Seven Down, One to Go!

[Cras]

a little sensitive on the Uranus system are we?

 

[Codz]

a little sensitive on the Uranus system are we?

I'd be "sensitive" on any planetary system being put down as "uninteresting" with ridiculously little evidence.

 

[Ghostrider]

Nope, Pluto isn't a plant.

It's a dwarf plant...

 

[Artlav]

Fusion lightbulb
-Molten Rock
-Oven
-Garden
---Dusty Moon
-Red Devil
---Forsaken demon
---Gloating demon
-Screaming Failure
---Sulphur Bath
---Ice Wrinkle
...

Anyone will fill in the rest?

 

[TMac3000]

Okay, I did it! Safe landing on Miranda. And let me tell you, it was a hell of a trip:headbang:
The launch from Earth and UOI went smoothly. I orbited the planet several times waiting for a suitable Miranda launch window.

When I got to Miranda, I quickly discovered that this world, smaller than South Carolina, barely had any gravity. In fact, it wasn't even enough for the ship's computer to pick it up, so I not only had to control the landing manually, but eyeball the landing without even knowing which direction would slow me down! But I managed a touch down at 2 m/s forward and about 1 m/s downward. Now that, my friends, is piloting:thumbup:

Took Fanny Gorgeous for a stroll on the surface, only to find that she had to use a turbopack to get around:lol:

First screenshot: Uranus approach. More to follow!

 

[sorindafabico]

Fusion lightbulb
-Molten Rock
-Oven
-Garden
---Dusty Moon
-Red Devil
---Forsaken demon
---Gloating demon
-Screaming Failure
---Sulphur Bath
---Ice Wrinkle
...

Anyone will fill in the rest?

...
---Bigger Ice Wrinkle
---Ice Wrinkle with magnetic field
--God's wedding ring
---Frozen Old Faithful
---Ball of Fanta

to be continued...

 

[dgatsoulis]

Finally decided to brave the 17-year voyage to Uranus. Actually this was my second trip to the Sideways Planet, as I had done a preliminary trip a few weeks ago.

It's interesting and very odd to me that Uranus is simultaneously the most featureless object in the solar system, and one of the most beautiful. Seen from Uranus, the sun is barely brighter than Saturn as seen from Earth...

I had planned to land on Miranda, but inserted into orbit on the wrong side of the planet to land on any of the moons. But I'm planning a return trip in which I will definitely land on either Miranda or Oberon.

Recording is included, but may be useless because after a certain point it won't go above 100x time compression

Nice job Tmac. Kudos for braving the time to actually make the journey.
The planet "Ουρανός" (meaning sky or heaven in Greek) is -IMO-one of the most interesting places to visit in our solar system. Surely not a manned mission, but we have to send a probe to investigate.

All sorts of different questions come to mind.
What (and when) the heck happened there, that made an Ice giant tilt on it's back? Probably a collision, but with what? What happened to the other body(ies) that participated in the process? Is there a chance that this planet could have formed without a major collision, but with lots of small ones? How far back into the history of our solar system do we have to look to make sense of this?


On the topic of making long journeys in Orbiter a little bit shorter.
You can try the [ame="http://orbithangar.com/searchid.php?ID=3872"]Time Warp Override[/ame] addon or [ame="http://orbithangar.com/searchid.php?ID=3812"]TimeJumpMFD[/ame]
Or you can try to change the value of the "Fixed Time steps" in the Extra->Debugging options->Fixed Time steps on Orbiter launchpad.

 

[Ghostrider]

but we have to send a probe to investigate.

I commend your enthusiasm, but whatever you do never, ever, state in public that "it's imperative we probe Uranus".:lol:

 

[dgatsoulis]

:rofl:

In my defence, I stated that we should send a probe to Ουρανός.- In Greek, the emphasis goes on the "spotted" syllabel.

Obviously, the word means very-VERY- different things when punctuated differently.:lol:

 

[C3PO]

Nice job Tmac. Kudos for braving the time to actually make the journey.

I just took a Deltaglider (Default 2001 Cape Canaveral scenario) to Neptune. I landed on Proteus Feb 2019 with 846 kg left in the main tank. No service station in sight, so if anyone is in the neighbourhood with a spare jerrycan..... :lol:

I made a trip to Pluto back when max time acceleration was 10k.

 

[Ghostrider]

In my defence, I stated that we should send a probe to Ουρανός.- In Greek, the emphasis goes on the "spotted" syllabel.

Well, of course in Greek it sounds cooler. Like: ΑΥΤΟ! ΕΙΝΑΙ! ΣΠΑΡΤΗ! :thumbup:

(Blame Google Translate for any mishaps. My Greek is as good as your Quenya, provided your Quenya is as good as your Goa'uld, and that your Goa'uld is bad).

 

[dgatsoulis]

(Modern Greek) Αυτή είναι η Σπάρτη! (Land and Sea are female)

(You don't have to shout all the sentence-Just the words): "This" and "Σπάρτη"

 

[TMac3000]

Nice job Tmac. Kudos for braving the time to actually make the journey.
The planet "Ουρανός" (meaning sky or heaven in Greek) is -IMO-one of the most interesting places to visit in our solar system. Surely not a manned mission, but we have to send a probe to investigate.

All sorts of different questions come to mind.
What (and when) the heck happened there, that made an Ice giant tilt on it's back? Probably a collision, but with what? What happened to the other body(ies) that participated in the process? Is there a chance that this planet could have formed without a major collision, but with lots of small ones? How far back into the history of our solar system do we have to look to make sense of this?


On the topic of making long journeys in Orbiter a little bit shorter.
You can try the Time Warp Override addon or TimeJumpMFD
Or you can try to change the value of the "Fixed Time steps" in the Extra->Debugging options->Fixed Time steps on Orbiter launchpad.

Me, I just advanced by months using scenario editor. Try it: it's not as buggy as you think

---------- Post added at 08:57 PM ---------- Previous post was at 08:57 PM ----------

Is there a chance that this planet could have formed without a major collision, but with lots of small ones?

That would explain Miranda quite nicely

 

[RisingFury]

That would explain Miranda quite nicely

Please, explain.

 

[TMac3000]

Miranda's unusual surface features make it look as if it exploded (either by collision or going too deep within Uranus's gravity well) and then re-coalesced. It's also possible that it may have formed from the debris of other exploded moons.

 

[RisingFury]

Miranda's unusual surface features make it look as if it exploded (either by collision or going too deep within Uranus's gravity well) and then re-coalesced. It's also possible that it may have formed from the debris of other exploded moons.

Exploded and re-coalesced? Hardly. The features look a lot closer to what we see on the surface of Europa.

Miranda, being the innermost large one, probably had some tidal heating, which resulted in molten ice that created the features we see today.

According to Wikipedia, it's density is about 1200 kg/m^3 +- 150 kg/m^3, which means mostly water ice, with a little bit of rock.

Its current eccentricity is 0.0013, which would provide very little tidal heating (obviously mean distance to primary and primary mass affect heating as well - mass / distance ratio for Miranda is also smaller than that of Europa, Europa's eccentricity at 0.009), but its orbital time is close to a 3:1 resonance with Umbriel, currently at 2.93. 3:1 resonance isn't stable, which suggest the resonance was broken recently. It would need to be in the 2.97 to 3.03 range to sustain high enough orbital eccentricity for significant tidal heating.