Topic: binary star systems

[kolpo]

I love the idea of two stars. My Cataphant creature (which I'll put up soon) lives in a binary star system, in which a non-active brown dwarf orbits a very active red dwarf. The Cataphon planet is orbitting the inactive star but the red dwarf produces enough heat to energize the planet.

In that example wouldn't the brown dwarf simply rotate around the red dwarf but would both instead rotate around a common barycenter. Depending on the mass of both objects could this result in a very variable distance between the brown dwarf and the red dwarf, making the temperatures of your brown dwarf planet/moon also very variable. You can see a simulation of how double stars behave depending on mass relation here: http://instruct1.cit.cornell.edu/courses/astro101/java/binary/binary.htm You clearly see that the distance between the 2 stars varies a lot. Thought live could possible adapt to this by doing a wintersleep or by moving between the north and south depending on the current temperature(like birds do).

Thought it's an interesting idea to have live on a brown dwarf it's moon/planet, maybe could the brown dwarf itself radiate enough heat for your planet or generate at least enough heat to help your planet survive the cold periods when the red dwarf is far away from the brown dwarf. Jupiter, Saturn, and Neptune already produce more heat then they receive from the sun. Brown dwarfs have 12-89 times more mass and they fuse deuterium(not sure how much extra heat that would produce).
The tides created by the brown dwarf would be gigantic(similar with how Jupiter it's tides transformed IO in an extremely unstable planet with quite constant volcanic eruptions) just like it's magnetic field. Could a planet/moon of a brown dwarf be close enough to have habitable temperatures without becoming a second IO where constant volcanic eruptions and magnetic fields make live impossible?

It is believed that there is a gigantic amount of brown dwarfs, so even if there is only a very small chance that one has a habitable planet could there still be many We know only 10% of the galaxy it's predicted mass and some people believe that most of the remaining 90% are brown dwarfs, that's a lot of dwarfs

[Brutus]

inother words, make the barycentre the ocation of your planet.

[Sporific]

In that example wouldn't the brown dwarf simply rotate around the red dwarf but would both instead rotate around a common barycenter. Depending on the mass of both objects could this result in a very variable distance between the brown dwarf and the red dwarf, making the temperatures of your brown dwarf planet/moon also very variable. You can see a simulation of how double stars behave depending on mass relation here: http://instruct1.cit.cornell.edu/courses/astro101/java/binary/binary.htm You clearly see that the distance between the 2 stars varies a lot. Thought live could possible adapt to this by doing a wintersleep or by moving between the north and south depending on the current temperature(like birds do).

Thought it's an interesting idea to have live on a brown dwarf it's moon/planet, maybe could the brown dwarf itself radiate enough heat for your planet or generate at least enough heat to help your planet survive the cold periods when the red dwarf is far away from the brown dwarf. Jupiter, Saturn, and Neptune already produce more heat then they receive from the sun. Brown dwarfs have 12-89 times more mass and they fuse deuterium(not sure how much extra heat that would produce).
The tides created by the brown dwarf would be gigantic(similar with how Jupiter it's tides transformed IO in an extremely unstable planet with quite constant volcanic eruptions) just like it's magnetic field. Could a planet/moon of a brown dwarf be close enough to have habitable temperatures without becoming a second IO where constant volcanic eruptions and magnetic fields make live impossible?

It is believed that there is a gigantic amount of brown dwarfs, so even if there is only a very small chance that one has a habitable planet could there still be many We know only 10% of the galaxy it's predicted mass and some people believe that most of the remaining 90% are brown dwarfs, that's a lot of dwarfs

LOL, when I first read this I thought you were totally bashing me so I typed up a defensive response, but then realized you were helping me out a bit.

Yeah, I haven't completely thought it through but basically what I imagined was that solar flares and such from the red dwarf caused reactions in the brown dwarf that would make it periodically sprout up just enough heat to keep the planet okay. During the periods when Cataphon is in extreme cold, which last about fifty days a year, they do indeed hibernate. As for tides, Cataphon has no oceans but does have many, many small lakes which are kind of holes in the land mass. Since they are not large enough to create real tides, the brown dwarf causes the lakes to flood constantly, which is something Cataphans use to their advantage. Haven't thought about the volcano thing, any ideas?

