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| - Back to Math And Terraforming The behavior of an atmosphere is very important for terraforming. There are a few formulas that can calculate if a planet is suitable to support an atmosphere and under what conditions. You can determine average gas speed with the formula [1]: The second thing we need to consider is escape velocity, to see if the gas will escape or not the planet. The formula, adapted for our simulation and our measure units, is: Here, Ev is the escape velocity in km/s, mass is the planet's mass (Earth's mass = 1) and diam is the diameter, in thousands km.
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| abstract
| - Back to Math And Terraforming The behavior of an atmosphere is very important for terraforming. There are a few formulas that can calculate if a planet is suitable to support an atmosphere and under what conditions. You can determine average gas speed with the formula [1]: This formula is adapted by myself, to fit better. Gs is gas speed (in km/s), T(C) is temperature in Celsius degrees and m is the molecular mass of the gas (1 for hydrogen, 16 for atomic oxygen, 32 for molecular oxygen). By using it, you will get for oxygen at 31 C, the speed of 0.4869 km/s. Gs is the average speed of a gas molecule, but some will move faster and some far slower. The second thing we need to consider is escape velocity, to see if the gas will escape or not the planet. The formula, adapted for our simulation and our measure units, is: Here, Ev is the escape velocity in km/s, mass is the planet's mass (Earth's mass = 1) and diam is the diameter, in thousands km. By combining both formulas, we get the next value: The symbol xxx is again my invention, there is no such thing. This formula allows you to quickly see if a planet will be able to sustain an atmosphere or not. Here, T(C) is the temperatuire (in Celsius), m is gas molecular mass, mass is planet's mass (Earth = 1) and diam is planet's diameter in thousands km. The numbers you will get for Earth, at 15 C, are as follows:
* Hydrogen: 131
* Helium: 33
* Nitrogen (molecular): 4.7
* Oxygen (molecular): 4
* Carbon dioxide: 3
* Methane: 8 The bigger the number, the lower the chance for specified gas to remain in the atmosphere. If we compute the same data for Earth's moon, we get:
* Hydrogen: 653
* Oxygen (molecular): 20
* Carbon dioxide: 15. Basically, I would say that a gas is safe if the calculated value is less then 10. Also, if value is below 100, the gas can still remain in the atmosphere for a human lifetime. Gerald Kuiper designed a planetary constant which he named k. This constant shows the probability for a celestial body to host an atmosphere (the probability that majority of molecules will not be in escape velocity). For him, if k had a higher value then 5, the planet or moon could host atmosphere. This way, he proved a long time ago that Titan has an atmosphere. His formulas are more complex, but more accurate.
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![[RDF Data]](/fct/images/sw-rdf-blue.png)