Taking a planet's temperature

ThomTygger

I have enjoyed using AstroSynthesis and am looking forward to getting a lot of use out of it. I have a question when it comes to tweeking a planetary system. I have noticed that when placing a new planetary body into the system or moving a planet to a different orbital distance, the mean planet temperature does not change or it is left at 0C. Is there a function that will recalculate that, based on the new distance from the star or a formula that I can use to calculate that manually to insert?

Thom T.

Ed_NBOS

You'd need to manually set the temperature to the desired value. Temperature calculation is fairly complex - its not solely based on distance to the star, and the effect of atmosphere feeds back on itself and actually alters the atmosphere, which in turn affects the temperature, so its not something that can be recalculated.

ThomTygger

Thanks, I had hoped there was something "simple" out there. I have been working on the black body temperature formula, but the factoring in of the "green house" effect and planetary generated temperatures is turning out to be more of an art form than a simple coding issue.

Did want to add that I have enjoyed your program very much and am looking forward to using the 3D capabilities in my games.

T.