[Brutus]

a planet in that positon would have active volcanoes becauase the gravitational friction from being inbetween 2 planets would make the inside molten, this has happened with jupiters first moon,
a planet in that position would be to hot for all but the toughest of life, a moon and jupiter can make a planet as active as earth so 2 stars would create a massive amount of energy and make the planet incredibly active,

[qyasogk]

inother words, make the barycentre the ocation of your planet.

the gravitational forces of two suns pulling at your planet would turn your planet in a moon like Io at BEST, and more than likely just rip it to shreds.

[Brutus]

inother words, make the barycentre the ocation of your planet.

the gravitational forces of two suns pulling at your planet would turn your planet in a moon like Io at BEST, and more than likely just rip it to shreds.

oh yeah, i forgot, but i am still correct with . . . . .

a planet in that positon would have active volcanoes becauase the gravitational friction from being inbetween 2 planets would make the inside molten, this has happened with jupiters first moon,
a planet in that position would be to hot for all but the toughest of life, a moon and jupiter can make a planet as active as earth so 2 stars would create a massive amount of energy and make the planet incredibly active,

[Sporific]

Well, if Spore is as good as I hope it is, my planet will find a way to adapt!

[Brutus]

the fact is spore wont be this realistic so yes, you can just put your planet in the barycentre because i seriously doubt that gravity will play much of a part alone, and the engine would have to be revolutionary to work out and animate when and what a planet will look like when its being ripped apart by gravity.

[Samog]

the fact is spore wont be this realistic

Could you remind me when the devs started ignoring Will Wright's wishes?

[Brutus]

i am sorry but i can not see the engine being so realistic as being able to simulate a real space, its just not gonna happen, none of this complex stuff about planets being ripped apart or gravitational friction (i know i pointed that out) would be involved it would ruin the game for everyone who doesnt know alot bout space.

[slugfly]

smoke and mirrors man, smoke and mirrors!  A computer program would have to be decades beyond ours to determine how a planet would explode and how the consequent ring would form around the sun...  but it's being done anyway.  It's all smoke and mirrors.  I hope that gravity from nearby bodies (beyond the obvious ones like moon around sun and anything around blackhole) do have an effect.  And yes, it would have to be watered down to a degree but that doesn't have to mean it should be absent.

[Brutus]

well thats exactly what i'm saying, but after you blo up a planet there is a ring but its not as complicated as a real ring.

[Daxx]

well thats exactly what i'm saying, but after you blo up a planet there is a ring but its not as complicated as a real ring.

No, what you're saying is that the planet won't be ripped apart in the first place. How do you know that? You're not on the dev team, last time I checked.

[Stromko]

If it was going to explode by its very existence (a planet so placed that it would be ripped apart by gravity) then it would have exploded already and thus not be simulated in the game anyway. It's like saying the game needs an engine to determine what happens to a man that is inherently made of dynamite and inherently on fire... he would instantly cease to exist so what's the point?

But everything's probably orbitting something if you look out far enough, just say the brown dwarf that your planet is orbitting is indeed orbitting a red star, but is far enough away that the planets in its orbits are not ripped to shreds but also so far away that the red dwarf isn't actually visible on the screen.  Does it all really matter if you can see it on the screen? It's just background flavor really. Okay I suppose that people who download your solar system won't get it, but.. then they can't stare at their screens in shock and say 'wait that's impossible because of <scientific explanation>' either.

I'm no astronomer but I think that should be plausible, the red star might have less relative pull on the brown dwarf because of the distance involved, but if the brown dwarf is moving parallel at the proper velocity then it should be pulled in at just the right speed that it can be thought of as orbitting. edit: Hrm I guess this also means your planet would be lit by whatever glow a brown dwarf causes instead of the light of a distant red 'dominant' sun, so I suppose it matters. I can't say binary star systems are a bad idea because it can have at least a visual effect, and I believe a lot of scifi has actually involved planets with multiple stars, so I wouldn't call this idea toast at all.

[slugfly]

It's like saying the game needs an engine to determine what happens to a man that is inherently made of dynamite and inherently on fire...

lmao!!  talk about being born under a bad sign!