Korean Job Discussion Forums

[mithridates]

Here's what happens when you don't have an atmosphere:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iapetus_(moon)

The warmer side melts the ice, albedo drops and that side heats up. Meanwhile the ice on the other side keeps the albedo high and the surface cool, and the ice stays, so you end up with a moon half covered in ice and half without any.

On Gliese 581g: we have no idea whether it has an atmosphere or what type it is, but if it has a thick one with a lot of cloud cover then the night side wouldn't be much cooler than the day side. There would be a difference though and that would probably result in some pretty violent wind patterns. But everything is just speculation now, and we don't even know how big it is, just that it's around 3 or 4 times as massive as the Earth.

I'm still most looking forward to WISE's announcement of brown dwarf stars (in February) as hopefully some of them will be even closer than Alpha Centauri. If that's so then we'll have some potentially interesting places to explore within just a light year or two, which is actually doable if we work at it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ylECEsurrcM