Possibilities of a Binary Gas Dwarf-Dwarf Earth System

[T.Neo]

Hmm, that's an odd thought. I never considered any other satellites in the system. I was too afraid that a small moon orbiting around one of them would somehow end up careening into the other's surface. That said, is a moon even capable of holding a stable orbit in that system? When I get the chance, I have got to work on the numbers for their statistics, most importantly, their distance from each other. That would definitely be important in determining their capability of possessing moons. Styx would be a very prominent and permanent feature in Elysion's sky. (The side facing Styx of course. What would we call that?)

The moons wouldn't orbit either body, they'd orbit the common barycenter (AFAIK). Look at Pluto and Charon.

The side facing Styx would be the nearside. And the views would be utterly amazing, even at a rather large distance from Styx.

Yeah, since my story will include the manned exploration of Elysion, its essential that they have somewhere to land. Though in all essence, some kind of floating lab would probably do the same job as one placed on drift ice. Maybe the shuttle could have aquatic abilities? All things to consider.

I'd go for a floating pontoon base of some sort. Ice floes would be too unreliable.

Having a flying boat as a TAV would incur too much complexity. They'd have to do a STOVL on the pontoon base, which itself would have reentered in some sort of one-way package.

 

[Deltafang]

The moons wouldn't orbit either body, they'd orbit the common barycenter (AFAIK). Look at Pluto and Charon.

The side facing Styx would be the nearside. And the views would be utterly amazing, even at a rather large distance from Styx.

My fault, I wasn't so sure about that. I thought that if the planets were a decent distance apart, the orbit for the moon would be too wide. I assumed that it wouldn't be able to hang around like that for long. For some reason, when you mention potential satellites I imagine moons dancing around in between the planets in figure eights. :lol:

Though your example of Pluto, Charon, Nix, and Hydra helped alot. Hmm, maybe one small satellite? For some reason, I also got a vision of a very large gas giant being orbited by a much smaller one in some solar system far away(not in Gliese 581 though). A gas giant moon? Sounds like something that exists solely to laugh at.

I'd go for a floating pontoon base of some sort. Ice floes would be too unreliable.

Having a flying boat as a TAV would incur too much complexity. They'd have to do a STOVL on the pontoon base, which itself would have reentered in some sort of one-way package.

Hmmm, true. Ice floes would be constantly migrating. That could potentially ruin a lot of operations. The reason I suggested it was because the ice floes on Elysion could break into chunks bigger than they do on Earth. To not break into even smaller pieces, they'd probably have to be taller and deeper since they got wider. I was thinking about atmospheric pressure and content as well as albedo like you said, and of course the oceans play a large part in that so I have to work on chemical composition of the oceans as well. Girlfriend found that the absolute maximum for humans is something like 27 atm? That makes it a lot simpler. Anywhere from 1.5-3.0 times Earth's atmospheric pressure would feel a bit uncomfortable for humans but would probably retain the planet's heat nicely. Currently looking up how harmful atmospheric content can be through the skin.

I've still got to work on the TAV design when I get the chance. The ISV as well. The only decided thing so far is SSTO capability and a Space Shuttle-esque paintjob . I'm working to procure a copy of Windows right now and if all goes well, I could have Orbiter up and running by tomorrow the earliest. Anyway, back to the TAV. Since ice floes would be enormous, it might make a good place for TAVs to land, but then again we have the whole migration thing. The polar caps would be much better than free floating icebergs though.

A giant pontoon base?! That's brilliant! They send it down first and follow shortly after it self-deploys. It'd be pretty big in order for them to have a laboratory and necessary amenities as well as a short runway. Since Elysion has a substantial atmosphere, it can just inflate itself (scaring the living crap out of the wildlife (if there is any) in the process). That's a really good idea though, one thousand thanks!

 

[T.Neo]

The TAV should be able to land on a limited area (think fighter jets landing on aircraft carriers, STOVL aircraft etc) so landing on ice floes shouldn't be needed.

Ice floes also melt and break under weight, so they aren't ideal as a base of any kind.

I was thinking the pontoon base would be permanent/semi-permanent.

