Talk:Planet 4546B/@comment-68.3.121.86-20161028004321/@comment-32248490-20170609235725

Rarely have I seen someone impart this much stupidity, with this much confidence, even among fans which seem to read way too much into arbitrary decisions made by game developers.

'''tl;dr: The post I'm responding to is entirely wrong on absolutely everything. The fact that 4546B has Earth-like gravity, an atmosphere comfortably breathable by humans with atmospheric pressure similar to Earth's, daytime illumination similar to Earth's and a water ocean means that its mass, radius, atmospheric composition and element abundances are all Earth-like. The fact that the player can eat creatures from the ocean raw means that their makeup is close enough to Earth's lifeforms that they might as well be simply an evolutionary offshoot. That means it's carbon-based life and hence has similar requirements. The apparent size and color of the parent star from 4546B's surface is similar to the size and color of the Sun, which means it must be similar in size and type.'''

It's a game, the devs aren't scientists and they have clearly not been advised by scientists. Speculation is fun but let's keep it real: the dev's intelligence has nothing to do with the scientific accuracy of the game. It's just a game and most stuff will be the way it is for artistic convenience.

The poster makes the classic mistake of assuming that simply because a mechanism can, in principle, exist, it must therefore be capable of accounting for the scale of an effect it is supposedly responsible for. They also make the mistake of proposing multiple explanations both separately as sufficient to account for the scale and allowing them to exist combined, which means they have no understanding of proportion or scale of what they propose. It can't be everything at once, but if some of it is an adequate explanation, you have to explain why the other mechanisms no longer provide the amounts previously stated.

Original post follows.

Here's a breakdown on why you're 100% wrong and clearly scientifically illiterate:

"judging by the curvature of the planet"


 * how exactly did you judge anything by the curvature of the planet? In-game there is no curvature except whatever illusory curvature may exist due FOV calculations for the perspective projection of the viewport. If you were to take that illusory curvature as real, you'd have to assume all boxes and rooms are curved when they're at the edge of your field of view.


 * If you're referring to the loading screen image, nothing can be inferred about the curvature other than that the planet is likely as spherical as any other planet. You have no size reference from that image. Even the Aurora is at an unknown distance from the planet in that image - it could be very close to a small planet or very far from a large one.

"along with the comparison of it to Gliese 1214B"


 * That comparison is some wiki edtor's speculation. They even claim "both appear similar in appearance" when we don't even know the color of Gliese 1214B. The "may be based on" part in that entry should have clued you in on the fact that this is entirely speculative. You should also have looked up how rough the interpreted information is on exoplanets before making a comparison like that and thinking you can make any assumptions based on it, especially one in all caps.

"With the size in mind, the depth of the Inactive/Active lava zones, which could only exist if directly linked to the core of the planet, is VERY close to the surface, in comparison to areas like it on Earth- Where the outer mantle of the planet is exposed to the elements."


 * Why is planet size linked to how close to the surface you'd observe volcanic activity like that? Which data set of planetary observations are you basing this on? You have no reason to assume that this would be the case. Additionally, if you're assuming the planet is larger than the Earth, wouldn't that mean, simply by proportion, that the expectation would be the exact opposite, allowing for more room between the surface and heavily active volcanic zones?


 * If you look at what scientists say about other terrestrial planets, you'll notice that the size of the core and the planet are not correlated strongly enough for you to assume any proportionality of the sort.


 * Actual astrophysical hypotheses allow volcanic activity even at the surface of a planet. On Earth, we have volcanic activity on the actual rocky surface as well as practically any depth underwater including locations far deeper than the regions explored in Subnautica.


 * Exposed to the elements? You mean, like water? 4546B's mantle is exposed to the elements. Parts of it are even above the surface if that's what your stupid theory needs.

"With that knowledge, I can make the assumption that the majority of heat on Planet 4546B comes from the core."


 * That's not knowledge, that's a set of assumptions. You don't even know the difference between that, it seems.


