Book help

[Demonardae]

Well I'm writing a book, and I am in dire need of help. The solar system I've created and more importantly the world I've created just aren't adding up. The problem is I need the planet to have way longer nights than days. Their single day is a 34 hour period, with daylight hours coming in at 12 hours and the whole night being 22 hours long.

The problem is I can't think of a way to do this while keeping the planet the way I imagined it would be. Now I know it doesn't need to fit perfectly, seeing how this is a work of fiction, but it does need to make some sort of sense.

The ideas I've been able to come up with is a planet that has a slightly faster rotation that would block the sun for those 22 hour periods. But then the whole world would be encased in night. Which would lead to it becoming barren because not enough sunlight blah blah blah...

The other idea was to have twin moons reflecting light at different areas of the planet, but the problem was heat.

I want this planet to be like earth and such just more nocturnal.... So anyone have any suggestions?

 

[Jonas Stark]

Does it have to be the entire planet or just a region of the planet where the story is taking place?

If it is just a region of the planet, your best option would be to say that the planet rotates on a more extreme axis giving one of the hemispheres much longer nights. The downside is that whatever hemisphere it is that has those long nights will be stuck in a winter during those periods with longer nights, just like here on earth. You're going to have those lower temperatures to deal with/explain away.

 

[Portfield]

As a planet, that would be quite difficult indeed. Extremely fast orbit combined with very slow rotation should do the trick. The star would be quite small then as well. Does give you other problems though, like radiation.

Another option might be a moon in orbit of a planet. Again it would require extreme orbit/rotation times. And your planet wouldn't be a planet any longer, but a moon in orbit of one. Gravity btw would take care of the 'lack of warmth' problem. It might warm the moon from the inside out, like Jupiter's moon Europa which is thought to have a liquid ocean beneath its icy surface because of the same principle. Combine this with the host planet having a closer orbit to the star, and it is a bit more plausible.

Third option I could think of is already explained above

 

[Demonardae]

The problem with that is I imagine a lot of plant life and the planet as a whole is really pretty (think avatar) but it's very dangerous. I figured the nights would be colder, but the heat of the day would keep it warm enough. Although that is a great suggestion and I might just tweak my planet around.... Thanks so much for your idea and if you have any more please let me know. This has been driving me crazy.

Btw way I feel I should mention that this book is in the rough drafts and that everything can be tweaked, thrown out, or entirely changed.

Some of the details that I have come up with so far is that their star is twice as big as our sun, their two first planets are way bigger than ours, with their 'earth' coming out to about twice the size. So on and so forth. If you more details I can easily provide them.

 

[JimF]

I am by no means well versed in orbital mechanics so YMMV. I have no idea if this is plausible but maybe another member with more knowledge in this area could weigh in.

What about a binary planet system with two closely matched planets in an elliptical orbit around each other. The planets could be tidally locked so the always face each other like the Moon does to Earth.

Rather than rotation causing night and day. An exaggerated elliptical orbit around each other causes the difference night and day cycles.

There could be a procession in the orbit or the binary planets around each other as they go around the star keeping the day and night times roughly the same year round.

Jim

 

[Demonardae]

So, basically the two planets would orbit each other (more or less) while orbiting their 'sun'. That could work I suppose... And I did want to keep the day and night ratio roughly the same year round in the beginning. I'll have to draw myself a little diagram to better picture it. Thank you for the idea.

 

[JimF]

That is pretty much my idea. We tend to think the earth is stationary and the moon circling us, but the truth is the earth and moon woble around each other. Check out this link.

Considering the Earth-Moon system as a binary planet, their mutual centre of gravity is within the Earth, about 4624 km from its centre or 72.6% of its radius. This centre of gravity remains in line towards the Moon as the Earth completes its diurnal rotation. It is this mutual centre of gravity which defines the path of the Earth-Moon system in solar orbit. Consequently the Earth's centre veers inside and outside the orbital path during each synodic month as the Moon moves in the opposite direction.

This woiuld be more exagerated by planets of roughly equal mass and may give you the dat night cycle you are looking for.