What can I see on the flyers' world?

Planetary conditions: ~0.5x Earth gravity (guess: 0.9x Earth density, 0.777x Earth radius, so about 0.42 Earth masses... but that's probably not important). Atmosphere broadly similar to Earth but ~10x surface density and pressure. Because of half gravity, scale height is 2x Earth, ~17km, so column mass of air ~20x Earth. Surface temperature also similar to Earth.

This is the sort of planet where it's easy to fly (hence my title). But what other effects does it have? Specifically, how does it affect what you can see?

Based on rough figures I've seen... I expect the optical depth will be greater than 1. Thus, you can't see stars on a clear night, and the planet's sun will be visible as an ill-defined bright patch as if through thin cloud. It won't be severe enough to prevent seeing to the horizon, though.

I'd like someone who knows the science and math behind this to check these conclusions and see if there are any other obvious effects I'm not thinking of.

posted almost 5 years ago

Tristan Klassen‭

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