HOME | DD
1Wyrmshadow1 — Pre and Post Terraforming
Published: 2011-09-25 11:35:36 +0000 UTC; Views: 38569; Favourites: 484; Downloads: 14976
Redirect to original
Description
A direct comparison of the original state, and my own terraforming of the Solar System.Again, all science is thrown out the window and lets not pay attention to physics or anything like that.... so lets terraform EVERYTHING over 250 miles in diameter.
Updated 2/10/2016 with newer textures for Ganymede, Io,Callisto, Pluto, Charon, and a number of Saturnian moons and updated 'Original' Solar System.
The list from L to R.
Earth
Venus
Mars
Ganymede
Titan
Mercury
Callisto
Io
Luna
Europa
Triton
Pluto
Titania
Oberon
Iapetus
Rhea
Quaoar
Charon
Umbriel
Ariel
Dione
Tethys
Enceladus
Miranda
Mimas
For those that would like to point out how impossible this is, please don't. I know fully well how improbable this picture is. Most of these worlds are just dirty balls of ice with a little rock and dust. If one could raise the temperature above freezing, then they'd just turn into balls of dirty water, in space. Forget that. I just imagined their current topography was actually rock, rather than frozen water as hard as granite. Then just dome over everything and make them all little Earths. that is all I wanted to do in this picture. Don't like it? Well it has been done before. This was an idea I had bouncing around inside my head from when I was a kid in the early 1990's. This theme has also been improbably repeated in the Red Dwarf novels, Exosquad cartoon, Cowboy Bebop, Firefly/Serenity, Battlestar Galactica with it's dozen colonies.
This is art for it's own sake. I get enough numbskull comments in my youtube video that links back to here.
Related content
Comments: 172
👍: 1 ⏩: 0
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
👍: 1 ⏩: 1
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
👍: 1 ⏩: 0
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
have fun. Send me a picture if you publish
👍: 0 ⏩: 2
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
👍: 1 ⏩: 0
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
Do you play TerraGenesis? Because that's what this image reminds me of.
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
I did for a bit. This image is far far older than that APP.
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
Why did you stop playing TerraGenesis?
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
You gonna call the cops on me?
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
Why do the planets have whit (oxygen rich) clouds, but non-oxygen rich atmospheres? I would imagine if the atmosphere was preominantly Oxygen rich then the atmosphere would have a blue hue just as Earth does.
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
1. Variety.
2. I like to keep a little of the original characteristics intact. There is still red dust in the air on Mars and Titan is smoggy AF because of the extreme industrialization.
👍: 0 ⏩: 2
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
The process of altering a planet to become more suitable to human life. Terra (Earth) form (shape)
👍: 1 ⏩: 1
This is so gorgeous! I've always been intrigued with terraforming and seeing lifeless worlds bloom.
Although to be honest they have their own beauty as they are now.
GOD bless
John 3:16
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
Now this - THIS image! - I absolutely must use for one of our terraforming articles. Again, this would be for Universe Today.
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
Didn't you already ask this?
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
I think so, but it was for another image.
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
How about this idea? It has some holes, but could be an interesting option: www.archdaily.com/782087/could…
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
Uuuuh.
I can state, with authority, that the tech' necessary to terra-form whole worlds already exists now.
It's just in it's infancy.
Please study quantum physics.
Youtube is a place to start.
Some physicists are saying that it may be possible to transmit/teleport humans and materials almost instantaneously, over millions of light years, in the blink of an eye.
See you somewhere in M-33.
Jimbo
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
I won't lose any sleep waiting for the commercial model.
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
A very nice comparison and beautiful render. Well done!
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
It would be great if you created maps and globes for the terraformed gas and ice giants. If this "throws science out of the window", then why not include Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune? They are certainly "above 250 miles in diameter", after all. And it would be possible—if astronomically difficult and purposeless—to terraform these bodies.
Gas and Ice giants are essentially terrestrial planets cloaked in an atmosphere and oceans that are bigger than themselves, so large that their gaseous components such as hydrogen and helium become liquid or even metallic due to the incredible pressures. These planets could be slowly moved closer to the sun than Mercury or any asteroid or orbiting object besides the Kreutz sungrazer comets, at which point they will all become "Hot Jupiters" or "Hot Neptunes" themselves, and very much like over-sized comets. The harsh solar wind and corona would very slowly strip away their atmospheres. Alternatively, an ultra-advanced civilization could use the hydrogen and other light elements contained within the planets themselves to create fusion power and blow off most of the planet except their terrestrial cores, possibly harvesting the gas to create new "pure gas giants". Wait several thousand years for the core surface temperature to a habitable amount, and voila! You have turned Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune into terrestrial "Chthonian planets" with masses of 12–45 earths, 9–22 earths, 0.5–0.55–3.7 earths, and 1.2 earths, respectively. The atmosphere, chock full of greenhouse gases, can then be sculpted through selective re-addition of the removed gases. The gravity wouldn't be extreme except on Jupiter and Saturn, which the latter would reach about 2.3 g, in which cases the cores will expand due to lack of pressure to lower it. The gravity of Uranus would be about 0.87 g, according to the best interior model.
