Requiem: Silence
A SciFi Graphic Novel, Updates 5 days a week.
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We know the planet has a molten core, still spinning, as we have a useable atmosphere, so we have magnetic protection against solar winds. I must look for a planetoid moon, because the satellite imagery of Starfall shows what could be a deep trench off the South-East (?) side, implying a possible Theia collision in the far past, which would have ejected a significant portion of the planet’s crust.
Do we have oceanic tides? Yes of course we must, the Sun alone will give us them. But a big Moon would be useful.
There is a moon, similar in size to Luna. It’s been shown in the sky in a few comics.
If I recall correctly, there is evidence of a collision with something big enough to deform the planet. This planet is slightly football shaped, and the continents are the points at the ends. I’m pretty sure that the oceans are VERY deep in the middle.
You may be right also. An impact big enough to break the crust, on the impact side AND at its antipodes, would result in a couple of supervolcanos.
All the above subject to correction from the author, he knows how he made this world, I’m just working from memory of reading it.
Yes, I was wondering about the “Starfall” name. Given the overhead photography, which makes interpretation difficult, I can well imagine a massive M-type asteroid (mosly metallic, with a lot of iron) about the same size as a city office-block and massing say a million metric tonnes — 10^9 Kg — approaching and falling perpendicular to the planetary surface. This would have a velocity in the region of 50 – 100 Km/s, depending whether it came out of the Asteroid Belt or the Oort Cloud
Of course, this is not in any sense a Theia Collision, but could conceivably deform the planet to an ovoid shape, especially at the higher approch/impact velocity. A Theia Collision is a low-angle “almost missed” impact, which will spray a lot of crustal material into orbit around the planet, but can result in the Theia object (it has to be a small or minor planet) embedding itself into the target body. In the case of Earth, the ejecta coalesced over some eons into our Moon.
A Theia Collision leaves the home planet uninhabitable for many eons, but the Starfall impact effects would only last a couple of millennia at most. Due to the damage caused by a Theia Collision, I doubt that any planetary deformation would last long, as such a massive collision would certainly restore enough elasticity to the planet that its own gravity would restore the classic spherical shape.
For what it’s worth, we don’t often think about the causes of Tectonic Drift once sufficient crust has been removed. But Lunar gravity makes a wonderful stirring spoon. A planetoid moon also can be held resposible for the origin of life and its evolution due to the oceanic tides. (IMHO, panspermia is not a thing, if only because it “shifts” the origin problem to some fantasy la-la land, eliminating the need for US to work out the solution.)
Instead of Theia hitting head-on, this model has it sideswiping us and tearing out a great gob of material, but in such a way that it hangs together and regathers into a globe. The whole process of forming the moon could have taken only hours or days!
https://www.nasa.gov/feature/ames/lunar-origins-simulations