Lore: where do all the asteroids come from?

[Milo]

In Oolite, we have a populated galaxy with established systems. Asteroids presumably were formed eons ago when the systems themselves coalesced. How many exist? How many have already been mined of all valuable resources by the start date of the game? How many remain?

At least 500 systems have been colonized for 634 kilodays (one cimian kiloday is around 10% shorter than 3 modern years - assuming that the Oolite day is similar to the modern day) or around 1711 of our Earth years.

Let's assume just 100 miners per system, "consuming" one asteroid per month per miner. While some asteroids might be faster, some large ones might take years, so this is probably not a correct average, but let's see where it goes... 12 asteroids per year per miner = 1200 asteroids in each system consumed every year. If the total number of asteroids is 6 million, 6m / 1200 = 5000 years to consume all asteroids in each system. By this reckoning, we are 1711 years into a 5000 year timeframe to consume all asteroids in 500 systems, or roughly one third of the way there.

Is this conservative or optimistic?

Our solar system has perhaps 4 million asteroids larger than 1 kilometer, if I interpret the below information correctly, plus unspecified millions more of smaller sizes.

Would there be more than 100 active miners in each system? I think yes. Hard to support a lot of economy around mining operations (such as justifying the existence of rock hermits) if there aren't a lot of miners, not to mention with how frequently we see ships destroyed in Oolite there must be an incredible amount of industrial production to replenish the supply, which creates demand for resources most likely coming primarily from asteroid mining, giving rise to as many miners as can find profit in meeting that demand... I could see there being thousands or even tens of thousands of active miners in a given system, given millions of asteroids available for them to mine.

For reference, see https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/asteroids- ... ler%20ones.

Excerpt:

Asteroid Classifications
Main Asteroid Belt: The majority of known asteroids orbit within the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, generally with not very elongated orbits. The belt is estimated to contain between 1.1 and 1.9 million asteroids larger than 1 kilometer (0.6 miles) in diameter, and millions of smaller ones. Early in the history of the solar system, the gravity of newly formed Jupiter brought an end to the formation of planetary bodies in this region and caused the small bodies to collide with one another, fragmenting them into the asteroids we observe today.

Trojans: These asteroids share an orbit with a larger planet, but do not collide with it because they gather around two special places in the orbit (called the L4 and L5 Lagrangian points). There, the gravitational pull from the Sun and the planet are balanced by a trojan's tendency to otherwise fly out of orbit. The Jupiter trojans form the most significant population of trojan asteroids. It is thought that they are as numerous as the asteroids in the asteroid belt. There are Mars and Neptune trojans, and NASA announced the discovery of an Earth trojan in 2011.

Near-Earth Asteroids: These objects have orbits that pass close by that of Earth. Asteroids that actually cross Earth's orbital path are known as Earth-crossers.

Would each miners be able to process more than 12 per year? In Oolite we can "mine" many asteroids in a single day...

Given all of this, and considering asteroids are a finite resource, I can't help feeling some doubt as to why there are still any asteroids available for us to mine. Why haven't they all been consumed hundreds of years ago?

[Redspear]

Fudge-factor handwavery to follow:

Because (maybe)...

Rather than a finite, in system, resource to be extinguised there is occasional asteroid creep from outside of the system i.e. replenishment.
Terraforming/colonising both benefitted from active mining to reduce planetary and/or geostationary impacts.
Would there have been more asteroids in systems in the past? Almost certainly yes. Would they ever become truly exhausted? Likely no.

Just a quick theory but one that eliminates the need for the bean counting.

BTW, good question!

[Cody]

Rather than a finite, in system, resource to be extinguised there is occasional asteroid creep from outside of the system i.e. replenishment.

None of the 'known' planetary systems within each octant are closed systems? Yes, that would fit nicely.

[Milo]

Apropos of interstellar asteroids, https://www.scientificamerican.com/arti ... h-in-2014/ and https://www.centauri-dreams.org/2020/04 ... her-stars/ (and comment threads) and rebuttal https://arxiv.org/abs/2006.04534. Conclusion? Unlikely any (significant?) population of new asteroids would arrive from out-of-system to replenish local supply.

Any "wanderers" by definition would have evaded gravitational capture by their system of origin and might similarly evade capture by any system they pass through, which means they wouldn't be "asteroids" (not orbiting the local star). Perhaps some such wanderers pass through our solar system from time to time, but we don't have good evidence of any yet.

