Lore: where do all the asteroids come from?
Posted: Thu Jul 15, 2021 2:26 pm
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:
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?
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:
Would each miners be able to process more than 12 per year? In Oolite we can "mine" many asteroids in a single day...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.
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?
