Mission of Gravity -- Rapidly Spinning World

[Peter Toth]

Hi Guild!

I've been working on this new project since the beginning of the year and have made some decent progress (or not, depending on your perspective, lol). The maps below represent a conworld that spins in a period of just over 5 hours, as well as exhibits its own unique orbital and rotational elements, much like the world in Hal Clement's "Mission of Gravity" novel. I've decided to use this setting to create a large wall poster documenting a nearly impossible journey undertaken by a few inhabitants of this planet to "save the world" from destruction by a formidable foe. That formidable foe is something I haven't yet decided on; however, I'll update you when that detail has been finalized. The story's main premise is a gravitational gradient: as the characters travel towards the pole, gravity gradually intensifies (and climate becomes more frigid with gusty winds), making the journey more perilous than an equivalent journey on the earth.

Initially, I wasn't intending to post until after the final copy was complete, but realized this way I could get some feedback regarding the plausibility of my tectonics and geological features. I'm quite certain my map is riddled with features that are geologically implausible or just plain erroneous. Please point them out to me.

I've modelled the climate using Clima-Sim and calculated the ice lines for perihelion (red) and aphelion (blue). (The world has less than 5 degrees of obliquity but a highly eccentric orbit.) The graticules and atmospheric circulation cells are modelled from Nikolai's Worldbuilding Pasta, to which I owe a great deal of credit for both informing me and inspiring me. Thank you so much, Nikolai, and as soon as I reformat my Linux partition, I'll reinstall ExoPlaSim to see how differently it renders the ice lines and other climactic details. (And I'll buy you that exotic coffee as well!)






As you can see, the planet itself is quite oblate with flattening value of almost 0.1, compared to the earth's measly 0.0034. I've calculated a water bulge measuring over 1300 metres at the equator. (Will have to render that later.)

As you may have guessed, I'm attempting to render everything on this planet very accurately in terms of hard physics, so if you have any ideas or suggestions about what aspects to consider to make this project "complete," I'd like to hear them. By the way, does anyone know why the kinematic viscosity of air is inversely proportional to its density; i.e. denser air is less viscous? This doesn't make sense to me, but I need this figure to determine my atmospheric circulation pattern.

And one final note: some continents haven't yet been fully processed in Wilbur and look somewhat "poor quality," so please ignore that for now. Later on, I'll be creating some realistic terrain on every continent besides the main one.

At any rate, I hope you all enjoy these maps; it is my absolute pleasure to render them!

Peter