#ScienceFiction is informed by #Science
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you're talking about the three body problem
yes, orbital systems with three or more objects tends to instability
but this is only true for orbital systems where the three bodies are roughly the same size
any remaining objects that are planets are little more than a tiny rounding error in gravitational pull, so that situation can be stable
you can even have trinary star systems that are stable
usually of the form: two up close, one at a distance orbiting the other two
@benroyce @rozeboosje The Alpha Centauri system, our celestial neighbor, is one of these, methinks.
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@benroyce @rozeboosje The Alpha Centauri system, our celestial neighbor, is one of these, methinks.
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@benroyce
Yes. There's quite a few celestial sarabandes out there.
@rozeboosje -
@benroyce
Thanks to the two of you I just did some reading up and learned that Proxima Centauri, a red dwarf barely larger than the planet Jupiter, actually has planets--in the habitable zone. Exciting!
@rozeboosje -
@benroyce
Thanks to the two of you I just did some reading up and learned that Proxima Centauri, a red dwarf barely larger than the planet Jupiter, actually has planets--in the habitable zone. Exciting!
@rozeboosje -
@benroyce
But hey, let's do Breakthrough Starshot!
@rozeboosje -
#ScienceFiction is informed by #Science
And Science in turn stares at Science Fiction, nods, and smiles broadly
"On ‘ #StarWarsDay’, researchers more than double the number of potential known ‘circumbinary’ planets like the fictional Tatooine, home to Luke Skywalker"
A circumbinary planet is a planet that orbits two suns
More than half of all stars exist in binary star systems or star systems with even more than two stars
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2026/may/04/scientists-discover-27-potential-new-planets
@benroyce I always remember reading "our sun is a very average yellow star" and now we say "our sun is an uncommon lone star, unlike most stars which exist in multiple systems"
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@benroyce I read an article recently that explained that such systems are inherently unstable and such planets are bound to either end up being swallowed by one of the stars or yeeted out of the system. But do you think I can find it now? Can I 'eck.... sorry
There are two possible stable states for a planet in a binary system:
A planet orbiting relatively close around one star, with the stars separated widely.
And a planet orbiting relatively far away around both stars, with the stars very close together.
The latter state looks very much like Star Wars' Tatooine.
Both are varieties of "hierarchical systems", which can have three or more stars as long as everything is paired up at appropriate distances.
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yes!
you can even have stable quadruple star systems
Capella, the sixth brightest "star" is a binary system orbiting another binary system
@benroyce @rozeboosje This is not at all uncommon. Castor, Alpha in the Twins (Gemini) is sixfold. Stable systems like this typically are binaries of binaries, where the 'inner' binaries are small members of an 'outer' binary, so for the purpose of celestial mechanics, the may be treated almost as point masses. A bit like, when modelling the solar system as a whole, you may consider the Earth-Moon system a single planet.
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#ScienceFiction is informed by #Science
And Science in turn stares at Science Fiction, nods, and smiles broadly
"On ‘ #StarWarsDay’, researchers more than double the number of potential known ‘circumbinary’ planets like the fictional Tatooine, home to Luke Skywalker"
A circumbinary planet is a planet that orbits two suns
More than half of all stars exist in binary star systems or star systems with even more than two stars
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2026/may/04/scientists-discover-27-potential-new-planets
It seems worth noting that the film Star Wars was released before any planets had been discovered outside of our own solar system.
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R relay@relay.mycrowd.ca shared this topic
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@benroyce @rozeboosje This is not at all uncommon. Castor, Alpha in the Twins (Gemini) is sixfold. Stable systems like this typically are binaries of binaries, where the 'inner' binaries are small members of an 'outer' binary, so for the purpose of celestial mechanics, the may be treated almost as point masses. A bit like, when modelling the solar system as a whole, you may consider the Earth-Moon system a single planet.
@benroyce @rozeboosje And then there is Mizar. Astronomic history!
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It seems worth noting that the film Star Wars was released before any planets had been discovered outside of our own solar system.
but it kind of makes sense doesn't it? it just follows logically
unsupported as yet by science (we've only seen a few), but it just "makes sense":
that interstellar space isn't empty, but riddled with gas giants
stars, essentially, not massive enough to ignite. just sitting there in the dark
they should outnumber the number of stars. just as a sheer result of gaussian distribution, and those that ignite are on the right side of the curve in size
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@benroyce @rozeboosje This is not at all uncommon. Castor, Alpha in the Twins (Gemini) is sixfold. Stable systems like this typically are binaries of binaries, where the 'inner' binaries are small members of an 'outer' binary, so for the purpose of celestial mechanics, the may be treated almost as point masses. A bit like, when modelling the solar system as a whole, you may consider the Earth-Moon system a single planet.
it's alien to us. with our single star
but in the wider galaxy, we are the alien ones
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@benroyce @rozeboosje And then there is Mizar. Astronomic history!
did you hear about this one?
septuple system
(!)
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but it kind of makes sense doesn't it? it just follows logically
unsupported as yet by science (we've only seen a few), but it just "makes sense":
that interstellar space isn't empty, but riddled with gas giants
stars, essentially, not massive enough to ignite. just sitting there in the dark
they should outnumber the number of stars. just as a sheer result of gaussian distribution, and those that ignite are on the right side of the curve in size
@benroyce It's an interesting hypothesis, and testable! Given that we're all orbiting the giant black hole at the center of the Milky Way, and orbits closer to the center are faster than ours. Stars closer to the center would occasionally be occluded by these 'dark giants'. That would show up in our repeated observations. Those occlusions would completely block the star, unlike planets orbiting the star.
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but it kind of makes sense doesn't it? it just follows logically
unsupported as yet by science (we've only seen a few), but it just "makes sense":
that interstellar space isn't empty, but riddled with gas giants
stars, essentially, not massive enough to ignite. just sitting there in the dark
they should outnumber the number of stars. just as a sheer result of gaussian distribution, and those that ignite are on the right side of the curve in size
@benroyce There's all sorts of things that can make dark gas glow. Even gravitational interactions. If dark gas existed in such huge lumps, we should be able to occasionally see the glow even if the stars don't get ignited up properly.
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@benroyce It's an interesting hypothesis, and testable! Given that we're all orbiting the giant black hole at the center of the Milky Way, and orbits closer to the center are faster than ours. Stars closer to the center would occasionally be occluded by these 'dark giants'. That would show up in our repeated observations. Those occlusions would completely block the star, unlike planets orbiting the star.
not only testable, but in 4 months NASA is launching a craft to look for rogue planets/ brown dwarfs/ solitary gas giants sitting there in the dark (among other things)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nancy_Grace_Roman_Space_Telescope
named after Nancy Roman:
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@benroyce There's all sorts of things that can make dark gas glow. Even gravitational interactions. If dark gas existed in such huge lumps, we should be able to occasionally see the glow even if the stars don't get ignited up properly.
that's rather creepy
"why is there a faint glow nearby... and why does it seem to trace a path heading towards us"
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that's rather creepy
"why is there a faint glow nearby... and why does it seem to trace a path heading towards us"
@benroyce Must be the Sky Coyote's bright eyes on their way to some new tricksting!
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not only testable, but in 4 months NASA is launching a craft to look for rogue planets/ brown dwarfs/ solitary gas giants sitting there in the dark (among other things)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nancy_Grace_Roman_Space_Telescope
named after Nancy Roman:
@benroyce
ooh, neat. Yeah if you could see the lensing you'd be MUCH more likely to see one as that would eliminate the need for a conjunction. Still I'm wondering if we could sift through snaps from Kepler and get lucky.
