Space/Science — HabitableZone

Space/Science » in reply to It depends whether it is IMPORTANT or not

au contraire
Adam — (archived)

Nick,

Firstly emission temperature is to the 1/4 power of the temperature. So 0.05 watts works out as 30.64 K effective temperature - ignoring opacity issues. If the heat-flow is higher, from radioactives or gravitational energy, then the effective temperature is, of course, higher too. A 1 watt heat-flow means a 64.8 K effective temperature - enough to keep even nitrogen from chilling out as puddles at 1 bar.

Thus hydrogen actually remaining stable as ice or liquid requires very low heat-flows from a planet's interior - if it is big enough to capture any during formation that is. I'd say if it's big enough to retain a significant free hydrogen atmosphere then it'll be warm enough to keep it all gaseous, with the consequent stratified atmosphere.

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