Re: Dirty Snowball Worlds

Dave Farrance (DaveFarrance@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
) writes:
> 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.
> 
Wouldn't that depend a bit on how thick the atmosphere was and how
efficient its wind system was in moving energy around? (As far as I know,
despite its slow rotation--and because of its thick atmosphere--Venus has
no
significant temperature difference between its day and night sides.)

	--John Park