About the planets of firefly

POSTED BY: KayleeRulesAll
UPDATED: Friday, August 26, 2005 20:16
VIEWED: 5203
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KAYLEERULESALL

Friday, August 26, 2005 4:55 AM

As some may recall, i posted a few days ago about the unlikelyness of a system with so many freakin' planets. well, a hobby of mine is astronomy, so i and a former professor of mine crunched some numbers. it looks that it is scientifically possible for a star, similar to the sun, to have approxamately 70 planets or moons with a rocky surface between 108 million miles and 714 million miles away from the star. this just happens to be the habitable zone for our star, if one where to expand it slightly, which would allow for any terraforming tricks, like greenhouse gasses in the upper atmosphere to increase surface temperature.

So, in conclusion, the firefly system could actually be out there right now...

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"There are two infinate things in our world. The universe, and Human stupidity. I'm not too sure about the first one." Albert Einstien

GOPHERMUNCHER

Friday, August 26, 2005 5:04 AM

cool beans. How exactly do you crunch numbers? what variables go into the crunching?

KAYLEERULESALL

Friday, August 26, 2005 5:13 AM

basically what we did was see how far apart planets had to be from each other to not pull one another apart with thier gravity. once we did that, we established an average planet mass ( we used the mass of mars for planets and the mass of earth's moon for moons.) and realised we could cram about 70 of them in the space between 108 million kilometers from the sun and 714 kilometeres from the sun, as long as a large number of them were moons because by making a lot of them moons of other planets, they fit in alot better because moons are smaller, therefore less gravity, and they dont take up nearly as much space as planets do.

*takes breath*

and that was pretty much it. Now the kicker is probibilty. while this system could exist, its far more likely all the dust in the birth of the system would all congeal into about five, maybe 6 planets of decent enough mass to terraform. so the the colonists from Earth had to be pretty damn lucky to find a system like that in the first place!

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"There are two infinate things in our world. The universe, and Human stupidity. I'm not too sure about the first one." Albert Einstien

COSMOLINE

Friday, August 26, 2005 6:03 AM

Aren't a lot of the planets just big moons, though? There could be ton of them around a gas giant.

KAYLEERULESALL

Friday, August 26, 2005 6:32 AM

thats exactly my point. makes it more possible to have them there if they are moons. they take up less space and such.

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"There are two infinate things in our world. The universe, and Human stupidity. I'm not too sure about the first one." Albert Einstien

CITIZEN

Friday, August 26, 2005 10:50 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by KayleeRulesAll:
and that was pretty much it. Now the kicker is probibilty. while this system could exist, its far more likely all the dust in the birth of the system would all congeal into about five, maybe 6 planets of decent enough mass to terraform. so the the colonists from Earth had to be pretty damn lucky to find a system like that in the first place!

Most of the bodies would have to be moons of larger gas giants (or indeed moons of hapitable planets?), and captured bodies...

Thing is wouldn't that many bodies in such a comparitivly small area of space still be a problem. Okay they are far enough apart not to rip each other apart with gravity, but wouldn't they distabalise each others orbital path?
As a rather pedantic sidenote, why in night scenes in FireFly don't we see all these other planets, being so close together wouldn't you see them?

Q: What do you have when you are holding two little green balls in your hand.
A: Kermit's undivided attention.

KAYLEERULESALL

Friday, August 26, 2005 2:21 PM

both very good points. they would be very close, and yeah, you might think that their proximity would make them go all crazy orbitally. which is partially true; except that nature has a great way of balancing things out. all the gravitational interaction would fuss with the orbits, but they would still be stable. they may be far more elliptical than regular orbits; some may even be closer to triangles with rounded off corners--but all the orbits would be stable. at least, one 19 year old girl with a passing interrest and a 62 year old biology professor with a telescope have found. we may be wrong, who knows? allthogh, we did do about 2 hours worth of research on orbital properties and gravity.

for the next quiestion, the answer would be yes if you were in a system of moons. for example, if you were arund a gas gant with lots of moons, would would see:
1. the gas giant
2.the moon you were going to/coming from/whatever
3. and other moons close by.

the thing is, those other moons would be far enough away to be little more than bright dots. but yes, that is one incongruity; occasionally there would be another moon close enough to see. but maybe not that often, which could ecplain why we havent seen that yet. Remember, space is big, folks.

about seeing other planets--well, yes and no. they wouldnt be as big in the night sky as you might think. the closest planet might appear to be about the size of an M&M held up at arm's length against the sky, and it would be pretty much a blurry disk, thanks to atmospheric effects. kinda easy to loose something like that in something like a whole sky. the farther ones would just appear as solid white spcks, as the other planets in our system appear to us here on Earth.

anywho, at this point, i personally would rather not pick it apart any more. im afraid if i do, it might ruin something for me. Thank you all for your interest, though; i appreciate the questions!

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"There are two infinate things in our world. The universe, and Human stupidity. I'm not too sure about the first one." Albert Einstien

JEREMY757

Friday, August 26, 2005 2:52 PM

There is nothing to say that it can't be a binary star with star #2 orbiting star #1 beyond its planetary rings and having its own planets orbiting it.

KAYLEERULESALL

Friday, August 26, 2005 3:04 PM

very true. mine was just one explanatiion. im sure others can work.

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"There are two infinate things in our world. The universe, and Human stupidity. I'm not too sure about the first one." Albert Einstien

CITIZEN

Friday, August 26, 2005 3:06 PM

Tnx muchly for the reply, you've got me interested so I may look in to it myself...
Just thought tho, that the average distance between bodies, based on 70 bodies in the habitable zone of 606 Million kilometers would be about 8 Million Kilometers, thats pretty close in orbital terms...
So some planets may appear quite large in the night sky.
Is all.

Q: What do you have when you are holding two little green balls in your hand.
A: Kermit's undivided attention.

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