09-06-2016, 09:31 AM
I think a significant factor for habitability would be how volcanically active it is, if we consider the snowball earth episodes.
If it is in a 3:2 or 5:2 resonance and was mostly covered by oceans like Earth, an ice-albedo feedback loop that results in the planet freezing over is a serious possibility. That happened to Earth several times despite the fact that the sun is more active.
On Earth, the snowball earth episode ended due to volcanism causing CO2 buildup in the atmosphere, since a snowball Earth has no water vapor in its atmosphere and thus no rain-induced weathering process that could remove CO2 from the atmosphere.
If it is volcanically active and has the right earthlike mix of continents and oceans, maybe this planet might be stuck in a loop of repeating snowball episodes due to the lower insolation?
If it is in a 3:2 or 5:2 resonance and was mostly covered by oceans like Earth, an ice-albedo feedback loop that results in the planet freezing over is a serious possibility. That happened to Earth several times despite the fact that the sun is more active.
On Earth, the snowball earth episode ended due to volcanism causing CO2 buildup in the atmosphere, since a snowball Earth has no water vapor in its atmosphere and thus no rain-induced weathering process that could remove CO2 from the atmosphere.
If it is volcanically active and has the right earthlike mix of continents and oceans, maybe this planet might be stuck in a loop of repeating snowball episodes due to the lower insolation?
The maximum propulsive efficency of a variable specific impulse rocket is equal to its propellant mass fraction, regardless of delta-v or power source.