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#26 2025-07-19 16:13:31
- Terraformer
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- From: The Fortunate Isles
- Registered: 2007-08-27
- Posts: 3,976
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Re: Electrostatic atmospheric confinement
Did you ever get an answer?
Use what is abundant and build to last
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#27 2025-07-20 14:49:20
- Calliban
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- From: Northern England, UK
- Registered: 2019-08-18
- Posts: 4,100
Re: Electrostatic atmospheric confinement
I did. I put the question to the staff at Centauri Dreams as to whether M2P2 could be adapted to hold a breathable planetary atmosphere to a small body. Their response was that they didn't know, but suspected that the magnetic pressure would need to be far beyond what was foreseen for M2P2. Which makes sense, given that solar wind pressure is miniscule.
I did a few calcs a while back to work out how much superconductor would be needed to produce a magnetic field strong enough to form a plasma window of sufficient magnetic pressure. It looked doable. But another problem with magnetic confinement of plasma is that plasma leaks at the poles. I suspect that any atmosphere so contained would require gradual replenishment.
One idea that occured to me a while back was that solar wind particles could be used to power the production of an oxygen atmosphere. If water vapour is allowed to gradually enter a plasma formed from trapped solar wind particles, it will dissociate by ion collision into OH- and H+. Hydrogen ions, being lighter, would escape more rapidly. The OH ions, would recombine to produce water vapour and O2. Being heavier, the O2 would tend to accumulate closer to the surface. In this way, the trapped solar wind ions can be used to build an oxygen atmosphere from water vapour. Which obviates the need for electrolysis.
Last edited by Calliban (2025-07-20 15:03:24)
"Plan and prepare for every possibility, and you will never act. It is nobler to have courage as we stumble into half the things we fear than to analyse every possible obstacle and begin nothing. Great things are achieved by embracing great dangers."
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#28 2025-07-20 20:04:04
- Void
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- Registered: 2011-12-29
- Posts: 8,589
Re: Electrostatic atmospheric confinement
Please consider this substitution for handling small dwarf planets and maybe icy moons: 
It could use improvement in both drawing methods and concepts. It is not electrostatic but perhaps you could stick Oxygen at the magnetic poles and try to synthesize water.
It is a cut-away of both the dwarf planet and the torus "Shell" that surrounds it. The rotational poles are shaded, so that most gas that might leak out might condense at the rotational poles, presuming that configuration is possible. You then could melt a toroid sea to reach down to the core if their is one so that you could mine.
If you wanted to put a differential electrostatic charge on the shell of the toroid, perhaps you would be able to attract molecules to the outer skin of the toroid. Perhaps a (-) charge in side would attract (+) ions.
The magnetic field may direct ions to impact the outside of the shell at the magnetic poles where you might use electrostatics to catch molecules.
If the toroid leaks, my hope is that the leakage will tend to migrate to the rotational poles and so then condense in the intense cold promoted there by the shade of the torus shell.
This is unlike a classical shell world where, escaped atmosphere would either float off or condense on top of the shell, perhaps collapsing it.
The magnetic field would help to retain a temporary atmosphere caused by a leak, until it could condense at the poles.
This particular notion needs poles that are not too tilted.
Ending Pending 
Last edited by Void (2025-07-20 20:12:19)
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