If a mountain could be high enough to reach the stratosphere, would it have a second snowline above which would be no snow, just bare rock?
If a mountain could be high enough to reach the stratosphere, would it have a second snowline above which would be no snow, just bare rock?
SHARKS (crossed out) MONGEESE (sic) WITH FRICKIN' LASER BEAMS ATTACHED TO THEIR HEADS
The density of granite is about 3500 kg/m^3 and its compressive strength is about 200 MPa; the limiting height would be on the order of 50,000 meters. Basalt is roughly similar in its structural properties.
My recollection is that it looked snowcapped but it was really exposed ring metal.
Cum catapultae proscriptae erunt tum soli proscript catapultas habebunt.
Later ...Fist-of-God Mountain had grown large without coming near. Bigger than any asteroid, roughly conical, she had the look of a snow-capped mountain swollen to nightmare size.
Grant Hutchison"But Fist-of-God is real, Louis."
"No, no, no. It's just a shell. Look down; what do you see?"
"Ringworld foundation material."
"We thought it was dirty ice when we first saw it. Dirty ice in hard vacuum! [...]"
Blog
Note:
During life, we all develop attitudes and strategies to make our interactions with others more pleasant and useful. If I mention mine here, those comments can apply only to myself, my experiences and my situation. Such remarks cannot and should not be construed as dismissing, denigrating, devaluing or criticizing any different attitudes and strategies that other people have evolved as a result of their different situation and different experiences.
There have been icing incidents in high flights, way above normal vapour, it is supposed that tiny ice crystals could be elevated. So ice at hight altitude might be possible, the difficult issue is whether it could sublime away faster than it arrives. The transport mechanism might be charge and magnetic fields way higher than normal atmospherics. If for sf you imagine a grounded mountain and crystals charged by solar radiation, then a kind of sputtering could happen, it would look rather beautiful.
sicut vis videre esto
When we realize that patterns don't exist in the universe, they are a template that we hold to the universe to make sense of it, it all makes a lot more sense.
Originally Posted by Ken G
Noctilucent clouds form at 80 km in the mesosphere and the amount of water vapor in the stratosphere is one of the factors that interacts with other factors to drive global warming. I don't know if there is enough moisture to cover the surface of a mountain but clearly there is some water up there.