Another planetary thought experiment (edit: sorry, credit where it's due: excerpt from The Algebraist by Iain M. Banks): I was born in a water moon. Some people, especially its inhabitants, called it a planet, but as it was only a little over two hundred kilometres in diameter, 'moon' seems the more accurate term. The moon was made entirely of water, by which I mean it was a globe that not only had no land, but no ro…
He's got another novel that deals with a unique world - Matter ( https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Matter_%28nov... ) takes place on/in a shellworld.
Walking on a cube-shaped planet
71–79 of 79 posts
Re: Walking on a cube-shaped planet
#72Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is only true for objects that have a spherically symmetrical mass distribution and for a point test object. That is, the field of a spherically symmetric object is the same as the field of a point mass of its mass located at its center. As soon as your test object is non-point you get tidal forces due to the field typically being nonuniform. As soon as your object is not spherically symmetric you get a field tha…
It's still the case that if you're sufficiently far away from a nonspherical object, it'll effectively act like a point source. I'd guess this is what the OP was recalling.
That doesn't apply to being on the face of a cube, though; that's not nearly far enough away, obviously. :)
Re: Walking on a cube-shaped planet
#73Earlier quoted context omitted.
I used to think that the ice core would work that way, but water is most dense at 3.7C (or something like that). So, under enough pressure, it would remain liquid.
Water has a very complicated phase diagram. I'm not sure how high a pressure water at a core of a planetoid of that size would be, but if it's above 100GPa then it would certainly be solid (Ice X or XI). Below that pressure, it would depend on the temperature. http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/08/Phase_dia...
g(r) = G * M(r) / r * r where M(r) is the mass inside a sphere of radius r. That's G (rho 4/3 pi r * r * r) / r * r or 4/3 rho G pi r.
Therefore, pressure = Integral[h=0:200km] rho * (4/3 rho G pi h) dh. This is 2/3 rho * rho G pi h * h, giving 5.6 mega pascals.
Looking at the phase diagram you pointed out, 6MPa is well within the liquid range. (Presumably the temperature would be around 4C). Even with a higher density it's at most about 7MPa, and you need to get to 1 GPa for water to always be a solid.
In other words, unless I did my math wrong or left something out of the calculations, this water sphere isn't close to one of the ice phases of water.
BTW, for more fun, since there's no heat source for the water (radioactive decay, heat from the phase change to ice, etc), then how does it stay liquid? If exposed to vacuum it would turn to vapor until it cooled down enough (about -60C) to freeze. There isn't enough mass to hold down much atmosphere, so I presume it's covered.
How also does it get enough energy to stay liquid? Most of the energy will be dumped into the top layer, so there will be a warm zone on top of a thermocline, like with Earth's oceans. If the energy comes from the sun, then do the poles freeze? If it doesn't rotate fast enough then the backside will freeze.
If ice does form, it reflects more heat than water so that region will stay ice.
Re: Walking on a cube-shaped planet
#74Earlier quoted context omitted.
A sphere with some gravitational influence from the points, but with most of the mass towards the center of the cube, it would still be mostly sphere-like, I think.
You are assuming that every part of the cube has the same density. Perhaps the density increases as you get to the corners.
The math is relatively easy with uniform density. Otherwise we have to start conjecturing on the density distribution, and without real-world feedback it degenerates to wondering if an infinite number of angels can dance on the head of a pin.
Re: Walking on a cube-shaped planet
#75"Ask a Physician" has something to say about this: http://www.askamathematician.com/?p=6657
Anyone here willing to take on the task of rendering an image of what this would look like?
Re: Walking on a cube-shaped planet
#76Earlier quoted context omitted.
Water has a very complicated phase diagram. I'm not sure how high a pressure water at a core of a planetoid of that size would be, but if it's above 100GPa then it would certainly be solid (Ice X or XI). Below that pressure, it would depend on the temperature. http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/08/Phase_dia...
pressure = Integral[h=x to infinity] of rho g(h) dh where x is the current distance from the center. "h" here means "height." Since we're at the center, x=0. Since rho(vacuum) = 0, this reduces to Integral[h=0:200km] rho g(h) dh. I simplify and say that water is incompressible, with density of rho = 1000 kg/m m m. (At 1 giga pascals the density is 1.2 that of its normal density.) g(r) = G * M(r) / r * r where M(r) is…
Actually, I haven't read The Algebraist yet, but if I had to guess, it's a vaguely magical Culture explanation, like artificial suns surrounding the moon, or industrial processes within giving off enough waste heat to keep it warm, like the Puppeteer homeworld.
Re: Walking on a cube-shaped planet
#77Wow, this illustration might be the first one ever to help me understand how space can be 'curved'. If you altered the space around the cube to reflect a linear gravitational pull, you'd have a cube with streteched out points and a flat ocean within the curved bason of the cube face. Correct me if I'm completely imagining things here, but is this how space is 'curved' by gravity? The disorted shape of the ocean and c…
Re: Walking on a cube-shaped planet
#78Earlier quoted context omitted.
pressure = Integral[h=x to infinity] of rho g(h) dh where x is the current distance from the center. "h" here means "height." Since we're at the center, x=0. Since rho(vacuum) = 0, this reduces to Integral[h=0:200km] rho g(h) dh. I simplify and say that water is incompressible, with density of rho = 1000 kg/m m m. (At 1 giga pascals the density is 1.2 that of its normal density.) g(r) = G * M(r) / r * r where M(r) is…
A wizard did it. Actually, I haven't read The Algebraist yet, but if I had to guess, it's a vaguely magical Culture explanation, like artificial suns surrounding the moon, or industrial processes within giving off enough waste heat to keep it warm, like the Puppeteer homeworld.
By the way, the pressure in the Mariana Trench is about 108 megapascals. The 7MPa I calculated is therefore about the same as 700 meters of depth.
Humans now, with the Atmospheric Diving System, have dived to 610 meters, and free divers have made it to 265m. We could probably make a (nuclear) sub that could cruise through the entire thing. The max depth for a steel sub is 250–400 meters and titanium to 1,000 meters.
Re: Walking on a cube-shaped planet
#79hmmm, do you suppose such a planet might be made of diamond ?