> On Fri, May 8, 2009 at 6:54 AM, Samuel Penn <sam@glendale.org.uk> wrote:
In support of Sam's comments, I had posted the following to the list about 8
years ago, and again some years before that. Given the number
of <ahem> "new" listers since then, probably time to repost it. :-)
You can also do a search of the GZG archives to find the same post (search on
"asteroid belt kochte"). Some of the numbers are off, as it's been many a year
since I posted this and new info has come to light, but as an exercise, even
plugging in the new numbers (sizes of large asteroids, #s of asteroids > than
10 km across, etc) you're going to find the end result the same.
Mk
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Greetings, gang,
Below is a write-up I did on asteroids (specifically as they apply to
the Sol system, but imminently applicable to just about any star system that
vaguely resembles ours - i.e., has a few gas giants and debris orbiting
the parent star) a few years ago in response to some questions about asteroids
on the gaming table. Since that time the number of asteroids discovered has
gone up, though not by a lot, and the number of *significantly* *sized*
asteroids hasn't really increased at all. So for all intents and purposes,
this study is quite valid for gaming in an asteroid field (you can modify your
own asteroid field as you see fit,
however; if you want a super-dense field where you have a dozen
asteroids on the table, don't let me stop you! you can always call it a
localized
phenomenon or something ;-). I hope the numbers will illustrate why
asteroid fields shouldn't be a big deal for FT craft to fly through. I don't
recall who initiated the question from the FT list. Maybe he is still out
there and will remember this?
Now in response to Ryan's note about how NASA gets all jittery when one of
their spacecraft goes through the field, remember that 1) NASA spacecraft are
fairly autonomous and have extremely limited maneuverability (unlike FT
ships), 2) they don't have active detection devices (unlike FT ships), and 3)
stuck here on Earth we haven't had the opportunity, time, or ability to chart
anywhere near the number of asteroids (large or small) that would be known in
the FT Universe.
Note: I get a little tirade going in the write-up. I was suffering from
dealing with Hollywood (and general media) stupidity on things
space-based (I still do, btw ;-).
Mk
[quoted original message omitted]
On the other other hand, I believe the original phrase used was 'asteroid
swarms' not belt. Local conditions, while age-of-the-galaxy rare for a
Star Wars version, can vary, and other world systems are proving stranger than
our current experience.
I accept denser populations than we currently experience as a real
possibility, and worth modelling.
The_Beast
> On Friday 08 May 2009 12:23:25 Indy wrote:
wrote:
> > So far, none of the probes sent through the asteroid belt by
<snipped lots of good stuff>
Thanks Indy :-)
Another perspective: The total mass of all asteroids between Mars and Jupiter
is estimated to be about 4% of the mass of the Moon.
If you did want something exciting, then you could have a couple of recently
collided asteroids, or a broken up comet, which might give you a reasonable
density across a table top. Fragments probably wouldn't be large enough to
block line of sight except at small scales however.
AFAIK, even famous meteor showers like the Perseids are little more than
grains of sand plus a few small rocks.
Depending on scale, a world with a few moonlets might work as well
(at 1" = 1000km, which IMO gives nice sized planets, the Earth-Moon
system would need a very big table top, at least ~400" across).
Anyone got any good (realistic) ideas for FT terrain?
So far, I've only ever used a planet with a gravity well.
MK is absolutely right, but the gripping hand is that if you're using FT to
model star wars, or other space opera, then you need lots of asteroids,
preferably bouncing off one another and sprouting gigantic beasties.
> On Fri, May 8, 2009 at 7:59 AM, Doug Evans <devans@nebraska.edu> wrote:
> On Friday 08 May 2009 12:59:34 Doug Evans wrote:
Tom B's post mentioned "Asteroid belt racers".
I deliberately didn't reply to "asteroid swarms" because that's a
lot more ambiguous as to what it means :-)
> Local conditions, while age-of-the-galaxy rare for a Star
I think we come back to the earlier discussion about just because we don't
know for sure that something is impossible, doesn't mean that we can throw in
anything we want if we want to aim for realism.
Star Wars dense fields have two problems (in the long term): 1) Why haven't
frequent collisions ground the rocks to dust? 2) Why hasn't gravity pulled
them into a single planet?
Some asteroids are thought to be little more than piles of rubble, so an
impact could give you a temporarily dense field. Something like the
destruction of Alderaan would probably create a short term dense field as
well.
FWIW, I agree that dense fields are worth modelling, simply because that's
what tends to turn up in SF and they can be fun to game in. I still like to
play around with what's known to be possible however.
Assuming we have one highly unlikely dense asteroid field in our campaign
universe, what sort of interesting terrain could ships be fighting within, in
all the other solar systems?
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http://lists.csua.berkeley.edu/mailman/listinfo/gzg-lOn Fri, May 8, 2009
> at 8:41 AM, Samuel Penn <sam@glendale.org.uk> wrote:
> On Friday 08 May 2009 12:59:34 Doug Evans wrote:
I agree on both points. I just wanted to point out that more often than not,
the lack of dense #s of asteroids is going to probably be the rule in most
solar systems. Caveat: those solar systems that have gas giants which will
sweep clear the debris fields, like ours have, that is.
> Assuming we have one highly unlikely dense asteroid field in our
There ain't much "terrain" in space (that's why they call it "space" ;-)
).
But you could do planetary ring systems.
Another way to get locally dense significantly-sized objects might be
to play in a very very early developing star system, where the forming gas
giants have not yet swept clean the lanes of debris.
Or jump in a nebula. Who the heck knows what's going on in there?? (could
play havok with your firecon sensors, too ;-) )
Mk
> On Fri, May 8, 2009 at 8:59 AM, Indy <indy.kochte@gmail.com> wrote:
Out of curiosity, what's the density of the material in Saturn's rings?
It's far more dense than the asteroid belt, but I understand we've sent probes
through the rings before. I don't know if it was "hold your breath" time when
they did it, but there didn't seem to be enough worry that anyone said, "Hey,
is this worth doing with our
multi-million dollar probe?"
> On Friday 08 May 2009 15:26:39 Allan Goodall wrote:
Something I edited out of an earlier post was a question about this. All I've
ever seen are either computer models or long range photographs. What I'd love
to see is a photograph taken from within the rings.
Computer animations of Cassini passing through the rings seemed to suggest
high density but very small ice particles, possibly on par with light snow
fall.
However, I've got no idea how much of this was artistic license.
> It's far more dense than the asteroid belt, but I understand we've
They've done it with Cassini[1], and I believe there was a lot of "is it worth
it?" questions raised. Given Cassini has exceeded it's life expectency by a
huge margin, they've since taken a number of big risks with it in order to get
big payoffs in quality of data.
Of course, in NASA view 'risk' differently to FT players...
btw, I found video of the moon Prometheous 'colliding' with the rings:
http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/video/videodetails/?videoID=163
[1] I've just tried to find evidence of this, and failed. They did
fly through a gap in the rings during orbital insertion, and I've seen
animations of a probe (I assume Cassini) flying through the rings.