Lonely ‘homeless’ planet found for the first time

Re:Lonely ‘homeless’ planet found for the first time by JoeAltmaier on Thursday November 15, 2012 @01:44PM (#4790052)

I'm not convinced our atmosphere would freeze at all; it would be winter but the stable temperature is hard to calculate as you say. Antarctica hasn't gotten appreciable heat in millennia and the air isn't freezing there. I know, convection brings some warm but still.

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Re:Lonely ‘homeless’ planet found for the first time by dalke on Thursday November 15, 2012 @06:06PM (#4791335)

The premise to the story is impossible, so it's hard to criticize the author for thinking that the entire atmosphere would freeze.

http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/pdf/10.1175/1520-0442(1997)0... says that the the Antarctic Circle gets about 120W/sq. meter averaged over the entire year. That's about what I expected since sin(23.5 degrees)snow albedo of 0.63 months/12 months * 1000 W / sq. meter solar power -> 60 W/sq. meter. While not a lot, it's still appreciable.

Assuming everything is radiated out to space, Stefan-Boltzman says that (5.670373e-08)T*4 = 120 W/sq m. => T = 214K, which means Antarctica would have a overall average temperature of about -60C, if only due to solar heating.

Interestingly, "Other scientists have estimated that temperatures on any possible permanently lit spot [on the Moon] would be comparatively balmy, though still a frigid minus 58 Fahrenheit (-50 Celsius), give or take a little." This is in concurrence with my calculation.

Which means that solar heat alone is enough to explain why the temperature does not get to the -180C needed to liquify oxygen.

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