Thursday, October 14, 2010

Gliese 581g and a Purple Sky.


What would the sky or even a sunset on Gliese 581g look like, considering a Red dwarf star with a surface temperature of 3700 F?

Purple and the clouds would create a Purple Haze or mist, with rain falling in a purple darkened sky.

Seriously, no joke.

The sunset would be that region between the light side and the dark side of the tidally locked planet with the sun overhead, just if one was wondering or asking the question "Wait, how can there be a sunset or twilight region on a tidally locked planet?"

2 comments:

Paulie said...

I think it's a little premature to be thinking about it's atmosphere!

Not that I'm any expert, but I think the color of the sky on Gliese 581g would ultimately be based on the composition and density of it's atmosphere.

In our solar system, the three terrestrial worlds all have different colored skies. Venus's thick, carbon dioxide and sulfur dioxide atmosphere casts an orangish tint. Our blue sky is nitrogen scattering sunlight. Mars, with it's thin atmosphere, has a pink sky, mostly due to the oxidized iron blowing in the wind.

Since Gliese 581g is not a transiting exoplanet, we may never know for sure what it's atmosphere is like, and any speculation about it's sky is just that: speculation.

Fun to ponder though, huh?

Jerry M. Weikle said...

Yeah, it is interesting what the sky color would look like on a distant world.