# Can solar systems orbit one another?



## Logos&Eidos (Aug 10, 2014)

My WIP to apply a genre label would be  science-fantasy or space-fantasy. However since truth is in so many cases stranger than fiction, I endeavor to handwave as little as possible.   Which brings me here to ask a question of the more physics versed.

The know worlds of mine would technically be classified as a trinary star system(stars don't exist in the verse, but planets do form around and orbit immensely heavy objects) however the image of a normal solar system is not what I Invision.  What I see is three  star systems orbiting each other with a small gap between them. Would such a configuration be possible.


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## Queshire (Aug 10, 2014)

In Binary star systems two stars orbit each other. I suppose a trinary star system would be possible however balancing the gravitational force would be hell to do. That's just stars though, entire solar systems would be even harder because you'd have each star trying to "steal" the other two's planets. I really don't see it happening naturally though with Science-Fantasy you have your pick of explanations from magic, to artifacts, to having it be just an unexplained mystery.


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## Penpilot (Aug 10, 2014)

I found this online educational game a while ago. Super Planet Crash - Can you feel the gravity?

In it you try to build a stable solar system. You can add various types of planets and stars to the system and see how they all interact. As mentioned by Queshire, with all those bodies interacting with each other, it becomes unstable. I tried to build a trinary star system and either there would be a planetary collision or plants would get ejected.

I don't know if what you envision is possible, but any way, the site might give you an idea of the complex balance involved.


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## psychotick (Aug 10, 2014)

Hi,

Yes there are many binary and trinary star systems. But you asked about the solar system, and that's more tricky. As the planets orbit their primary stars / suns, they tend to move closer to and further away from the other suns. And when they come closer those other suns pull their orbits out of circular or elliptical. It makes them generally unstable, giving them highly eccentric orbits. And occasionally a planet may be pulled completely out of its orbit to orbit another sun. When that happens complete destruction isn't usually far away. The complete destruction of planets by opposing gravity wells would also lead to the creation of huge asteroid fields.

To add to your woes, the effects of being caught between three intense gravitational fields will be felt on the planets. There will be massive techtonic shifts, and the planet will be heated up simply by the movement of the crust. They probably won't be life sustaining.

Those planets that fare best in such a system would be the ones lying close in to their star - the inner planets.

It does depend of course. If one sun is massive and the other two minor, then instead of three suns orbiting one another, you may well end up with two suns orbiting  the large one, probably at greater distance than the planets of that larger sun. In this sort of system, where two suns effectively become planets, the effect on the inner planets of the system would be greatly lessened. The outer planets would still be stuffed of course, but Earth is an inner planet.

All of this however is guesswork, nd it is possible that there is a trinary system somewhere out there in which the perfect arrangement of stars and planets has been found which allows for stability. But I would think that would be very rare.

Cheers, Greg.


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## Logos&Eidos (Aug 10, 2014)

A better way to phrase my question would be, can a solar system have a satellite star-system which in turn has it's own satellite star system? 


To present my idea in a more clear manner, the known worlds aren't so much a trinary system as they are three separate solar systems, the two smaller in orbit around a third larger with a small gap between them.  The systems swapping planets between them really isn't a problem for me...though imagine that the process would be hell for anybody living on them.  Is their anyway for this arrangement to form without having to handwave it?


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## Terry Greer (Aug 10, 2014)

As Psychotick says - if you're happy losing the outer planets and only having the core ones close in then you might get away with it - especially if you also add brown dwarfs to the mix - perhaps radiating to their satellites in the infra red rather than visible light. 
A really large jovian planet could even in theory become a proper short-lived sun (as happens to Jupiter in Clarke's 2010) with a bit of help.


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## Queshire (Aug 10, 2014)

Hmmm.... It should certainly be possible. I mean, moons orbit planets who orbit a star in turn. The only difference between that and planets orbiting stars who orbit another star in turn is a measure of scale but man, what a measure of scale it is. If you have the primary star be some sort of uber-star which is to other stars what stars are to the planets I think the average reader will accept that. Is that remotely scientifically possible? I have absolutely no clue, but I love the idea of a star^2 anyways!


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## ThinkerX (Aug 10, 2014)

I visit another site dedicated to the discovery and investigation of extra-solar planets.

There are a number of planets in multiple star systems.  In some, the planet orbits one star, in a very few the planet orbits both stars.

As yet, there are no systems listed with planets orbiting both stars...though that could change, as there are many planet detection projects.

That said...