 * Why can you make that assumption? You're assuming that you somehow know the ratio of the magnitudes of energy sources that contribute to the planet's surface temperature. You also claimed that the moons can reflect back light from the planet, heating it up. If you were not scientifically illiterate, you might know that this phenomenon has a name: Planetshine


 * That article also has interesting numbers. Especially indicating that oceans reflect less sunlight than dry land and 50% of planetshine is due to clouds. So a planet covered in water is going to reflect less light, so why wouldn't I pull some random numbers out of my own ass and say "I can make the assumption that the majority of the heat on Planet 4546B comes from planetshine and therefore a very hot star!". Oh by the way, I didn't find any indication that any appreciable amount of heat comes from planetshine - and btw, all heat due to planetshine would still be due to light coming from the parent star and have to deal with losses due to the reflection being diffuse as well as atmospheric losses - I recall the reflectivity of the Moon's surface being 0.12, so imagine how much energy is lost in the process, while still having to be enough to maintain Earth-like temperatures. You've effectively assumed a star so bright and powerful it wouldn't care about the the moon reflection's contribution at all.


 * If you're going to take the game at face value, why ignore the tiny length of day? Why ignore the extremely frequent solar eclipses that completely remove the parent star's light? If we're going to ignore the scale of phenomena, as you like doing so much, might as well say the solar eclipses are keeping the planet cool and preventing it from overheating!


 * For reference, here's some sources that indicate heating via a planet core is negligible: How much does earth's core contribute to temperature? - How much heating Earth inner core provide to the surface?


 * At this point, we might as well assume most of the planet's heat comes from metabolism if we're going to arbitrarily assume the star itself is not contributing much. Facts talk louder than speculation: existing astrophysics and planetary science says the surface temperature will be determined practically 100% by the parent star's light.

"Science has shown that planets can, indeed, become inhabited, if they have water (Or something very similar to it) somewhere on the surface, recieve even a TINY bit of sunlight, and the heat on the planet is maintained by the core."


 * Has "science" really shown that? Because it seems like one more thing you've pulled out of your ass. What we do know however is that amino acids can form even in outer space, so hey, if we're going to pull shit out of our ass, we might just say that life can just evolve anywhere out of anything supported by any heat source, even random atmospheric turbulence.

"Taking a look at the atmospheric aura in the loading screen, I can tell that Planet 4546B has a lighter, or, at least, less dense atmosphere, comprised of similar elements that Earth's atmosphere is made of, hence the blue-ish hue to the atmospheric aura of both planets"


 * So, you can tell by an artist's rendition of an atmosphere that looks identical to the Earth's, of a fictional planet, for a game that is clearly not intended to be specific about these details, what the atmospheric composition is?


 * Since it looks identical to Earth's atmosphere from as much as we can see, you can't say it's "lighter" or "at least less dense" than Earth's atmosphere. Nothing at all indicates this to any extent. In fact, a larger planet with more mass and therefore higher gravity, would be likely to have higher atmospheric pressure at sea level, read: a denser atmosphere, not the reverse.

"And we all know what curving, clear things can do: Magnify- Hence the larger-looking mother star."


 * This has to be by far the stupidest thing you've said so far. You think the atmosphere is magnifying the star to make it look larger across the entire day as it moves across the sky? You think the atmosphere acts like a clear lens? Oh boy...


 * This would have to apply to Earth's atmosphere as well. Since the magnifying effect would be due to the shape of the atmosphere and said shape would be the same for all planets, assuming they're roughly spherical and additionally the density is clearly going to be similar to Earth's atmosphere with similar composition, if 4546B's atmosphere acted as a lens making the star significantly larger in apparent size from observation at the surface, then we on Earth would not be able to measure the Sun's radius accurately from the surface. But we can. It's easier from space because there's no atmospheric turbulence, but turbulence is what you get, not linear magnification. Instead you get refraction that may make large objects like a parent star look flat at the horizon and modify their apparent position. But that would be only at the horizon and it is not without distortion significant enough to make it clearly different than when the parent star would be overhead at noon.


 * Here's some reading material:


 * Atmospheric Optics - Sun and Moon size Atmospheric Refraction Magnification at the Astronomical Horizon

"Hopefully that explained everything."


 * You can't make up explanations. That's why couch science doesn't work and isn't a job description. You not only explained nothing but made it necessary to write a lengthy post correcting you since apparently yours made some people think it's brilliant and for that I cite the previous comment "10/10 theory".