Re: Dirty Snowball Worlds

Logan Kearsley <chronosurfer@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:


>World Idea #1: A tidelocked planet orbiting a red dwarf. The
>temperature goes above freezing at the substellar point, maybe leading
>to the formation of lakes or a small sea, otherwise just increased
>sublimation that keeps it relatively ice free. Question- do glaciers
>across the hemisphere creep towards the substellar point, or would it
>be more likely that the whole above-freezing region would remain ice-
>free, with mostly-static icesheets thickening as you get further away?
>Or something else entirely?
>Over on the dark side, temperatures get too cold even for the natives
>to find comfortable but there's no sunlight anyway, so it doesn't much
>matter. Perhaps there's a CO2 icecap around the antistellar point?

I don't know enough about planet formation to comment on World Idea #2,
but the problem with the above idea is that it will get *very* cold on
the darkside.  The entire atmosphere except for any helium would freeze
out.  The water would also eventually find its way around to the darkside
via sublimation.

-- 
Dave Farrance