Binary systems are fairly common.  Something on the order of a third of sun-like stars are in binary systems.

Trinary systems are much rarer, but do exist, and I believe planets have been discovered or are strongly suspected in one or two of them.

Systems with more than three stars are very rare, but also exist.

That said...distances between stars vary in multiple star systems.  Many of these systems have very high eccentricity - on the order of 60%, making for very elongated orbits.  In quite a few systems, the distances are so severe - on the order of hundreds or thousands of astronomical units - the stars do not orbit, though they are gravitationally linked.  Usually, this translates to a sort of side to side 'fishtail' movement.  

With most triple systems, what you usually have is a pair of fairly close set companions - within a couple dozen AU - and the third component being several hundred to several thousand AU distant.   From the planets I've seen listed and discussed on the other site, it should not be impossible or even unlikely for each of the three stars to possess planets of their own.


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## Logos&Eidos (Aug 11, 2014)

Satellite galaxy - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia   A better phrasing for  my question is, just as galaxies can have smaller ones as satlites. Could a star system  have a smaller one as it's satellite?

As for how my cosmos works...it's weird man. There are no stars! Stellar scale nuclear fusion for what ever reason is just not a naturally phenomenon. All the heat light and raw material come from these white hole like eruptions into "our" dimension from a perpetual storm beneath the Skien of the cosmos; inspired very loosely by quantum-foam and zero-point energy.    What regular planets orbit are in essence, these condensates of this dense energy rich exotic matter; since I removed stars from the equation I needed something for planets to form around and orbit.

Why not just hand wave everything and do what I want, after all I've depart significantly from normal reality? Because true is stranger than fiction, why just come up with an explanation if a possible one already exist.


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## ThinkerX (Aug 12, 2014)

> Could a star system have a smaller one as it's satellite?



Yes.  In this universe there are many multiple star systems with a larger (more massive) central component being orbited by a smaller star.  If the distance is sufficient, then in theory at least, each star could have a system of planets.  Several systems with planets orbiting one star of a pair have been discovered.


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## Logos&Eidos (Aug 12, 2014)

ThinkerX said:


> Yes.  In this universe there are many multiple star systems with a larger (more massive) central component being orbited by a smaller star.  If the distance is sufficient, then in theory at least, each star could have a system of planets.  Several systems with planets orbiting one star of a pair have been discovered.



Thanks!

My idea was for three solar systems orbiting one another, in a biggest to smallest arrangement. But it's seeming like that wouldn't work to well. The smaller bodies would just get pulled in by the larger one becoming a standard trinary system, instead of a solar system with a smaller satellite that in turn has it's own even smaller satellite system.

 But now I am beganing to feel that rather than being smaller, if the stars at the heart of these systems were roughly the same mass then they  might entre into an equilibrium. Where the stars masses balance out so that they remain relatively close but at the same time don't merge into a true trinary system.


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## ThinkerX (Aug 12, 2014)

Ok...a real multiple star system I have been eyeing for a SF story of my own - someday.  Kappa Tucanae:

This is a system with four stars.  The largest (A) is an F class subgiant, with a much smaller M class red dwarf orbiting something on the order of every couple hundred years.   A good couple thousand AU from this pair are two more stars, both K class, of about equal mass, orbiting a common center of gravity with a period of about thirty years.  Any of these stars could have planets.  The K class pair are the most likely to have habitable (earthlike) planets; the F star is becoming unstable, and the M dwarf...any planet within its habitable zone would be tidally locked (one face always aimed at the star...unless said world is on the cold side.  To date, no planets have been discovered orbiting any of these stars.  The biggest strike against the system is it may be a bit too young...probably only a couple billion years old, most theories say a system with a habitable earthlike planet would need to be at least 3 billion.  On the other hand, a few reputable SF authors have put habitable worlds in orbit around Sirus, which is way to young, and will 'die' before it gets anywhere near that age.

Your 'biggest to smallest' arrangement is workable, though most likely the outmost (smallest) component would either have an orbit measured in terms of millennia, or it would simply show 'Common Proper Motion' (CPM), 'sharing space' with the other two.  

Your idea for stars of the same mass...well, I find that puzzling.  If two are of the same mass (and the Gods of Orbital Mechanics are being benevolent) they could have a stable circular orbit about a common point (otherwise, they'll have a highly eccentric orbit (30% - 60% being the most common).  The third star would most likely be a CPM companion.  