 

[Deltafang]

The TAV should be able to land on a limited area (think fighter jets landing on aircraft carriers, STOVL aircraft etc) so landing on ice floes shouldn't be needed.

Got it. This pontoon base would have to be pretty big regardless. Especially if its to support a TAV. I had somewhat of an unrealistic dream of it being VTOL capable for short periods of time.

Ice floes also melt and break under weight, so they aren't ideal as a base of any kind.

I was thinking the pontoon base would be permanent/semi-permanent.

Right. For some reason I forgot all about the heat the TAV would emit upon attempting to land on an ice floe as well as the implications if it wandered to far away from the poles and melted completely. Where would that leave them? >_>; Stranded, sadly.

As for being permanent, I don't see how its capable of being anything but. They send the base down, it inflates itself. They bring anything else they need in the shuttle and land on it. When they leave, they can't just deflate it and pack it away because then what would the shuttle rest on while they pack it in? They'd probably just leave it there. I mean, if we're planning on making return trips we'd probably just bring more bases and add to it until we had some massive floating base half a mile long. Just like the ISS or the drafts for future Mars habitation modules.

I wonder what the oceans can be composed of? With large polar ice caps, either there can't be that many compounds that would lower water's freezing point too much. For some reason, ammonia came to mind, but it has a super low freezing point. Whatever's in the water besides you know, water, must be part of the atmosphere too. There needs to be a buffer gas to add pressure to the system, but what? Maybe more argon than Earth normally has? Apparently its two and a half more times soluble in water than nitrogen and has roughly the same solubility as oxygen in water. Its also 25% more dense than air. I guess that means there would be a good concentration of argon bubbles in the oceans? Earth doesn't have that much Argon, but I'd imagine Elysion could have much more. Mercury has an atmosphere for 70% Argon due to radioactive decay. If Elysion is geologically active, maybe vents at the bottom of the oceans outgas Argon. I think we should aim for a Nitrogen-Oxygen-Argon-Carbon Dioxide rich atmosphere (relative) with a few other trace gases.

 

[Deltafang]

Sorry for not having posted this week, I've been catching up on some school work I've been neglecting. :dry:

I see that most of the major contributers to this thread have stopped posting. I'm not sure if this constitutes a double post, being over a week since my last, but I apologize if it is.

Anyway, back to the conversation at hand. I've decided to name Gliese 581, "Tartarus", as I hate having to repeat Gliese 581 over and over when my friends and I discuss this system. The name fits with the rest of the underworld naming convention of the planets too, so that's a plus.

I've been putting increasing amounts of thought less on the planets and more on the how we became aware of Elysion's existence in the Tartarus system as well as how we managed to get there. I was thinking that sometime in the recent future (anywhere from 50-150 years from now) that we would decide to send a fusion powered probe that accelerated to roughly .10 c to the ACA (Alpha Centauri A) system, and then 50-100 years later we send another to 55 Cancri, then finally the same for Tau Ceti. I doubt that that first probe would take good pictures on a fly-by but was skeptical of its ability to slow down. Either way, from pictures as well as atmospheric spectroscopy we determined (more like assumed) that major planets and moons of these systems were most likely lifeless. A few decades after we receive the last pictures from the Tau Ceti probe, we've just finished building a space telescope with a massive mirror tens of miles long (Still working on that, don't know if a telescope with a larger mirror would be capable of direct imagine planets to the point of being able to see them and not just a dot). With it, we continue looking for what we could judge to most likely be habitable planets. After a quick sweep of the solar systems we had already seen, we turned the telescope deeper into space, looking at other prime candidates. We had already seen weird wobbling behavior in Gliese 581 d and considered it the gravitational effects of its neighbors and star. We had thought it might be some unseen object, but it remained so. We all assumed it must be a rather large moon until we were able to directly see what it was: a moon with blue oceans and white clouds. It was only then we found of its binary relationship with Gliese 581 d that we classified it a planet named it Gliese 581 g.

There. That was a lot to type...

