#LHS noodles around the galaxy map

[lhs3020b]

I’m back to my slow replay of Mass Effect 2 Legendary, which also means that I’m back to finding mild scientific headscratchers in the galaxy map.

It’s obvious enough what happened to Laban - I don’t think any of us will have trouble filling in the blanks here. What’s not obvious to me is the apparent stability of free oxygen at a surface temperature of 384 degrees C? Shouldn’t it be reacting with the surface rock and, well, everything, basically? Because it’s oxygen and that’s what oxygen does? Especially superheated oxygen? Also, uh, where is all this oxygen coming from? There’s no suggestion of plant life on Laban, and while photodisassociation absolutely Is A Thing, I can’t really see it operating on quite this scale?

I’m also a little puzzled by all that helium. OK, Laban has a fairly high surface gravity and in fairness I haven’t cranked the handle on the numbers to get an escape velocity out, but I have my doubts about whether a terrestrial planet is going to be able to hold a lot of helium (and if it can, why didn’t its planetary embryo turn into a gas giant during the system’s formation?).

As ever, you have to be me to be puzzling over this stuff, but this is my Tumblr, so here we go again :)