Or you could just go with three stars sharing CPM.  There are many systems like that.  In this case, the distances would be on the order of hundreds to thousands of AU, though there would still be a bit of gravitational nudging.


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## Logos&Eidos (Aug 14, 2014)

ThinkerX said:


> Ok...a real multiple star system I have been eyeing for a SF story of my own - someday.  Kappa Tucanae:
> 
> This is a system with four stars.  The largest (A) is an F class subgiant, with a much smaller M class red dwarf orbiting something on the order of every couple hundred years.   A good couple thousand AU from this pair are two more stars, both K class, of about equal mass, orbiting a common center of gravity with a period of about thirty years.  Any of these stars could have planets.  The K class pair are the most likely to have habitable (earthlike) planets; the F star is becoming unstable, and the M dwarf...any planet within its habitable zone would be tidally locked (one face always aimed at the star...unless said world is on the cold side.  To date, no planets have been discovered orbiting any of these stars.  The biggest strike against the system is it may be a bit too young...probably only a couple billion years old, most theories say a system with a habitable earthlike planet would need to be at least 3 billion.  On the other hand, a few reputable SF authors have put habitable worlds in orbit around Sirus, which is way to young, and will 'die' before it gets anywhere near that age.
> 
> ...




Thanks, I made all the "stars" in the system roughly the same sizes,because I was concerned that my idea of three star system acting as satellites, orbiting from largest  to smallest with a small gap(relatively speaking) between them couldn't work; and that the two smaller systems would get pulled in by the the third bigger resulting in a standards trinairy system.  My thought was that if all the stars were of near equivalent mass then they would balance each other out,neither drifting to close or being able to pull away.

Good to know that my original idea of a solar system with two smaller satellites actually is possible! The stars having centuries long orbits around each other is not a problem. 

My next problems are going to figuring out the distances and lengths of the stars orbiting each other.  Then filling each system with planets; I need a least one per race.

The Cyrannus systemThe Twelve Colonies of Kobol - Battlestar Wiki of nBSG might be of interest to you it has the two sets of binary star.


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## ThinkerX (Aug 17, 2014)

OP and others might find this interesting.  Nice music too.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=up_MqNBv0FE

A few years ago, I had a collaboration of sorts going with the guy who put that movie together.


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## Ravana (Aug 17, 2014)

Logos&Eidos said:


> My idea was for three solar systems orbiting one another, in a biggest to smallest arrangement. But it's seeming like that wouldn't work to well. The smaller bodies would just get pulled in by the larger one becoming a standard trinary system, instead of a solar system with a smaller satellite that in turn has it's own even smaller satellite system.



Short answer: yes, it's possible. The key is the distance separating the main bodies–i.e. that it be great enough that at least some smaller bodies can orbit them. 

The problem is that this may not be quite what you had in mind. This would, in effect, be three separate tightly-spaced solar systems, rather than "one" system. That may still work for you; the question would be why you wanted such an arrangement in the first place, what you wanted to accomplish with it (how things appear in the sky, travel time between them, etc.). "Planet-swapping" would be highly unlikely, although it is at least theoretically possible for a planet to have a stable figure-eight orbit around two stars (successful computer models have been produced… though they only take into account the orbits, not how the system might have formed, as far as I know). 

There is at least one known example of the sort of thing you're thinking of in general terms, though: Castor, in Gemini. Originally thought to be one star (of course), in the 1600s it was discovered to be a widely-separated binary; later, spectroscopic analysis showed that _each_ of these two stars is itself a binary; recently, it was discovered that there is a third, distant companion to the paired pair–which, it turns out, is _also_ a binary. Thus, you have three sets of pairs orbiting one another, each pair individually stable… gravitationally identical to what you have in mind. If on a somewhat larger scale than you probably want. As far as I know, Castor is still the only sextuple system we've discovered, though there's some reason to think that Mizar (a double binary) and Alcor (a binary) in Ursa Major are gravitationally linked… though the distance between the two sets is at least half a light year, so while they might be "one" system in an astrophysical sense, they're effectively two nearby ones for pretty much any other purpose.

However, there's no reason to believe you need quite that scale: it has been shown that the stars of Alpha Centauri (a double plus a distant third) would be capable of having nearby companions–small ones, at least, since if they were large we would have spotted them by now. And, in fact, there have been as-yet unconfirmed observations indicating that ACen B _might_ have at least one planet orbiting it, albeit far closer than anyone would likely find comfortable; the data on that are still under question.

So, yeah, it could happen.