Anyway, I was thinking of the atmospheric composition and decided to use Argon along with Nitrogen as the major buffer gasses. In order of decreasing concentration: Argon, Nitrogen, Oxygen, Carbon Dioxide. That seems about right to me. The atmospheric pressure would be about 1.8 atm or roughly 182.3 kPa. Also, Elysion's roughly 0.725 Earth masses. I'm wiggling it about between 0.725 and 0.745, because I'm thinking that the latter may be too close to my own definition of a Terrestrial Dwarf.

On another note: I managed to get Parallels along with Windows Vista and a copy of Orbiter and it runs fine. I don't have a joystick yet however nor do I have a numpad as I'm using a laptop. So I had to try to see what keys were not used already. I failed epically since different vehicles use different keys. (I keep opening the radiator on the stock Deltaglider when I bank right :lol I've taken a liking to the WhiteKnight/SpaceShipOne add-on and am trying to learn how to do an orbital insertion but I fail epically at that too. (I'm following the Orbiter User Manual word for word and for some reason can never get my eccentricity to 0 and my Perigee and Apogee radius to equal each other:shrug: Whenever they get close, they stop then get farther away and I end up losing altitude until I'm forced to re-enter). I've tried about 15 times from quick save and 5 total retries, but I won't give up! :thumbup:

 

[T.Neo]

Anyway, back to the conversation at hand. I've decided to name Gliese 581, "Tartarus", as I hate having to repeat Gliese 581 over and over when my friends and I discuss this system. The name fits with the rest of the underworld naming convention of the planets too, so that's a plus.

Whatever is easiest. Saying (and typing) Gliese 581 over and over again does indeed become tiring.

I've been putting increasing amounts of thought less on the planets and more on the how we became aware of Elysion's existence in the Tartarus system as well as how we managed to get there. I was thinking that sometime in the recent future (anywhere from 50-150 years from now) that we would decide to send a fusion powered probe that accelerated to roughly .10 c to the ACA (Alpha Centauri A) system, and then 50-100 years later we send another to 55 Cancri, then finally the same for Tau Ceti. I doubt that that first probe would take good pictures on a fly-by but was skeptical of its ability to slow down. Either way, from pictures as well as atmospheric spectroscopy we determined (more like assumed) that major planets and moons of these systems were most likely lifeless. A few decades after we receive the last pictures from the Tau Ceti probe, we've just finished building a space telescope with a massive mirror tens of miles long (Still working on that, don't know if a telescope with a larger mirror would be capable of direct imagine planets to the point of being able to see them and not just a dot). With it, we continue looking for what we could judge to most likely be habitable planets. After a quick sweep of the solar systems we had already seen, we turned the telescope deeper into space, looking at other prime candidates. We had already seen weird wobbling behavior in Gliese 581 d and considered it the gravitational effects of its neighbors and star. We had thought it might be some unseen object, but it remained so. We all assumed it must be a rather large moon until we were able to directly see what it was: a moon with blue oceans and white clouds. It was only then we found of its binary relationship with Gliese 581 d that we classified it a planet named it Gliese 581 g.

A large enough telescope should be able to directly image and acquire spectroscopic data of an 0.5 Earth mass planet. You'll need an even larger telescope to define surface features of the planet (which would still be pretty fuzzy; worse than the best images we have of pluto).

Spectroscopic data will probably define the nature of the planet's atmosphere, and whether it is habitable to humans, or at least inhabited.

I think you might get away with smaller mirrors (smaller telescopes) if you fly a number of them in formation, a set distance away from each other. It may be a bit tricky though, perhaps a number of telescopes on a flat lunar plain would be better.

For a few travel times at 0.1 C (from Earth's reference):

Alpha Centauri at 4.4 lightyears: 44 years.

55 Cancri at 40.3 lightyears: 403 years.

Tau Ceti at 11.9 lightyears: 119 years.

Gliese 581 at 20.3 lightyears: 203 years.

At 0.1 C, the biggest problem will likely be the time needed to capture images. If you have good enough instruments onboard you are likely to get far better observations then a Sol-based telescope, but you're going to have to do it fast. A spacecraft travelling at 0.1C will traverse an astronomical unit in a little over an hour, from it's own reference frame.

