Space/Science — HabitableZone

Space/Science » in reply to It's a bit more complicated than that...

re: It's a bit more complicated than that...
gbaikie — (archived)

"I can't even begin to comment on your own ideas until you've formulated them clearly. "
Does nature of an atmosphere influence cooling rate of planetary body heated by impactors.
Does the mix of H2O and CO2 in an atmosphere and the quantity of atmosphere have a significant effect?

OR: In your statement "Only after giant impacts had stirred-up the atmosphere and boiled off the volatiles (CO2 and H20) would there be an atmosphere for a few thousands or tens of thousands of years"

It seems to me that the length of time that Mars would have an atmosphere is dependent on global temperature, specifically global air temperature. There two different main factors- heat gained from the Sun and it's greenhouse affect. And heat gained by impactors and any the infrared blanketing of atmosphere. For example suppose the planet is heated to say 500 C, this rapidly cools down, but in the temperature range of 100- 200 C suppose the atmosphere was such the majority of infrared radiation from the surface was reflected back by atmosphere. And at same time sunlight with different radiation wavelenght is not mostly reflected but is more transparent and/or is absorbed my atmosphere.

Additional factor would be size and energy of impactor. And the geological state of planet before an impact- a dead cold world as Mars is at present OR molten planet with thin crust which is volcanic very active.

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