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To all SSC Station occupants

Thank you for the donations over the past year (2024), it is much appreciated. I am still trying to figure out how to migrate the forums to another community software (probably phpbb) but in the meantime I have updated the forum software to the latest version. SSC has been around a while so their is some very long time members here still using the site, thanks for making SSC home and sorry I haven't been as vocal as I should be in the forums I will try to improve my posting frequency.

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-D1-

Planetary radius / diameter

(@bugbear)
Trusted Member

This is kind of a comination of questions...

    [*:3u3p3zjw]Is the planet radius or diameter displayed anywhere? I can see the planetary mass vs 1 Earth but not size.

    [*:3u3p3zjw]When I select a planet as my destination, and I'm in high orbit about the planet, is the distance displayed the distance to the surface, or to the centre of the planet?

Cheers.

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Topic starter Posted : December 16, 2010 15:57
(@s2odan)
Noble Member

I don't think that is shown anywhere,(Radius). Except for if you land on a planet, the distance it gives you is the distance to the center, IE Radius. And height above land is shown on bottom right.

ReplyQuote
Posted : December 18, 2010 03:47
(@danvir)
Active Member

If you look in the view that shows the orbits in the system (the one that allows you to speed up time and watch how the planets orbit) and select a body, it will show you the radius in km. And actually, the radius of the planet doesn't necessarily correspond with the mass, I've found a number of planets that only had about half the Earth's mass yet were actually larger than Earth in terms of their radius. This is to be expected, as the composition of a planet obviously has a large impact on its mass (planets made of heavier elements will be heavier).

It's worth taking a look in that 'orbit' view, it also shows a planet's distance from their parent star (or a moon's distance from its parent planet) in km as opposed to AU.

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Posted : December 18, 2010 08:21
(@unclebob)
Estimable Member
Quote:
I've found a number of planets that only had about half the Earth's mass yet were actually larger than Earth in terms of their radius. This is to be expected, as the composition of a planet obviously has a large impact on its mass

You also have much higher densities on heavier planets due to gravitational compression.

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Posted : December 18, 2010 23:46
(@bugbear)
Trusted Member

Ah there it is. Found the planet radius. Thanks very much!

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Topic starter Posted : December 21, 2010 17:57