- Joined
- Feb 22, 2016
- Messages
- 1,846
- Reaction score
- 1,599
- First Language
- English
- Primarily Uses
- RMMV
So I was watching some YouTube videos about exoplanets and had an epiphany! 1st a small science lesson... If you aren't familiar w/ what's an "eye-ball planet", it's basically a planet that is close enough to its parent star to become "tidally locked". This means the same side of the planet is always facing the star/sun and the other side is always facing away. Examples in our solar system include Mercury and Luna (our moon). Of course, the only way a planet that close to its star could support life would be if the parent star was less massive than our Sun. So it'd likely be an M or K type star (our Sun is a G-type). This just means that the star is much less hot/bright than our Sun, and therefore the habitable zone is much closer than it is in our solar system. Ok, now that you know what an "eye-ball planet" is, we can move on to the topic at hand...
I wanted to explore the geographical, cultural, & societal quirks of a world set on an "eye-ball planet". The biggest difference would be the lack of a day/night cycle. However, they could still have seasons so long as the planet has a high degree of tilt (~90°). Also, everyone would live on the outer "iris" of the planet. I imagine the "dark side" of the planet would be some kind of scary, unexplored, forbidden land or something. The weather would also probably be much more chaotic or violent compared to Earth. Most weather phenomena are caused by temperature differentials. Such a planet would have extreme temperature gradients due to one side getting all the sunlight and the other side being in perpetual darkness. This means as the dark side's atmosphere condenses/freezes, it creates a vacuum (or at least a zone of low pressure) which would cause the warmer atmosphere from the light side to rush over and fill that vacuum/low-pressure area. This atmospheric movement is basically what we call weather. The greater the temperature differential, the crazier the storms.
So yea, I was hoping we could brainstorm some ideas on what a civilization living in such a world might be like. I imagine "night" would be an alien concept to them, unless perhaps if they lived around the border between the light/dark side. Or if they had a 90° tilt, they would have a summer/winter cycle (basically a "day" = a year). Their sky would also be orange/yellow instead of blue due to the combined effects of Rayleigh scattering (at a much lower angle) and their star being a K or M type. Also, w/o a day/night cycle, the people there would probably have a much different sense of time. What other quirks might societies living there have?
*On a side note:
Earth is in the process of "slowing down" and may eventually become tidally locked w/ the Moon as well. For example, 620 million years ago, a single day was ~22 hours long and a year contained ~400 days. In fact, once or twice a year, we have to add a "leap second" to account for the difference. This same phenomenon is why the Moon's orbit is slowly receding further and further away (~2cm/year). It would take orders of magnitudes more time for the same thing to happen between Earth and the Sun, so long in fact that the Sun would turn into a Red Giant and swallow the Earth well before we become tidally locked w/ the Sun.
P.S.
You might be wondering why I'm bothering with this. Well in truth, it's because I'm too lazy to implement a day/night cycle in my project even though I have all the FSM & TOKIWA assets which both feature night versions of their content. I'd have to change my banner tho...
I wanted to explore the geographical, cultural, & societal quirks of a world set on an "eye-ball planet". The biggest difference would be the lack of a day/night cycle. However, they could still have seasons so long as the planet has a high degree of tilt (~90°). Also, everyone would live on the outer "iris" of the planet. I imagine the "dark side" of the planet would be some kind of scary, unexplored, forbidden land or something. The weather would also probably be much more chaotic or violent compared to Earth. Most weather phenomena are caused by temperature differentials. Such a planet would have extreme temperature gradients due to one side getting all the sunlight and the other side being in perpetual darkness. This means as the dark side's atmosphere condenses/freezes, it creates a vacuum (or at least a zone of low pressure) which would cause the warmer atmosphere from the light side to rush over and fill that vacuum/low-pressure area. This atmospheric movement is basically what we call weather. The greater the temperature differential, the crazier the storms.
So yea, I was hoping we could brainstorm some ideas on what a civilization living in such a world might be like. I imagine "night" would be an alien concept to them, unless perhaps if they lived around the border between the light/dark side. Or if they had a 90° tilt, they would have a summer/winter cycle (basically a "day" = a year). Their sky would also be orange/yellow instead of blue due to the combined effects of Rayleigh scattering (at a much lower angle) and their star being a K or M type. Also, w/o a day/night cycle, the people there would probably have a much different sense of time. What other quirks might societies living there have?
*On a side note:
Earth is in the process of "slowing down" and may eventually become tidally locked w/ the Moon as well. For example, 620 million years ago, a single day was ~22 hours long and a year contained ~400 days. In fact, once or twice a year, we have to add a "leap second" to account for the difference. This same phenomenon is why the Moon's orbit is slowly receding further and further away (~2cm/year). It would take orders of magnitudes more time for the same thing to happen between Earth and the Sun, so long in fact that the Sun would turn into a Red Giant and swallow the Earth well before we become tidally locked w/ the Sun.
P.S.
You might be wondering why I'm bothering with this. Well in truth, it's because I'm too lazy to implement a day/night cycle in my project even though I have all the FSM & TOKIWA assets which both feature night versions of their content. I'd have to change my banner tho...
Last edited:
