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Tatooine or Endor

Oh yes, I heard about this planet. I think they wanted to call it Gallifrey (since it also has two suns) but then decided not to.
 
S & S,


I saw the article about the twin stars and it did make me revisit my memory from childhood.


My memory, some seventy years old at this time, is still present but details have become somewhat muddied.


At this time, I can not be certain of which one was higher in the sky in that memory, but I am sure that there was not as much size difference as is shown in this set of star-twins.
 
Hi Ken,


I don't think the picture given is to scale. All the article says is that one sun is slightly larger than our sun and the other slightly smaller. However, I don't think it would matter much in terms of the memory. If they looked close to the same size in that particular memory, that could just be because your planet was (at that point in orbiting the two suns) closer to the smaller one than the larger one. A more important question may be unanswerable in terms of your memories. I.e., there are definitely some memorable aspects to being in orbit around a gas giant. You might want to check out some of the art work projecting what it would look like to have Jupiter in the sky as seen from some of its various moons. Assuming that your planet was not locked up by gravitational forces so that it perpetually faced the gas giant, there would be times it would be up and times it would not, but it should definitely be a memorable sight. There should also be times when it blocked the light from at least one of the suns (and maybe both)--i.e., I think you'd get some kind of eclipse or eclipses falling on the sunward side of the planet at least once during each orbit around the gas giant.


Anyhow, interesting stuff. This is actually more hopeful to me in terms of habitability than a variety of other worlds that have been located, as the gas giant is in the "habitable zone" around the two stars. However, I have to wonder about radiation, since Jupiter has a huge radiation belt. Maybe our hypothetical planet has a really effective magnetic field of its own to shield it. If so, I'm wondering whether very large and colorful auroras would be present. Any memories there?


Cordially,


S&S
 
Hi your own self S&S,


I'd like to say that I know more about this, but the fact is that it was just a memory that was triggered one day while glancing at the sky when I was very young; I can tell you where I was standing and which direction I was looking. I am pretty sure that my Dad was home at that time so I had to have been either nearly six or nearly eight since he was in the navy (WWII) when I started school until I was finishing the second grade.


My remembered vision showed two completely round light sources, so a "cold" planet could not have been the second "sun" that I was seeing i.e. the full-moon can not be seen during the day because the "bright" side faces the sun.


The book "Worlds in Collision" told about occurrences that could account for that vision happening here on Earth; it also explains a few odd happenings that appear in the Bible. Another thing to keep in mind is that inhabitants of another planet would not necessarily be vulnerable to hazards that we are.
 
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