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## Logos&Eidos (Aug 19, 2014)

Ravana said:


> Short answer: yes, it's possible. The key is the distance separating the main bodies—i.e. that it be great enough that at least some smaller bodies can orbit them.
> 
> The problem is that this may not be quite what you had in mind. This would, in effect, be three separate tightly-spaced solar systems, rather than "one" system. That may still work for you; the question would be why you wanted such an arrangement in the first place, what you wanted to accomplish with it (how things appear in the sky, travel time between them, etc.). "Planet-swapping" would be highly unlikely, although it is at least theoretically possible for a planet to have a stable figure-eight orbit around two stars (successful computer models have been produced… though they only take into account the orbits, not how the system might have formed, as far as I know).
> 
> ...




Thank you, three systems in very closes proximity is precisely what I wanted,I've been posting here and elsewhere to find out if that arrangement  is even remote possible; and I'm ecstatic to find out that yes it actually could!  As for why I wanted that arrangement it's about finding a compromises between imagination and workability. I love the feel of galaxy spanning space-opera however the scale of such a story when I actually though about it, just gave me a massive headache.  So perverse the worlds hopping feel,and the ability to use the term outer rim, i compressed everything down into  three star systems lined up biggest to smallest. I've even kept the Inter-dimensional drive, it's just so slow that would take quit a while to travel between the system of the three-system.


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## ThinkerX (Aug 19, 2014)

> So perverse the worlds hopping feel,and the ability to use the term outer rim, i compressed everything down into three star systems lined up biggest to smallest. I've even kept the Inter-dimensional drive, it's just so slow that would take quit a while to travel between the system of the three-system.



With a system that compact you would not need an 'inter-dimensional' or 'warp' drive.  Consider the continuous 1 gravity acceleration table on this site:



Calculations for science fiction writers - Space travel with constant acceleration - nonrelativistic

Assuming you wanted to slow down (deceleration), you could probably cross the long axis of the sort of triple system you envision in something on the order of a couple of months.  Fuel could be a problem, though.  However:

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS) - Anomalous Thrust Production from an RF Test Device Measured on a Low-Thrust Torsion Pendulum

This is a 'propellentless drive,' which is highly controversial at the moment - if it works as advertised, it does a sort of end run around the 'conservation of momentum' (laws of thermodynamics).  Because this whole topic is of long standing interest to me, I read not only the original NASA paper but a pile of related stuff over the past few weeks.  End of the NASA paper, the authors put forth hypothetical manned missions to Mars and Saturn employing this drive.  A spacecraft using this drive could reach Mars in less than a month (relative orbital positions depending) and make it to Saturn (roughly 9.5 AU) in something on the order of eight months.  Allowing for both acceleration and deceleration, a spacecraft using this drive could probably fully traverse the long axis of your system in a couple of years.  

However:

This is an 'in space' drive only.  Its advantage is it doesn't really need fuel, but it doesn't produce a lot of thrust.  You would not use this drive for landing or leaving the surface of a planet with significant gravity.  Top speed, even with a bit of fudging, would be about 0.1 gravities (might have to rotate the ship to provide higher gravity).  Another drive would be needed for planetary liftoffs.  

You *could* use this drive for actual interstellar travel - trips spanning a good couple dozen light-years.  However, even with relativistic effects, trip time for the crew would still be a decade or more (I have yet to run the numbers).  It would also be hazardous: hitting a meteor the size of a marble at half light-speed releases energy on the order of a large H-Bomb.


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## Logos&Eidos (Aug 20, 2014)

ThinkerX said:


> With a system that compact you would not need an 'inter-dimensional' or 'warp' drive.  Consider the continuous 1 gravity acceleration table on this site:
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Well given how much friction imagine that aether has, high-speed acceleration really wouldn't be possible. at least not with out some kind of low friction protective coating to put on ships.


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## Ravana (Aug 20, 2014)

Logos&Eidos said:


> Well given how much friction imagine that aether has, high-speed acceleration really wouldn't be possible. at least not with out some kind of low friction protective coating to put on ships.



Ah, but with aether, you won't need a propellantless drive: you can use a ramjet. 

If you _do_ have an interplanetary/interstellar medium, you're gonna need protection no matter what your acceleration is like: friction is still friction. Most practical might be something which polarizes the aether, creating a bow shock in front of the nose of the craft. Two problems there: first, you won't be able to use a ramjet, since you need some way to get the aether into the engines; second, a non-electrically-neutral interplanetary medium would hose up just about every other aspect of your astrophysics. I'd consider the second one the bigger of the two… heh. 

