Communities

Writing
Writing
Codidact Meta
Codidact Meta
The Great Outdoors
The Great Outdoors
Photography & Video
Photography & Video
Scientific Speculation
Scientific Speculation
Cooking
Cooking
Electrical Engineering
Electrical Engineering
Judaism
Judaism
Languages & Linguistics
Languages & Linguistics
Software Development
Software Development
Mathematics
Mathematics
Christianity
Christianity
Code Golf
Code Golf
Music
Music
Physics
Physics
Linux Systems
Linux Systems
Power Users
Power Users
Tabletop RPGs
Tabletop RPGs
Community Proposals
Community Proposals
tag:snake search within a tag
answers:0 unanswered questions
user:xxxx search by author id
score:0.5 posts with 0.5+ score
"snake oil" exact phrase
votes:4 posts with 4+ votes
created:<1w created < 1 week ago
post_type:xxxx type of post
Search help
Notifications
Mark all as read See all your notifications »
Q&A

Prevailing winds on a rotating space habitat

+0
−0

A common, matter-efficient science-fiction habitat is a hollow cylinder or ring in space that is spun to simulate the pull of gravity on its interior surface. These habitats have been imagined as small as a spaceship, mere meters in radius, up to a ringworld, 1 AU in radius.

Say we have a rotating space habitat designed to mimic Earth's gravity and atmosphere at sea level. Assume that the habitat has been rotating for however long it takes to reach whatever equilibrium state can be achieved. Will the rotational motion of the habitat generate winds in its atmosphere? In which direction will they prevail, spinward (with the direction of rotation) or anti-spinward (against it)? Will they circle the ring in a single direction or will there be antiparallel winds at different altitudes?

Ideally answers would be applicable to rotating habitats of various size, however, if the answers would vary widely between habitats please use a ring 10,000 km in radius for the answer.

Edit: There have been some previous questions about weather on rotating habitats such as my own What would the weather be like in an asteroid habitat? and Weather on a mini-ringworld/Banks Orbital. These questions are quite broad as weather is a complex subject, to put it mildly, and so were not very answerable. Here I have attempted to narrow the focus of the question to a single aspect of weather, the wind, in the hopes of generating more complete answers.

History
Why does this post require attention from curators or moderators?
You might want to add some details to your flag.
Why should this post be closed?

This post was sourced from https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/q/119918. It is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.

0 comment threads

0 answers

Sign up to answer this question »