[Cody]

Perhaps some such wanderers pass through our solar system from time to time, but we don't have good evidence of any yet.

ʻOumuamua

[Milo]

I stand corrected. We've found two so far, apparently? 2I/Borisov being the other.

Still, these aren't replenishing asteroids, they are temporary visitors.

Look at this animation:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2I/Boriso ... system.gif

[Cody]

Attempting to apply real world astrophysics to the Ooniverse is futile.

[Cholmondely]

Who said Physics had anything to do with it?

When Ebortsa failed to prevent the Holy Jens, Vicar of The Eight, Co-ordinator of the Celestial Codes of Creation from attaining the beatific state of Maximal Occultation, he was mugged by his fellow demons.

See http://wiki.alioth.net/index.php/Eborts ... ucky_charm for the famous painting

His mugging led to the corporeal dismemberment of parts of his physical body - asteroids, in other words. Asteroids, truly, already existed, but this process led to a major increase in their number, spread across The Eight. Rather like Prometheus, Ebortsa, endowed of semi-divine (demonic if your prefer) plenitude, regrew the dismembered parts of his bodily corpus which have ever since been systematically plundered by his fellows and strewn with gay abandon across The Eight.

There are rumours that those closest to the Witchpoint contain the ichor of Ebortsa himself, which can be distilled and sold for fabulous prices to the makers of the lucky charms (one small drop goes a very long way...). Hence the constant traffic from station to witchpoint - despite the dastardly depredations of the buccaneers.

The Dubious Prophet may have once hinted that the Followers of the Witchspace Lobster have a very different take on all this, but you will have to ask him yourselves...

[Redspear]

Any "wanderers" by definition would have evaded gravitational capture by their system of origin and might similarly evade capture by any system they pass through, which means they wouldn't be "asteroids" (not orbiting the local star)

In game terms it it's made of minerals and is in space then it's an asteroid, the rest is semantics I think.

Still, these aren't replenishing asteroids, they are temporary visitors.

Mining any 'asteroid' renders it temporary

That said, maybe 'replenishment' doesn't offer enough but then rate of mining could vary enormously.

• System government (safety of mining)
• Proximity to rock hermit (safety and concentrated harvesting)
• Prior draconian mining laws
• Prior unavailability of mining lasers: Tech Level = 11
• Prior low sale value of minerals

Any (or even all) of the above could play havoc with the kind of estimations you're talking about. Even if we started counting only from the time of the player then it's as if the asteroids are aither breeding or not being mined at all.

My rescaling experiment was partially to make such immersion breaking observations much less obvious.

[Nite Owl]

How about something similar to the KUIPER BELT and the ORT CLOUD and the HILLS CLOUD as potential sources for migratory asteroids in the systems of The Eight. Granted in our neck of the woods most of the objects in these regions tend more towards the Iceteroids end of things but that may not be the case in the The Eight's systems. If similar regions of space do exist around the The Eight's systems they could be filled with a more rocky type of body. Such regions in our system tend to be stable without much migration. It is possible that in The Eight the more rocky inhabitants of such regions tend to be more like the Wildebeest of the Serengeti in that they migrate on a regular basis thus replenishing the rocky asteroids of a given system.

[Cholmondely]

Would it help matters if our planetary rings had real rocks in them?

[stranger]

According to Wiki total mass of inner asteroid belt in our Solar System estimated as 2.8...3.2*10^21 kg (about 4% of Moon mass).
Annual steel production in 2019 was 1870 Mtons (1.87*10^12 kg per year).
Assuming that
1. Only 1% of asteroid mass can be converted onto useful metal (~ 3*10^19 kg)
2. Future space based economy can increase steel production tenfold (~ 3*10^13 kg per year)
we have enough store for 1 MY metal production!
So asteroid mass is not limiting factor for space industry.
Limiting factor is workforce. 100 asteroid hermits or so for production of such volume of metal? Really? Metallurgy was not individual business since Industrial revolution. Ooniversum needs giant space based mining and processing complexes to feed space based industrial economy.
The game is not about economy of megacorporations, of course. It is about individual free trade and piracy. Several dozens or hundreds of asteroid hermits are just tiny fraction of real mining industry, hidden from player.