Rare system of five stars discovered
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Re: Rare system of five stars discovered
#2One more and a planet to go (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nightfall_(Asimov_short_story_..., https://www.uni.edu/morgans/astro/course/nightfall.pdf)
Re: Rare system of five stars discovered
#3One more and a planet to go ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nightfall_(Asimov_short_story_... , https://www.uni.edu/morgans/astro/course/nightfall.pdf )
Or it could be the Pupetteer migration fleet! (yes, Larry Niven did garble a 2n-body Klemperer rosette into a 5-body Kemplerer rosette[1])
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Klemperer_rosette#Misuse_and_m...
Re: Rare system of five stars discovered
#4One more and a planet to go ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nightfall_(Asimov_short_story_... , https://www.uni.edu/morgans/astro/course/nightfall.pdf )
Or it could be the Pupetteer migration fleet! (yes, Larry Niven did garble a 2n-body Klemperer rosette into a 5-body Kemplerer rosette[1]) [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Klemperer_rosette#Misuse_and_m...
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Re: Rare system of five stars discovered
#5Oh my five suns. ;)
>The pair of stars orbit around a mutual centre of gravity, but are separated by more than the distance of Pluto's orbit around the Sun.
But what could they be orbiting around?
Re: Rare system of five stars discovered
#6Oh my five suns. ;) >The pair of stars orbit around a mutual centre of gravity, but are separated by more than the distance of Pluto's orbit around the Sun. But what could they be orbiting around?
> But what could they be orbiting around?
>> a mutual centre of gravity
The math of gravity is fascinating. Objects can orbit each other, with nothing in the middle.
Re: Rare system of five stars discovered
#7Oh my five suns. ;) >The pair of stars orbit around a mutual centre of gravity, but are separated by more than the distance of Pluto's orbit around the Sun. But what could they be orbiting around?
Their center of gravity, say about here:
o O---------------o
^
Re: Rare system of five stars discovered
#8Ok, so objects orbit not other objects but rather centres of gravity. This means that the system in question could have planets with small orbits (like the earth's for example) orbiting that system's centre of mass despite the stars being many AUs away from it.
It may be unlikely but it's certainly possible, right? Am I missing something that'd make this impossible? Because that would be incredibly cool!
edit: I'm assuming the masses of the two groups of stars would be roughly equal, in order for the centre of gravity to be in the "middle".
edit2: philosophical question: can this system still be described as heliocentric?
Re: Rare system of five stars discovered
#9Re: Rare system of five stars discovered
#10Five-star systems aren't rare at all, in fact, they're problematically common. Usually the issue is that with such a limited array of choices, people gravitate to one star or five stars, and you don't get much meaningful information from the resulting scores. Percentage-based systems give more flexibility and have a wider 'active zone', without being overwhelmingly complex - and people are much less likely to given min or max scores on such a scale.
vacri whistles innocently...