What sort of atmosphere would develop around an asteroid colony?

In the not too distant future, mankind has established several mining bases on Ceres. There are a lot of spaceships which come and go. Large mining machines are chewing up the interior for resources. Ceres has become a busy frontier trading station, with most colonists living and working underground.

My question is, what will the atmosphere above the mining towns, and around Ceres as a whole, possibly look like?

Despite the obvious very low pressure of any atmosphere, I expect a lot of dust from mining activities will remain floating about, due to the very weak gravity. In addition to dust, there will be exhaust gasses from spaceship engines and thrusters, colony waste dumps, and leakages, all swirling around in the near zero-g environment. What might this actually look like?

A good answer will help me relate the amount of fog and dust hanging around to the size of settlements, if this dust cloud will spread far, last a long time, have any thermal effects, and most critically, what impacts it may have on visibility. I am interested to know if it will all just dissipate quickly, or if it will hang around like smog, will it be invisible, a mild haze or an impenetrable fog, and so on. Rigorous math is not required, but realistic guesstimates are greatly appreciated.

posted almost 5 years ago

Innovine‭

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