Anyway, I was thinking of the atmospheric composition and decided to use Argon along with Nitrogen as the major buffer gasses. In order of decreasing concentration: Argon, Nitrogen, Oxygen, Carbon Dioxide. That seems about right to me. The atmospheric pressure would be about 1.8 atm or roughly 182.3 kPa. Also, Elysion's roughly 0.725 Earth masses. I'm wiggling it about between 0.725 and 0.745, because I'm thinking that the latter may be too close to my own definition of a Terrestrial Dwarf.

Not sure if argon could be present in such high amounts; it is predominantly released by radioactivity, although I'd imagine primordial accretion gases contribute. On an active world, volcanic activity would bring argon up from the mantle.

Nitrogen and carbon dioxide will usually predominate. Even on Earth; we had a CO2 rich atmosphere before living things converted most of it to oxygen.

 

[Deltafang]

Whatever is easiest. Saying (and typing) Gliese 581 over and over again does indeed become tiring.

Indeed. I had some friends over in order for us to brainstorm and I found it very tiring to have to refer to it by its astronomical nomenclature. I'm working on the star system itself, one of my friends is working on geography and politics, and the other is working on potential future technologies.

A large enough telescope should be able to directly image and acquire spectroscopic data of an 0.5 Earth mass planet. You'll need an even larger telescope to define surface features of the planet (which would still be pretty fuzzy; worse than the best images we have of pluto).

Spectroscopic data will probably define the nature of the planet's atmosphere, and whether it is habitable to humans, or at least inhabited.

I think you might get away with smaller mirrors (smaller telescopes) if you fly a number of them in formation, a set distance away from each other. It may be a bit tricky though, perhaps a number of telescopes on a flat lunar plain would be better.

Hmm, I wonder how many we would need? Several telescopes with mile long mirrors would probably do the trick? Yeah, spectroscopy works and we'll still use it well into the future. With any luck, our methods will be much more refined as well. There was another thread here about liquid telescopes on the Moon. Multiple lunar craters filled with a reflective liquid on the farside of the moon sound like a good idea. Maybe they could work in tandem with space telescopes.

For a few travel times at 0.1 C (from Earth's reference):

Alpha Centauri at 4.4 lightyears: 44 years.

55 Cancri at 40.3 lightyears: 403 years.

Tau Ceti at 11.9 lightyears: 119 years.

Gliese 581 at 20.3 lightyears: 203 years.

At 0.1 C, the biggest problem will likely be the time needed to capture images. If you have good enough instruments onboard you are likely to get far better observations then a Sol-based telescope, but you're going to have to do it fast. A spacecraft traveling at 0.1C will traverse an astronomical unit in a little over an hour, from it's own reference frame.

Yeah, I was thinking that the first probe we sent would have minimal deceleration capabilities as we were more concerned with fuel and mass when building it. I can see how its a problem though. If it were to take pictures once every mile, it'd be taking almost 26,000 pictures a second! All the terrestrial planets in our own solar system are jammed awkwardly into a 1.5 AU region. Then the gas giants are in a much wider area of around 25 AU. Even if its able to slow down considerably on a flyby, there's no chance in hell it'll find all the planets in a straight line, it might not even see some at all when passing the star and leaving the system.

I also heard a while back that the VASIMR if supplied with the 200MW it needs for Earth to Mars missions could potentially reach Mars in a little more than a month. Now I know that its far, far, far from being completed, but I'd imagine that in the next 100 to 200 years, we'll have at least a hypothetically feasibly engine that could accelerate to 0.1 c. Whether or not we can afford it or find enough support to send it is another story.

Not sure if argon could be present in such high amounts; it is predominantly released by radioactivity, although I'd imagine primordial accretion gases contribute. On an active world, volcanic activity would bring argon up from the mantle.

Nitrogen and carbon dioxide will usually predominate. Even on Earth; we had a CO2 rich atmosphere before living things converted most of it to oxygen.

Yeah, I was kind of leaning on the fact that Argon is primarily accumulated through outgassing and accretion. There could be undersea vents that spew the outgassed Argon as well as methane and sulfides similar to how they do on Earth. I was thinking that there's oxygen and carbon dioxide in almost equal amounts (trying to finalize Elysion's atmospheric composition). I'm not sure how the atmospheric composition will have an effect on the wildlife and vice versa yet. (Will they almost completely bypass the Argon like we do Nitrogen, etc.)