You might be able to fudge things by saying the ships have _really_ good thermal transfer units, which take the heat of the friction and send it to the engines where it's used to accelerate the aether. Yes, it's another twist on "perpetual motion," but at least it gives a veneer of pseudo-scientific explanation, deals with the friction, and gives something which can break when the plot demands it… always a positive. The disadvantage of that approach is that it does _not_ provide protection against large foreign objects–micrometeors, astrostarlings, what have you. Hitting anything bigger than a molecule at a significant fraction of c will definitely hose up your day, if you don't have a way to shunt it aside first. (For that matter, I suspect even hitting good-sized molecules could be problematic.) So you may be stuck with some variation on a force field regardless.

Of course, even most "hard SF" stories hand-wave such details away, so unless you think you can make it function as part of your plot–and not simple exegesis–probably best not to sweat it too much.

By the way: if you are willing to allow speeds close to c, there are actually quite a few stars out there which are not co-orbital but which are within a light-year of one another, so that might open additional possibilities for you. (Sorry, can't recall examples offhand–most only have catalog numbers, not real names.) Sol is surprisingly isolated when it comes to nearest neighbors, as it turns out. If I can locate any of the old star maps I did (ages ago, by hand, on graph paper)–or better still, the calculations which led to them–I'll see if I can come up with some of the numbers for you… I do recall that there were almost no stars in our vicinity whose nearest neighbor was _not_ less than four light years (the distance to our own nearest).

Or you could skip waiting on me and see someone else's version of the same thing:

Actual Maps - 3-D Starmaps

These were made for gaming, I believe (well, so were mine…), but the data's all the same, and it's the examples I was after, anyway. Reading a 2D map as 3D is always tricky… but if you scroll down about 80% of the way, you'll see amongst the creator's products not only actual maps but also "node maps"–which show the stars in relation to one another, along with distances (in parsecs). Disadvantage to this approach is the map only shows links to the three _nearest_ neighbors (some stars have more than three lines leading to/from them: "nearest" is not a transitive relation), but, again, it's the examples that matter here. 

[Marginally off-topic: should anyone be a C. J. Cherryh fan, this is an extremely enlightening graphic, by the by… if, for instance, you assume the maximum range your star drive can handle is on the order of 2.5 parsecs. Which I discovered after I made my own maps–with precisely that working assumption, in order to give space some "geography." One look at what I'd produced, and I realized I was staring at the same thing I'd seen following the title page of _Downbelow Station_.  ]


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## ThinkerX (Aug 20, 2014)

Logos...

...unless it is essential for plot reasons, you might want to consider ditching the 'aether,' and going with ordinary vacuum instead.

Ravana beat me to the ramjet suggestion.  And with aether filled space...friction and heat build up is going to be a major issue.   Even at the comparative snails pace used by our space probes, the hull temperatures are going to be ...really dang hot...


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## Logos&Eidos (Aug 27, 2014)

ThinkerX said:


> Logos...
> 
> ...unless it is essential for plot reasons, you might want to consider ditching the 'aether,' and going with ordinary vacuum instead.
> 
> Ravana beat me to the ramjet suggestion.  And with aether filled space...friction and heat build up is going to be a major issue.   Even at the comparative snails pace used by our space probes, the hull temperatures are going to be ...really dang hot...



It's about the flavor man or women! and share a little about my self, this other worldly space filled with aether and islands go back to when I was preadolescent.

 I personally refuse to chooses between sword and laser so I'm bringing together elements of epic fantasy and space opera. I'd rather not just handwave stuff if I don't have to, because truth is stranger than fiction, seeing craft fight three dimensionally in nBSG and learning what a wormhole would actually look like, convinced me to go with the truth whenever possible.

 The aether is part of this weird other astrophysics that I've been working on and  revising. Along with eruptions of energy and matter from the storm beneath the skein of the cosmos; and their being no stars because for whatever reason stellar scale nuclear  fusion is just not a natural occurrence in this world. The current alternative to stars is a dense concentration of mineral that acts as  window into the eternal-storm,allowing the heat and light to bleed into the world.


 A sort of aether breathing jet engine, is probably the dirt cheap bargain thruster that ships uses. The engime for people with the money or backing is the storm-engine,something pretty close to being  a  Quantum vacuum plasma thruster - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia the engine's core create an aperture into the storm, the particles are captured compressed then expelled as plasma.   

