Celestial Bodies

Johnny Angel · 06-17-2009, 03:23 PM

Here in the real world we have one sun and one moon. However, in many fantasy worlds, there are multiple suns and/or multiple moons... or even if there is still only one sun or one moon for a fantasy world, sometimes the set up is different from how things are here in our world.

I tried to google and find some answers about how certain differences in celestial arrangement might impact a world, but the majority of what I found were discussions talking about waves and ocean currents - which would be different indeed, but a little more information would be nice. I know that most such things are somewhat handwaved in fantasy and fictional worlds, but are there any studies that have been done to theorize what the effects of some of these fantastical and fictional set ups might actually realistically have? Also, of some of these set ups, what are some that are actually viable; what are some that aren't?

For me personally, in particular I have a few set ups which I have contemplated. I found some of my old notes from things I had apparently been working on during various times. (It's always interesting to me when I go through old notebooks.)

In one world concept the world was between two suns which were both of equal size and equal mass. Instead of orbiting around a sun like our world does, the two equal sized suns held the world in place, and it just sort of spun in place. This also meant that there was no such thing as night as we understand it; the darkest part of the day was more akin to dawn or dusk whenever a side of the world would be spun away from being directly facing either of the two suns.

In the current world I'm building, I've been fiddling around with a few different concepts, but I'm not entirely sure what I want to do yet. I'd like to educate myself a bit more on what some of the possible actual results would be from altering the celestial arrangement of a world's universe. I'm leaning toward having multiple moons, which by itself seems fairly easy to model. The arrangement of the moons would probably mainly just impact the oceans of the world, cause Lunacy to be a bit more problematic to a PC as a disadvantage, and slightly alter how the people of the world kept track of time. I had imagined one set up in which two twin moons orbited around each other as the pair both orbited around the planet together.

06-17-2009, 03:23 PM	#1
Johnny Angel MIB Join Date: Nov 2008 Location: Pennsylvania	Celestial Bodies Here in the real world we have one sun and one moon. However, in many fantasy worlds, there are multiple suns and/or multiple moons... or even if there is still only one sun or one moon for a fantasy world, sometimes the set up is different from how things are here in our world. I tried to google and find some answers about how certain differences in celestial arrangement might impact a world, but the majority of what I found were discussions talking about waves and ocean currents - which would be different indeed, but a little more information would be nice. I know that most such things are somewhat handwaved in fantasy and fictional worlds, but are there any studies that have been done to theorize what the effects of some of these fantastical and fictional set ups might actually realistically have? Also, of some of these set ups, what are some that are actually viable; what are some that aren't? For me personally, in particular I have a few set ups which I have contemplated. I found some of my old notes from things I had apparently been working on during various times. (It's always interesting to me when I go through old notebooks.) In one world concept the world was between two suns which were both of equal size and equal mass. Instead of orbiting around a sun like our world does, the two equal sized suns held the world in place, and it just sort of spun in place. This also meant that there was no such thing as night as we understand it; the darkest part of the day was more akin to dawn or dusk whenever a side of the world would be spun away from being directly facing either of the two suns. In the current world I'm building, I've been fiddling around with a few different concepts, but I'm not entirely sure what I want to do yet. I'd like to educate myself a bit more on what some of the possible actual results would be from altering the celestial arrangement of a world's universe. I'm leaning toward having multiple moons, which by itself seems fairly easy to model. The arrangement of the moons would probably mainly just impact the oceans of the world, cause Lunacy to be a bit more problematic to a PC as a disadvantage, and slightly alter how the people of the world kept track of time. I had imagined one set up in which two twin moons orbited around each other as the pair both orbited around the planet together.