Of course, it would be far more valuable just to find another earth-like planet outside the solar system than it would be to terraform a gas or ice giant, given that the energy and material requirements would be orders of magnitude higher than even the most ambitious terraforming of a terrestrial planet in our solar system. But it would be "art for it's own sake". Maybe the lack of "surface" terrain data is one of the reasons making you reluctant to create a map or artistic impression, but you created one of a terraformed Quaoar , which has no such data. All of these giant planets do have surface images of their atmospheric features, which vary in altitude (hint: the darker patterns are usually higher than the lighter ones), and some are indicative of deeper mantle-level disturbances such as convection. Although I highly doubt that almost any surface features have roots all the way down in the core, the utility of seismology, volcanology, and geology in detecting internal features on Earth such as mantle plumes may make it possible. Indeed, some of the "weird terrain" of Mercury is thought to have resulted from the cooling of its core, and also from a large impact (somewhat similar to the Uranus impact that resulted in its wonky 97.77° axial tilt) creating the antipodal lunar maria-like Caloris basin. Similar effects happened with the large impacts creating the Borealis Basin/Vastitas Borealis and Southern Plateau on Mars and Rheasilvia/Veneneia on Vesta. I assume similar effects could have occurred upon impacts with giant planets, but far smaller. So, if you want to do this, to start create a height-map based on the light-dark patterns on the surface and their elevations, then add features based on known or hypothesized impacts, upwellings, plumes, and the like. It's the best that can be done currently. Then just make stuff up with fractal terrain generators and stuff.
(Jesus Obama Christ this was long... I used formatting to highlight the important parts of the text. I am sorry if I am annoying you, as well as with my previous comments... Otherwise, this could be very helpful.)
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
Ok. But what does "no" mean? I kinda talked about a lot of things in that comment, so it helps to be specific...
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
In summary you wanted me to give the same artistic treatment to the Gas Giants. No. Not going to spend any effort on that.
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
Ok. I respect that, but it means that you wouldn't really be "TERRAFORM[ING] ALL THE WORLDS!!!!". You're probably a busy guy, so I understand.
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
Actually, it would be possible to terraform an icy world like Ganymede, Callisto, Titan, Europa, or Rhea. Just have to keep the average temperature of the warmest part of the planet below freezing.
Too many times, planetary scientists and armchair terraformers view the temperature of a planet as if it were a monolithic number perfectly describing the surface conditions on that planet. This, of course, ignores important concepts like climate, diurnal temperature variation, and seasonal temperature variation, which make hospitable—if brutal and agriculturally unproductive—locations like Yellowknife and Ulaanbaatar which have average temperatures below freezing.
What is under most areas of Earth with average temperatures below freezing? Permafrost, as there is no variation between temperatures below a certain depth. Permafrost is typically composed of a mixture of rock with a small amount of ice, like typically found on the outer crust of icy worlds. It would also be possible to have certain areas with average temperatures above freezing as oceans or mires, which could be drained to create perfectly habitable land. The water resulting from that drainage could be deposited as glaciers near the poles, where it will not melt for millions of years.
Would love to hear what you think!
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
do a quick google search of what the density is on some of these little moons. It's near water. Meaning it's mostly ice. Every try to build a farm on an ice pack? You can't.
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
First, keep in mind the examples I gave you for potentially terraformable ice worlds: Ganymede (density: 1.936 g/cm3), Callisto (density: 1.8344 g/cm3), Titan (Density: 1.8798 g/cm3), Europa (Density: 3.013 g/cm3), and Rhea (Density: 1.236 g/cm3). These are not bodies almost exclusively made of water, but rather made of ~50%, 50%, 50%, 90%, and 25% rock, respectively.
Second, that is only the mean density of the worlds. As stated earlier, the topmost layer—or crust, if you will—is far denser and far richer in rock than the average for many of these worlds, as it is rich with fragments from passing asteroids, and for some, like Titan, in ejecta from cryovolcanic processes. Third, in all non-glaciated permafrost areas (which can be composed of more than 69% ice, by the way) there is a so-called active layer at the top which is composed of soil that freezes and thaws with the seasons, and performs the functions of typical topsoil in warmer climates. This layer is usually more water-free than the permafrost below, and can range anywhere from 10 cm to 5 m thick. Once terraforming commences, a lot of the water stored within the top layer of the crust of these worlds would melt out and run into lakes, eventually becoming an unsaturated active layer, while the layers below would stay frozen solid as permafrost. We could aid that process by artificially draining this water, keeping erosion down and preventing deep gullies from forming and eroding the permafrost. If we can't remove a few fractions of a meter of water equivalent from the surface of a small moon, we should not be terraforming that moon!
Third, like permafrost-containing areas on Earth—unless we want to go along moving cubic miles of water until we get to an equilibrium state where a permafrost-free area could exist without eating through the planemo—these worlds would be quite useless to agriculture. The thin active layer and harsh climates—with many unexpected frosts, even during the extremely long summers on the ice world—would only allow hardy, shallow rooted crops and plants to take root. But that would be far more preferable than building floating colonies on a vast planet-wide ocean, or having to endure the extreme conditions associated with a non-terraformed world.
(Whew...)
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
Amazing! I write for Universe Today and we are doing a series on terraforming. Might we be able to use this image, with full attributions to you, of course
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
I frigging love this. Something about the idea of terraforming other planets is just amazing and exciting to me and I love the slightly different looks and personalities you've managed to give each of them.
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
| Next =>