Having read TFA, I am interested why the authors hypothesise that the precipitation is as solid rocks. Intuitively, it would make more sense that it would be in a liquid phase (while I have no idea of what pressures would exist on the planet, and am no geologist, liquid rocks seem to exist across temperature ranges in excess of 100's of degrees here on earth.)
Admittedly, the article does seems to imply that there is no rotation of the planet, and thus gaseous rock migrating to the super-cold side might (possibly) precipitate rapidly.
In fact, would this imply that there is a large scale migration of rock from the sunward side of the planet to that opposed to the sun (and would this in turn alter the fundamental planet shape? I envisage dinnerplate planets...)
Slashdot Mirror
Having read TFA, I am interested why the authors hypothesise that the precipitation is as solid rocks. Intuitively, it would make more sense that it would be in a liquid phase (while I have no idea of what pressures would exist on the planet, and am no geologist, liquid rocks seem to exist across temperature ranges in excess of 100's of degrees here on earth.) Admittedly, the article does seems to imply that there is no rotation of the planet, and thus gaseous rock migrating to the super-cold side might (possibly) precipitate rapidly. In fact, would this imply that there is a large scale migration of rock from the sunward side of the planet to that opposed to the sun (and would this in turn alter the fundamental planet shape? I envisage dinnerplate planets...)