How does this sound:
Surface Pressure:
182.3 kPa or 1.8 atm

Composition:
49.52% Nitrogen
23.15% Argon
18.83% Oxygen
7.08% Carbon Dioxide
0.67% Methane
>1% Ammonia, Carbon Monoxide, and other gasses. (Open to suggestions as to what these gases are.)

I'd also like to take the opportunity to thank those who have been helping me once again. Its rare that you find such a helpful and active community.

 

[T.Neo]

Hmm, I wonder how many we would need? Several telescopes with mile long mirrors would probably do the trick? Yeah, spectroscopy works and we'll still use it well into the future. With any luck, our methods will be much more refined as well. There was another thread here about liquid telescopes on the Moon. Multiple lunar craters filled with a reflective liquid on the farside of the moon sound like a good idea. Maybe they could work in tandem with space telescopes.

I don't know, I think it would be possible with just two telescopes, although the TPF had numerous ones. Don't know if they need to be miles in diameter, either. You'd probably be able to pick out a lot of detail if you had a telescope that big though...

Liquid in craters isn't a good idea, crater floors are not even parabolas and controlling the liquid would prove difficult.

I also heard a while back that the VASIMR if supplied with the 200MW it needs for Earth to Mars missions could potentially reach Mars in a little more than a month. Now I know that its far, far, far from being completed, but I'd imagine that in the next 100 to 200 years, we'll have at least a hypothetically feasibly engine that could accelerate to 0.1 c. Whether or not we can afford it or find enough support to send it is another story.

Orion-type nuclear pulse propulsion using thermonuclear could get you up to .10C, and it uses known technology, although several engineering challenges would still have to be solved.

So yeah, given enough funding and interest, we might have an interstellar probe ready in the next 50 years.

49.52% Nitrogen
23.15% Argon
18.83% Oxygen
7.08% Carbon Dioxide
0.67% Methane
>1% Ammonia, Carbon Monoxide, and other gasses. (Open to suggestions as to what these gases are.)

I still don't see how the atmosphere would accumulate that much argon.

With around 7% CO2, humans will need rebreathers to survive on the surface. Could make for some interesting plot points...

 

[Deltafang]

I don't know, I think it would be possible with just two telescopes, although the TPF had numerous ones. Don't know if they need to be miles in diameter, either. You'd probably be able to pick out a lot of detail if you had a telescope that big though...

Liquid in craters isn't a good idea, crater floors are not even parabolas and controlling the liquid would prove difficult.

I sincerely hope we can continue the funding of the TPF. If I ever win the lottery, a quarter is being donated to charities and another quarter to funding development and deployment of new technologies. Never winning that though.

Ah, I forgot all about the crater floors being parabolas. I'm not well versed in telescope anatomy. I think that this project provides a good opportunity for learning. Maybe a design based on the Terrestrial Planet Finder, only much much bigger.

Orion-type nuclear pulse propulsion using thermonuclear could get you up to .10C, and it uses known technology, although several engineering challenges would still have to be solved.

So yeah, given enough funding and interest, we might have an interstellar probe ready in the next 50 years.

Hmmm, I've been reading up on Orion. Perhaps we could construct the spacecraft in well...space. Hopefully we'll have solved the ablation and problems with the structuring of inertial dampeners. I'll have to read up on it more. I don't want to use unobtainium or handwavium. We'll have to assume with most of future tech, but its better to base it on things we know now. Imagine the breakthroughs we'll make.

I still don't see how the atmosphere would accumulate that much argon.

With around 7% CO2, humans will need rebreathers to survive on the surface. Could make for some interesting plot points...

Right, I suppose the Nitrogen is the only really plentiful buffer gas we can expect. The amount of oxygen in Elysion's atmosphere is on the minimum end of safety for humankind, so rebreathers won't have to be excessively complicated. Just advanced filters really. As long as they don't plan on running marathons or too much strenuous activity, that should be enough.

