How big could a solar system feasibly be without the sun being so big the nearest planets would be ashes, or the farthest worlds beyond the gravity to orbit properly? Could you ever exceed ten planets, like ours (or however many they've decided currently)?
Granted not technically an rpg question, but it's pertinent to my ideas
Quote from: Biscuitician;981067How big could a solar system feasibly be . . .
Define "big."
Greatest distance from star to furthest dwarf planet? Number of mutually orbiting stars which could feasibly have multiple planetary systems? Largest star to support habitable planets?
Quote from: Biscuitician;981067How big could a solar system feasibly be without the sun being so big the nearest planets would be ashes, or the farthest worlds beyond the gravity to orbit properly? Could you ever exceed ten planets, like ours (or however many they've decided currently)?
Granted not technically an rpg question, but it's pertinent to my ideas
You can definitely exceed ten planets. Theoretically, you could have hundreds of planets of some sort. However, unless there was some sort of cosmic engineering (a la Ringworld), that sort of setup would not be stable.
As for how likely it is for there to be much more than ours - that's a question still in debate.
EDITED TO ADD: You don't need a bigger sun to have more planets. A red dwarf could quite possibly have dozens of planets.
Supposedly, the multi-sun system used in Firefly was designed with advice from experts, and it has a lot more than ten planets:
https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0289/1534/products/QMx_FF_The_Verse_Front-1_1756x988_de9a78b5-eba0-455b-be64-b92a3a787cce.jpg?v=1401821925 (https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0289/1534/products/QMx_FF_The_Verse_Front-1_1756x988_de9a78b5-eba0-455b-be64-b92a3a787cce.jpg?v=1401821925)
Now if you're talking about systems with a single star, then Google would know a lot more than I would (shocking, I know).
Quote from: Black Vulmea;981070Define "big."
Greatest distance from star to furthest dwarf planet? Number of mutually orbiting stars which could feasibly have multiple planetary systems? Largest star to support habitable planets?
^This^
Our own Oort Cloud extends about a light year out from our sun. You need to define what you are talking about.
Quote from: Biscuitician;981067How big could a solar system feasibly be without the sun being so big the nearest planets would be ashes, or the farthest worlds beyond the gravity to orbit properly? Could you ever exceed ten planets, like ours (or however many they've decided currently)?
Granted not technically an rpg question, but it's pertinent to my ideas
First off all stars have a goldilock zone where water exist at it triple point (solid, liquid, and gas). The problem with the bigger stars is that they are younger, have a short lifespan, and often low in metal. All of which means planetary development is held back compared to smaller older stars rich in metal.
Binary system are very common, triples less so, and four star systems even more less common. But systems with four stars are very plausible.
The way multiple star systems work is that you usually have a main star that has a lot of the mass of the system. There are three types of companions. Close, medium, and far.
Close companions have very tight orbits and aside from the visual different just make the main star a little more hotter and brighter for planetary development. Far companions can be treated as their own star system that are accessible through normal in-system travel instead of being light years away.
The medium distance companion is where things get interesting. The basic rule of thumb that the main star and its medium companion can each have their own system as long as the planets are less than half the shortest distance or less between the two stars. Weird climate and lighting conditions can occur depending on close the two are. Then you take the maximum distance between the two and that where any outer planets that orbit both the main and the companion start to be found.
Two more consideration. It possible to have multiple inhabitable planet close to each if they are moons of a gas giant within the goldilocks zone. Likely they will be tide locked to the gas giant i.e there is one side always facing the gas giant unless they are further out.
For smaller stars like red M class stars or orange K class stars because the goldilocks zone is so close to the star the inhabitable planets will be tide locked to the star with one side facing it at all times. This will result in the inhabitable region being a band around the twilight zone of the planet.
Hope this helps. Let me know if you want anything further explained.
How big could a solar system feasibly be without the sun being so big the nearest planets would be ashes, or the farthest worlds beyond the gravity to orbit properly? Could you ever exceed ten planets, like ours (or however many they've decided currently)?
Why two threads on the same subject?
EDIT: Are you a bot?
Threads merged
Quote from: estar;981080First off all stars have a goldilock zone where water exist at it triple point (solid, liquid, and gas). The problem with the bigger stars is that they are younger, have a short lifespan, and often low in metal. All of which means planetary development is held back compared to smaller older stars rich in metal.
Binary system are very common, triples less so, and four star systems even more less common. But systems with four stars are very plausible.
The way multiple star systems work is that you usually have a main star that has a lot of the mass of the system. There are three types of companions. Close, medium, and far.
Close companions have very tight orbits and aside from the visual different just make the main star a little more hotter and brighter for planetary development. Far companions can be treated as their own star system that are accessible through normal in-system travel instead of being light years away.
The medium distance companion is where things get interesting. The basic rule of thumb that the main star and its medium companion can each have their own system as long as the planets are less than half the shortest distance or less between the two stars. Weird climate and lighting conditions can occur depending on close the two are. Then you take the maximum distance between the two and that where any outer planets that orbit both the main and the companion start to be found.
