(Untitled)

[lairian]

So, I'm attempting to calculate the habitable band of a solar system based off of a star's luminosity and radius (currently discounting multistar systems).

This article quotes a lot of factors, but notes at the bottom that a band can be calculated by finding the expected temperature at a given distance from the star based on luminosity: if the

Comments

[keshian]

I have some Traveler and GURPS books with detailed systems of planetary and solar system design. I'll dig them up before packing them away and see what they say. You're welcome to borrow/peruse them if you like.

[lairian]

I wouldn't say no, certainly.

[adnate]

I'm pretty sure the latter information is correct about needing to adjust for reflection of solar energy.

[lairian]

Well, using Wikipedia's values for Sol (Mass = 1.989E12 zettagrams, radius 6.955E8 meters, and temperature 5778 Kelvin), I get a calculated 3.841E26 Watt luminosity (vs. wikipedia's 3.846).

Plugged into the above formula for T = 273 and 373, I get a habitability band of 1.1156 AU to 2.0826 AU.

Assuming albedo of .37, that changes to 0.7028 AU to 1.3120 AU. Still not quite a match anyway. Further, it means I have to find a way to get an albedo for a body with arbitrary surface and atmosphere to have even a halfass attempt at modeling a band.

I'm starting to think your assessment is right, though I'm still hoping for someone to have a "you're doing it wrong" moment.

[thesmallwonder]

You don't post and all you have to say is Math XD?

>;p Miss you, and hope you're doing well!

[thesmallwonder]

*don't post for months...

wooo tying in the mornings.

[lairian]

Well, my life isn't very exciting really.

Nothing happens for months at a time, easily.

this is a response from my smart boyfriend

[chironsoldier]

Is this for a game? If so, I'd say stop right there and start coming up with random numbers. It's just too hard to get the astrophysics perfect. It's hard enough to even find reliable equations, but most of the time they are oversimplified for the layman and don't really work in practice. The albedo problem is really a huge thing, there's no way to tell what the temperature of a planet is going to be like without knowing its atmospheric composition and many other parameters. The second link brings up a lot of the gotchas for this particular problem, but the reality is that you'll find these gotchas in every single equation you look at.

Here's a good link for random numbers: http://starfrontiers.us/node/3518

Re: this is a response from my smart boyfriend

[lairian]

I'll put random numbers where things become incalculable, and when I do, I'll make them accessible via an init file, no problems there