65.52% Nitrogen
18.83% Oxygen
9.08% Carbon Dioxide
5.15% Argon
0.67% Methane
>1% Ammonia, Carbon Monoxide, and other gasses. (Open to suggestions as to what these gases are.)

I'd still think that a combination of accretion and outgassing would produce at least that much. Argon's density also contributes to the the increased atmospheric pressure as well.

On another note, I was reading about credibility in Avatar (Pandora has an atmospheric content of 5.5% Xenon). and this is what I came up with:

* Earth's atmosphere is about 1% argon, but I have to wonder about a
protoplanetary nebula rich enough in xenon to endow Pandora with 5.5%.
Maybe it's related to the vicinity of a superjovian. According to
WebElements.org, xenon is harmless unless (like CO2) it displaces
oxygen from the lungs. With an atomic weight of 131 for Xe
(monatomic, of course) vs 32 for O2, it's probably difficult to
exhale.

That said, could proximity to a jovian planet affect atmospheric content of its moons or partner planets? Even if it was capable of such a thing, Argon would most likely be much too dense to escape the gravity of Styx. Especially being buried under all those other, lighter gasses. So my outgassed atmospheric composition is probably generous, but it is tentative. I'll revise as I learn. :thumbup:

 

[T.Neo]

65.52% Nitrogen
18.83% Oxygen
9.08% Carbon Dioxide
5.15% Argon
0.67% Methane
>1% Ammonia, Carbon Monoxide, and other gasses.

Yeah, that's far better. Oxygen partial pressures should be high enough for humans, due to the higher pressures anyway.

I suggested a rebreather because filtering can get tricky. Apparently it's rather tricky and filters only last so long.

Rebreathers can last for some time longer; an astronaut can be in an EMU for 8 hours maximum for, which is pretty long. The system there is essentially like that of a rebreather, AFAIK. Maybe longer than that with future (but not handwavium) technology.

You'll have to filter out predominantly CO2, then the ammonia and CO if they are in high enough concentrations (1% ammonia or CO would be pretty bad). Methane apparently isn't toxic, so you could get away with not filtering it, but I'm not so sure. AFAIK CO2 and CO are rather tricky to filter out without major systems.

Maybe there could be some sort of hybrid system , filtering air and then running it through the system, replacing the oxygen.

I don't think methane should burn or combust at those concentrations, but it'll probably be rather shortlived in an oxygen rich atmosphere; there must be a large amount of organisms producing it through photosynthesis or something. Same would go for ammonia.

 

[RisingFury]

5% argon?! What is this? Planet made up of nuclear waste?

And 18% oxygen? You got life on the planet or what?

0.5% methane, 10% CO2? That's gonna be some nice global warming.

Also, you have a lot of oxygen and hydrogen and no water?!

 

[T.Neo]

5% argon?! What is this? Planet made up of nuclear waste?

Indeed, but at least 5% is better than 23.15%...

0.5% methane, 10% CO2? That's gonna be some nice global warming.

Albedo might offset this, but it can only go so far. Might work out if the planet was a bit further out though...

EDIT:
10% CO2 is about 263 times the amount of CO2 we have in our own atmosphere. 5% is about 27933 times the methane we have in our atmosphere...

And it will pack a bigger punch due to the higher presssure.

 

[Deltafang]

Yeah, that's far better. Oxygen partial pressures should be high enough for humans, due to the higher pressures anyway.

I suggested a rebreather because filtering can get tricky. Apparently it's rather tricky and filters only last so long.

Rebreathers can last for some time longer; an astronaut can be in an EMU for 8 hours maximum for, which is pretty long. The system there is essentially like that of a rebreather, AFAIK. Maybe longer than that with future (but not handwavium) technology.

You'll have to filter out predominantly CO2, then the ammonia and CO if they are in high enough concentrations (1% ammonia or CO would be pretty bad). Methane apparently isn't toxic, so you could get away with not filtering it, but I'm not so sure. AFAIK CO2 and CO are rather tricky to filter out without major systems.

Maybe there could be some sort of hybrid system , filtering air and then running it through the system, replacing the oxygen.

