The Steppenwolf: A proposal for a habitable planet in interstellar space

[james_davis_nicoll]

Via Randy McDonald:

The Steppenwolf: A proposal for a habitable planet in interstellar space

Rogue planets have been ejected from their planetary system. We investigate the possibility that a rogue planet could maintain a liquid ocean under layers of thermally-insulating water ice and frozen atmosphere as a result of geothermal heat flux. We find that a rogue planet of Earth-like composition and age could maintain a subglacial liquid ocean if it were ~3.5 times more massive than Earth. If a rogue planet had about ten times higher water mass fraction or a thick cryo- atmospheric layer, it would need to be only ~0.3 times the mass of Earth to maintain a liquid ocean. Such a planet could be detected from reflected solar radiation and its thermal emission could be characterized in the far-IR if it passed within O(1000) AU of Earth.

Comments

[scott-sanford.livejournal.com]

Get your planet going
Head out of the system
Looking for adventure
In whatever comes your way

Yeah, darlin'
Gonna make it happen
Take the world in a love embrace
Fire all of your guns at once
And explode into space

This is interesting, but there's no commentary on how long this is stable. Without insolation, I suspect it is not viable over deep time. Millions of years, yes, but hardly a good idea for the really long haul.

On the other hand, this would make a breathtaking brute force generation ship.

Decelerating at the other end seems problematic.

[johnreiher.livejournal.com]

Sounds like Bronson Alpha and Bronson Beta on the road again!

[oh6.livejournal.com]

That would have made for an interesting alternative fate for the iced-over planet in Across the Sea of Suns, although it doesn't really fit the story.

[joenotcharles.livejournal.com]

"The Mondas", surely?

[dbdatvic.livejournal.com]

There's also a McAndrew Chronicles story related to this (Charles Sheffield), titled _Rogueworld_. The rogue world is not warm at the start of the story...

--Dave