Hi there, I love this site. Been lurking for a while. I thought of this scenario at work and am very curious what would happen (just approximately is fine).
So, planet Earth gets swung away from the solar system by a passing black hole.
- In what kind of timeframe does the Earth’s atmosphere freeze into a thick layer around the Earth with no external sources of heat? Not necessarily asking for an exact answer, but would it happen in minutes or months?
About how thick would the layer be in its frozen form?
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Can planet Earth maintain liquid water indefinitely at the bottom of the ocean from just its own heat that it outputs at its core? (until the planet gets destroyed)
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An advanced civilization constructs a dome to live in that can contain an atmosphere, a water cycle and an oxygen cycle (but they can also take oxygen from the frozen atmosphere outside). The heat is generated by a nuclear power plant with an output capacity 10,000 MW. Ignoring other problems and applications of the power plant, how large of an area could such a reactor keep at room temperature assuming perfect energy efficiency and insulation of the dome (just for ease of calculating)?
I am mainly curious if this is something like 10 square km or more like 1000 square km, or even a million?
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what other major problems would there be for them? they have invented a light source that simulates the sun, allowing proper photosynthesis and thus the growing of food. So they have food, water that they can “mine” from outside and they can purify their own liquid waste, and oxygen and other atmosphere components that they mined outside. And a large stack of fuel for their nuclear reactor.
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would geothermal heat still reach the surface (indefinitely)? since the surface is so cold.
Thanks a lot for your time.