Yeah, I was thinking of a hybrid system after looking up rebreathers on wikipedia. I mean, they're limited to wandering around on the surface of the base, scooting around in a boat to look for animal life, and exploring ice floes to get core samples. The base itself would probably have a heavy filtration system as well as plenty of extra filters as well as special cleaning methods for the rebreathers themselves. The boat would probably be open air, but they could always carry extra filters with them I suppose. I doubt the base wouldn't be without some kind of aquatic propulsion, so they could probably maneuver close to any floes in order to minimize the amount of time spent away from it.

I don't think methane should burn or combust at those concentrations, but it'll probably be rather shortlived in an oxygen rich atmosphere; there must be a large amount of organisms producing it through photosynthesis or something. Same would go for ammonia.

Interesting. I was wondering about that. I didn't think it would combust at those concentrations either, but I'm still looking for reasons why it would. Better to double check than forget about it. I was thinking that the majority of animals perform photosynthesis, but almost all of them do so as a secondary source of nourishment.

5% argon?! What is this? Planet made up of nuclear waste?

Yeah. Yeah, pretty much.

And 18% oxygen? You got life on the planet or what?

Yeah. Yeah, pretty much.

0.5% methane, 10% CO2? That's gonna be some nice global warming.

Yeah. Yeah, pretty much.

Also, you have a lot of oxygen and hydrogen and no water?!

Yeah. Yeah, pretty- wait, no. I thought we were clear that this was an ocean planet?

Even though Argon is primarily a result of radioactive decay, isn't that continually going on inside active planetary cores? If I recall correctly, 99% of the atmospheric Argon which composes 1% of our atmospheric composition is Argon-40 which is a stable isotope. So yes, it would be nuclear waste technically, but if you meant it being radioactive itself, its not. Its actually nice for a planet of nuclear waste. On another note, Argon is much more plentiful in the cosmos compared to say, Xenon.

There is photosynthetic life on this planet, most in the form of some animals. I'm not going to discuss the feasibility of photosynthetic life on another planet just yet, that's for after I finish all the planetary parameters.

As for global warming, its not like this is on the inner edge of the habitable zone. Its also orbiting a red dwarf, which emit most of their radiation as infrared. I've been reading articles until my eye bleed about the habitability of red dwarf systems. A few of them, as well as the wikipedia page dedicated to it, agree that a thick, greenhouse gas rich atmosphere is required to effectively circle the heat absorbed by the atmosphere from its parent star. Though these models counted the planet as tide locked. Styx and Elysion are tide locked to each other, so there are 'days' and 'nights'. That along with a thick atmosphere is needed to keep the temperature in. Its still cold enough in the poles for large ice caps to from, and there is quite a lot of free floating icebergs of all sizes. I'd imagine that would help regulate the temperature as well.

And if I didn't state it before, Elysion is an ocean planet.

Yeah, I'm certainly throwing around numbers, but I'm not particularly versed in any of this and am researching as much as I can. My babbling will get better with time, if you're willing to put up with it for that long.

Indeed, but at least 5% is better than 23.15%...

Certainly. I don't know what I was thinking with that number. I just sorta threw it in there. Its a little more acceptable now though. I definitely need to redo the surface pressure though. I had found a formula for calculating pressure based on proportional molar concentrations today, but I forgot to bookmark it :dry:. Avogadro's law or something? Or is that partial pressure?

Albedo might offset this, but it can only go so far. Might work out if the planet was a bit further out though...

Even if I had worked out the distance from Tartarus, I'm always open to changes if it'd make it more believable. That's still up for debate though.

A rather large margin of the albedo comes from the ice caps and floes. I suppose the oceans would reflect a little light too but I don't think that really matters on a global scale.

EDIT:
10% CO2 is about 263 times the amount of CO2 we have in our own atmosphere. 5% is about 27933 times the methane we have in our atmosphere...

And it will pack a bigger punch due to the higher presssure.

Oops, I think you might have made a mistake. Elysion's atmosphere is composed of 0.67% methane, which is 3743 times the methane in our own. Argon's the one that's 5% concentration. Still not too sure on the pressure. I'll revisit that when I can find how to find the atmospheric pressure based on molecular composition and other facts.

Thanks again for the help.