Steve Jackson Games - Site Navigation
Home General Info Follow Us Search Illuminator Store Forums What's New Other Games Ogre GURPS Munchkin Our Games: Home

Go Back   Steve Jackson Games Forums > Roleplaying > GURPS

 
 
Thread Tools Display Modes
Prev Previous Post   Next Post Next
Old 10-18-2017, 03:38 PM   #9
a humble lich
 
Join Date: Jun 2017
Default Re: [Space] Triple Full Moons

Putting some numbers in, the moons are so close, I think they could be visible. You're right that they are inside the Roche limit, although for the farther moons they are close to the limit, so they are probably small captured asteroids. If the closest one is the size of Phobos (i.e. about 20 km) and Lerrom is about earth-sized, then Moon A will subtend an arc of about 0.18 degrees. For comparison, our moon subtends 0.5 degrees, so Moon A would be a little smaller than half the size of our moon.

The Roche limit also depends on the density of the satellite, so if these moons are captured asteroids with a high iron content, they could be bigger.

I'm wondering what tides are like. If the moons are tiny there won't be much tides, I calculate for the case of Phobos being Moon A the tidal acceleration from Moon A would be about 1% of what Earth gets from our moon. However, if the moons are larger and denser, that would go up.
a humble lich is offline   Reply With Quote
 

Tags
astronomy, mathematics, moon, moons, space

Thread Tools
Display Modes

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

BB code is On
Fnords are Off
[IMG] code is Off
HTML code is Off

Forum Jump


All times are GMT -6. The time now is 05:44 PM.


Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.8.9
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, vBulletin Solutions, Inc.