Two more consideration. It possible to have multiple inhabitable planet close to each if they are moons of a gas giant within the goldilocks zone. Likely they will be tide locked to the gas giant i.e there is one side always facing the gas giant unless they are further out.
For smaller stars like red M class stars or orange K class stars because the goldilocks zone is so close to the star the inhabitable planets will be tide locked to the star with one side facing it at all times. This will result in the inhabitable region being a band around the twilight zone of the planet.
Hope this helps. Let me know if you want anything further explained.
Thanks!
Quote from: jeff37923;981116Are you a bot?
Hi! This is a very interesting topic that my friends and I like to discuss. Check out these links . . .
You might start off with alot of planets and then end up with an asteroid field or two. Or some will get flung off into the void as the interactions play havoc.
Eventually you'll have a stable system with whats left. The main thing to consider is the composition and locations of the planets. If its a system with alot of planets. Like more than 10. Then theres likely a couple of gas giants in there like ours has. Or maybe a heavy gravity planet or two thats still habitable. Just really hard to live on untill later generations adapt. Same with low G but habitable planets. Colonizing these will pose medical problems.
Theres a program called Universe 3 or somesuch that allows you to play around with things like this. Theres even a few videos now with tests in it to see how many plenets you can viably cram into the habitable zone. And pretty sure there was one where they were playing around to see how many planets you could stuff into the sol system and still be stable.
Quote from: estar;981080First off all stars have a goldilock zone where water exist at it triple point (solid, liquid, and gas). The problem with the bigger stars is that they are younger, have a short lifespan, and often low in metal. All of which means planetary development is held back compared to smaller older stars rich in metal.
And here is where the OP really needs to define their terms. How many "planets" we can cram in to a system depends on awful lot on whether the conception of planet requires people (for various conceptions of 'people') to be able to breath naturally on the surface.
QuoteBinary system are very common, triples less so, and four star systems even more less common. But systems with four stars are very plausible.
The way multiple star systems work is that you usually have a main star that has a lot of the mass of the system. There are three types of companions. Close, medium, and far.
Close companions have very tight orbits and aside from the visual different just make the main star a little more hotter and brighter for planetary development. Far companions can be treated as their own star system that are accessible through normal in-system travel instead of being light years away.
The medium distance companion is where things get interesting. The basic rule of thumb that the main star and its medium companion can each have their own system as long as the planets are less than half the shortest distance or less between the two stars. Weird climate and lighting conditions can occur depending on close the two are. Then you take the maximum distance between the two and that where any outer planets that orbit both the main and the companion start to be found.
What I'd like to know is: How many habitable (let's say can house permanent pressurized settlements) planets (including moons, etc.) can we fit into a 1 parsec cube?
I've thought about a campaign set in a nebula where stars are closer together, and the interstellar medium is thicker, so bussard-ramjet-powered spaceships could cross between stars about 0.7 ly apart or something. But I'm not sure if that situation would also allow for the formation of planetary disks and so on. Any idea?
Quote from: Willie the Duck;981313And here is where the OP really needs to define their terms. How many "planets" we can cram in to a system depends on awful lot on whether the conception of planet requires people (for various conceptions of 'people') to be able to breath naturally on the surface.
I figure a concise overview of the topic would lead to specific questions.
Quote from: Willie the Duck;981313What I'd like to know is: How many habitable (let's say can house permanent pressurized settlements) planets (including moons, etc.) can we fit into a 1 parsec cube?
I've thought about a campaign set in a nebula where stars are closer together, and the interstellar medium is thicker, so bussard-ramjet-powered spaceships could cross between stars about 0.7 ly apart or something. But I'm not sure if that situation would also allow for the formation of planetary disks and so on. Any idea?
1) A Stellar nursery like the pillars of creation would have a hostile radiation environment.
2) The universe is big and there are galaxies with stars rotating in different orbits around the core. It possible for a random grouping of tightly packed stars to form for a period of time. In terms of possible configuration of various regions it will be very rare. But as a referee you can just say "The campaigns begin in one of those regions."
In the galactic core it common to see a cubic parsec to have a 100 stars packed in with an average of slightly less than 1/2 light year between them. Now the Galactic Core is a hard radiation environment but you can use that density as a starting point for the "chance" grouping I mentioned above.
Another options is the core of a globular cluster. A group of stars orbiting a common center of mass which in turn has it own orbit around the galactic core. Again chance has made this globular cluster have a very high star density.
Finally in the Milky Way, the average separation between stars is 5 light years.
The largest orbital radius known is about one trillion kilometers (http://www.cnn.com/2016/01/27/world/lonely-planet-largest-solar-system/index.html), over 620 Billion miles. That's about 169 times more than the average distance from the Sun to Pluto, which is around 6 Billion kilometers. So the answer is really big. Also, there are online calculators for figuring out the circumstellar habitable zone.
Quote from: Biscuitician;981067How big could a solar system feasibly be without the sun being so big the nearest planets would be ashes, or the farthest worlds beyond the gravity to orbit properly? Could you ever exceed ten planets, like ours (or however many they've decided currently)?
Granted not technically an rpg question, but it's pertinent to my ideas
Maybe someone here has Universe Sandbox 2 on their computer that can do a quick check?