- #1
Tandem78
- 18
- 0
well, not quite... imagine an earth-like planet totally enclosed in a shell of some material which conducts heat and has near black-body properties both inside and out.
The shell is at a distance of some 100s of kilometres from the planet's surface. The shell is light enough so that it has no significant gravitational mass, and totally encloses the atmosphere.
The planet orbits a sun-like star at a distance of one AU. It has no geothermal source of heat.
The question is - is the planet's surface hotter than the shell? Or put another way, is there a temperature gradient in the atmosphere?
The shell is at a distance of some 100s of kilometres from the planet's surface. The shell is light enough so that it has no significant gravitational mass, and totally encloses the atmosphere.
The planet orbits a sun-like star at a distance of one AU. It has no geothermal source of heat.
The question is - is the planet's surface hotter than the shell? Or put another way, is there a temperature gradient in the atmosphere?