hemisphere could identify nomads as small as 10^{-8} solar mass via microlensing of bright stars with characteristic lightcurve timescales of a few seconds."
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The above article corresponds pretty well with another material from January 2004 ::
http://discovermagazine.com/2004/feb/discover-dialogue -- Alan Stern
Quote: " How much is out there at the edge of our solar system that we have not yet discovered?
S: The short answer is—a lot. The Kuiper belt is probably littered with hundreds, if not thousands, of ice-dwarf planets like Pluto. NASA has explored all four terrestrial planets and all four giant planets. But the number of bodies we’d classify as planets in the solar system is probably closer to 9,000 than it is to nine, and we haven’t been to the most populous class of bodies at all—the ice-dwarf planets of the Kuiper belt. Even farther out, beyond the Kuiper belt, lies the Oort cloud, 1,000 times farther away. The Oort cloud consists of objects ejected from the region surrounding the giant planets during and after their formation. In the Oort cloud there may be large planets that were ejected from the solar system in the early days when Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune were muscling out their rivals."
==========================================
It is intuitive :: 10 000 star-bound planemos vs. 100 000 rogue per star in a galaxy.
An old study 10ish years ago ( which I can not find now unfortunatelly ) estimated that up to 90% of the planemos are ejected from a star system during formation / accretion ... although I bet that the interstellar figure is even way bigger because planemos must form the way the stars do in collapses of thick clouds ... it is yet to be established the lowest limit of a mass to undergo body-forming gravitational collapse / accretion disk formation. The mechanism seems to be ubiquitous -- the galaxies themselves are nothing more or less than oversized "stellar systems" -- accretion disks around huge black holes, going through mini-me style of systems, where under-stars have accreted planetary hosts around themselfs ... and down to the moon systems of the gas and ice giants ... compression of a slowly rotating low density mass always gives this configuration ...
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Quote:: " Since the Oort Cloud around the Sun is posited to be about a light year in radius, then what you really have is a continuous distribution of small bodies, with higher local densities around stars. The only difference is some are moving slowly enough to be bound to a star, and others are not. "
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OK,
I will add to that:
http://www.physorg.com/news/2012-02-gal … anets.html
So, in any discussion of human travel from one star to another, it seems only reasonable to add as a very important precursor, the ability to find, and utilize these objects. I think that between the various views expressed there is some real options to expand into such a collection of objects, particularly if some of them are magnetic, and have moons, or have materials available to make large concentrating mirrors, or if Fusion or something else are available as an energy supply.
I am inclined to favor trying to find a Jupiter, because if it had an IO, then it would have boiled off it's water and exposed silicate materials to use. Also a Jupiter with a moon or two has energy available from the inertia of those moons, and also the tidal energy captured as heat in the moons in some cases.
Of further interest could be an "Earth", or "Venus" cast out of it's solar system. Having a hot core still, and likely a magnetic field (Venus would convect if it cooled off in the outer solar system?), Plate Tectonics would likely expose hot rock at the points where oceans spread, if it could spread faster than cold ice could flow over it. This also could be an energy source for starting a civilization on such a planet.
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http://kokogiak.com/solarsystembodiesla … miles.html
this family portrait of the solar system gives a clue about the mass distributions, although it represents only less then a 1/1000th of all the planemos comprising the Sol's cut ( share, stake ) of the galactic planemo population ( and respectivelly only less then 1% of the population of the Solar system proper ( within the Sun's Hills sphere ).
Thus the final catalogue of , per instance, the list of the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nearest_stars one day must contain:
1. 10^2-ish stars ( several major and dozens of "red drwarfs" )
2. 10^2-10^3 brown dwarfs and gas giants ( "jupiters" )
3. 10^3-10^4 ice giants ( "neptunes" )
4. 10^4-10^5 "earths" and "marses"
5. 10^5-10^6 "moons" and "plutos"
6. 10^6-10^7 "enceladuses" and "proteuses"
...
http://www.science20.com/hammock_physic … nova-84806
of Johannes Koelman
and Gerald Nordley's ::
1. http://www.google.bg/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=g … YYa4ChlMFw -- "Surface Gravity and Interstellar Settlement"
&
2. http://www.google.bg/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=g … MxYpwZulEw -- "Quantized Surface Gravity".
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