Planet with 3 suns!

Seriously. More than Tatooine, I was reminded of the world of Marune, in Jack Vance's Marune: Alastor 933. The planet has three suns, each of which casts a different colour of light. The people in Marune order their lives according to a strict time-table based on the varieties of light provided by the suns singly or in various combinations. It's wonderful how the universe makes even the most far-fetched of sf writer's astronomical speculations come ture, somewhere or the other!
 
However, this one is a gas planet. It could have been a four-sun system aborted.

If it was a terran-like, give me the sun block and I'll be ready to move.
 
Triple stars as scientists think fit life very little because of higher instability of such a system. However, I remember Cicle of Fire by Hal Clement where he researches the possibility of life in double (?) system and constructs two forms of life each of them accustomed to the separate astronomic cycle (aphelion and perihelion of the 2nd component of the system). As far as I remember (correct me if I mistaken because I read the book 20 years ago) there were 2 different species co-inhabiting the planet. We may also suppose that the same species may undergo metamorphosis in order to survive critical climatic change or cyclically give birth to a generation fitting the changed conditions.
 
Hal Clement is one author I've been rather remiss in exploring - I do have a copy of his classic Mission of Gravity, but it has lain unread on my shelf for nearly a year now. I must remember to remedy that sometime soon - all this planetary speculation is fun, and it's been a while since I've indulged, diverted as I've been into more fantastic by-lanes lately.
 
I would call Hal Clement an orthodox sci-fi writer. His benefit is that he always researches thoroughly the effects of the worlds he creates.
 
I've written about a triple-star system as well in my main aspiring works - I think the biggest surprise would be if there weren't any.

The current level of understanding regarding plantary formation in science is just appalling.
 
Cool...:D

Right, my setting in a three-star system doesn't sound so stupid now...

(well, its really a binary system (long-range, distance between stars is from sun to pluto) with a brown dwarf orbiting one of the stars around where Earth would be)
 
Looks like a great place to open a new bar.... :D

That's amazing stuff Cal glad you posted this one..... :cool:
 
Beat the Costa del Sol any day;)

But yes, the lack of knowledge about planetary formation is quite shocking. I had always thought it was accepted knowledge that a planet such as this one was impossible:confused:
 
True I guess... the gravity would be quite complicated though, wouldn't it. Must be very rare.
 
A 3 sun system seems perfectly acceptable to me, if the planet orbits just one of the 3 suns then the gravitational pull from the other two may only affect it slightly or not at all meaning it is the same as our solar system in a way. The mechanics of a 3 sun system could become complex but visualising it is quite easy and so the idea is straight forward when you think about it and can picture the relationships between suns and planet.

However, what if a planet in a different system was being pulled by 3 suns equally and the suns were spread out at equal distances from one another, would the planet spin in it's own circle orbiting nothing??

Just wondering... :D

PERCON
 
The mechanics I believe would be pretty complex - if I recall, the "three body problem" is a classic chaos scenario in physics regarding gravity. Doesn't mean to say it's not possible, though. :)
 
I would have thought that the gravitaional forces exerted by 3 suns would be enormous and any life-bearing planets would be impossible... They'd mostly be burnt out rocks or gas giants... :D
 
You understand the problem a little bit wrongly, PERCON. Simply replace Jupiter and, well Pluto with the stars - that's it! In triple system one star is always a main component - all the rest go their orbits around it, and the orbits may be very long, and even not lie in ecliptic.
Gravitation? Generally agreeing with the Master, I should also admit that the gravitational force will depend upon the distances. Remember Newton: the force weakens in quadratic progression. Opportunities for life due to dramatic changes in gravitational forces and sources of radiation remain very narrow though.
 
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I might sound really daft here, but I need to ask... If there are three suns... who orbits who??? AND if it is a planetary star system with tertiary - or is it trinary(or even binary) stars, how do they orbit???
 
Well, the point here is distances.

The simplest (and more stable) example is when two subordinate components revolve around the main component of tertiary system. As I said above, in order to fix it in your imagination just substitute two giant-planets with two more suns, then just arithmetically expand the distances between them, and you will get more or less stable tertiary solar system. Jupiter and Saturn, and Uran etc. have their sattelites. All right, Jupiter transforms into sun ten times as bigger, move his orbit 50 astronomic units farther, enlarge his sattelites and expand their orbits in the same way, and you'll get a star-component with the planetary sistem of its own, and the main component ill also have its rock planets along with the sun orbiting in the same ecliptic, the add the third component in the same way. Rough example but it should work. Sirius is the example of such a triple system. Got it?
Less stable tertiary system is when the third component orbits around the second component that, in its turn, orbits the main component...
 
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