Please Help Me with My Stupid Moons!

[Lucifer]

Hello again.

I received tons of help on my last thread asking for science and physics answers. Thank you so much!

Now I am falling on your mercy for help with this new puzzler. (I should just take a class and be done with it, I know.)

Here we go. Gymillrion has two fixed (non-orbiting) moons, Lundra at the north pole and the Huntress at the south pole. Lundra's Deity (a goddess) is destroyed, which messes up the gravitational pull of Lundra. This pulls the whole system out of whack. Ideally, I'd like to go through a series of changes wherein Lundra and the Huntress both move into orbit. Lundra winds up closer to Gymillrion and takes one day to rotate fully around the planet. The Huntress is further away and takes two days to rotate fully around the planet. Lundra will look very big in the sky with well defined craters, the Huntress less so. Every other night, a person on continent X will see two moons in the sky with a partial to full lunar eclipse.

Gravitationally, what needs to happen so this can occur? What will keep Lundra from smacking into Gymillrion? How will tides be effected? (Obviously, land will be lost without the moons pulling those deep waters to each pole. Luckily, this planet has no sea trade whatsoever, so not too many towns/cities/villages are coastal, although the ones along the rivers may well have a bit of trouble. I postulate high tide under Lundra and higher tide under Lundra and the Huntress combined.)

Does Lundra need more or less gravity?

While the moon are rearranging themselves, what will be happening physically on the planet? Chaotic waves, tsunamis, floods? What might be happening in the sky?

Finally, what will this do to the phases of the moon? Lundra will move through "normal" phases, like on earth, but what will the Huntress do?

Please help if you have some time and insight to spare.

A million thanks and I promise to acknowledge you all if this mess gets published.

Lucifer.

 

[dwndrgn]

I wish I could help! All I know about moons is what I see from here...they're pretty

Some of the other members who aren't as mentally challenged as I am should have better advice for you.

I just remembered reading an interview with an author who kept writing to the British Museum with questions (via email) and they were always prompt and very helpful. He actually started feeling bad because he basically hounded them with questions. Worth a try anyway! Maybe you could write to NASA

 

[Brian G Turner]

Gravitational harmonics is definitely something I've read about - but I'm afraid it was a long time ago and can't make any specific comments at the moment on effects.

What I would actually recommend is buying/borrowing a etxtbook for 16-18 year olds taking astrophysics courses - I'm sure I have one of those - and read through the sections on gravity and lunar systems to get a better idea of how some of the ideas might apply.

 

[scalem X]

Mmm well I can think of only one sollution:
statements:
the Huntress is attracted by Gymillrion (you can use magnetical or gravitational forces for this or even a home made force)
Lundra is rejected by Gymillrion (same for this force)
You need another sort of small moon or something that orbits along the equator of Gymillrion(if you want to make it that it looks statical you can state it orbits as fast as the planet turns around)(call it the BB). This(the BB) would attract Lundra and reject the Huntress.
So now you got your static (fixed) moons.
If Lundra would lose his gravitation (or other attraction), even just for one moment, The BB would get out of his orbit and or crash down on the huntress or dissapear into the universe. But before doing this it would attract Lundra and bring it to the one side of Gymillrion (in the direction of the equator) and it would reject the Huntress to the other side of Gymillrion (also in the direction of the equator).
This would then bring the worlds in almost circular orbits(more egg shaped orbits actually) around Gymillrion. You might have to assume that they both take an orbit in the same plane (the plane your sun is set in), you might just say that this is accidentical or give the explanation that the sun drives them all in the same plane.
Lundra is closest to Gymillrion and is rejected so it would fly away, but as it meets the Huntress who is attracted by Gymillrion (and both the Huntress and Lundra reject each other) it is just pressed close to Gymillrion. The same but different we can say about the Huntress since it is attracted by Gymillrion, but Lundra prevents it from crashing down on Gymillrion.

Yeah well that's the first explanation that came up to my mind.
(If you got problems understanding try to sign what I am trying to say and with some minor adjustments it would work (the distance between Lundra and Gymillrion is smaller than the distance between the Huntress and Gymillrion)
With the lunar eclipses you should be aware that if you use my explanation, you will have both a lunar eclipse (or two if you want to do them apart) at night and a normal eclipse (or two) during the day.
If you use my plan; Lundra will lose gravity for some time and then regain it afterwards. The planet will get gravity on one side and then on the other to establish the orbit. So you will get tsunamis and things getting all the water(and other things that aren't attached like dust) to one side of the planet and then slowly it will redivide itself again(the same thing will happen on Lundra).
For the phases of the moon, both Lundra and the huntress will have the same phases as we have with the moon on earth, but they will have all once and the other one twice a day.

This will probably not satisfy your needs (if you can get what my incoherent mind tries to explain you), but next time: create your universe before you create your story it is really much easier.