Heat venting makes use of a material similar to the what's used in the storm-engine, only their structure has been inverted. they bleed energy out of this plane and into the storm.


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## Ravana (Aug 27, 2014)

I've used an interstellar medium before, albeit in a rather more "pure fantasy" setting, where if you wanted to reach the stars, you began by sailing your ship off the edge of the (flat) world… at which point adhering to normal physics became fairly rhetorical. 

The only reason to _avoid_ using aether would be that you're complicating the physics you're otherwise trying to keep semi-close to real-world… so the question becomes whether the problems you create for yourself in the process are worth what you gain from it. Friction is only the most obvious of the possible difficulties. Another is transparency–the medium must be pretty much immune to excitation by photons, or else it would become too hot (and pressurized) for anything to traverse it, and insolation of planetary surfaces would be seriously problematic. Likewise, it would almost have to be electrically neutral and incapable of receiving a charge, as previously mentioned, or similar results would occur. Keeping a reasonably uniform distribution in the face of gravity might also be an issue… unless gravity has little or no effect on the aether, at which point you're starting to get really strange. Even friction could be problematic in less obvious ways: if ships need to cope with it, so does everything else moving through it… such as planets. Which is why I said you might end up with more difficulties than you consider worth it. But only you can answer that question.

One way you might be able to utilize an aether is if it is composed of particles which are not present in condensed matter–but for which antiparticles _are_ present in certain types of condensed matter, or at least can be produced from it by some reaction or other. The engine could then be powered by the annihilation of particle and antiparticle, the latter being stored as the ship's "fuel." Note that the ship itself–or at least its outer surface–cannot have such antiparticles as part of its composition: that would be a "bad" thing (as in the line from _Ghostbusters_  ). If the aether particles are sufficiently exotic, they might not create much friction–and they could at any rate be fairly diffuse, since annihilation produces a pretty fair chunk of energy. Perhaps in your world some species of mesons, for example, have long-term stability. Or there are always neutrinos–which at least have the virtue of fitting all the other criteria from the previous paragraph… though finding a way to make use of those could lead down paths which are stranger still, simply _because_ they meet all the criteria from the previous paragraph, and are thus pretty much impossible to manipulate through any method current science is familiar with. Still, one of these may provide a starting point for your alternate-world model. May still need some reaction mass; possibly, that could be nothing more than aether particles which are taken in but not annihilated. Just speculating.

As for the quantum vacuum thruster: well, no reason you can't use that in a SF setting, even if it wouldn't work in the real world… and there are plenty of reasons to believe it might not. Starting with whether or not quantum vacuum fluctuations do in fact occur, or are only a misguided conclusion resulting from an incomplete theory of poorly-understood phenomena. You can probably guess which side of that argument I lean toward; still, I try to keep an open mind. For that matter, I could come up with at least a couple reasons the thruster might not work even if the theoretical underpinnings _are_ correct (including one which could lead to an inevitable and spectacular failure, should anyone ever feel a need for a reason to rule such engines out rather than in). But this is fiction, so you can always play with it.


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## Logos&Eidos (Aug 28, 2014)

Ravana said:


> I've used an interstellar medium before, albeit in a rather more "pure fantasy" setting, where if you wanted to reach the stars, you began by sailing your ship off the edge of the (flat) world… at which point adhering to normal physics became fairly rhetorical.
> 
> The only reason to _avoid_ using aether would be that you're complicating the physics you're otherwise trying to keep semi-close to real-world… so the question becomes whether the problems you create for yourself in the process are worth what you gain from it. Friction is only the most obvious of the possible difficulties. Another is transparency—the medium must be pretty much immune to excitation by photons, or else it would become too hot (and pressurized) for anything to traverse it, and insolation of planetary surfaces would be seriously problematic. Likewise, it would almost have to be electrically neutral and incapable of receiving a charge, as previously mentioned, or similar results would occur. Keeping a reasonably uniform distribution in the face of gravity might also be an issue… unless gravity has little or no effect on the aether, at which point you're starting to get really strange. Even friction could be problematic in less obvious ways: if ships need to cope with it, so does everything else moving through it… such as planets. Which is why I said you might end up with more difficulties than you consider worth it. But only you can answer that question.
> 
> ...



I mentioned the the QVT because it's the closest real tech to the storm engine. A kind of zero-point energy engine would be even closer. Aside from the aesthetic the other purpose of the aether is to justify the close  range slow speed combat shown commonly seen in space opera.   The aether in addition to having quite a bit of friction, has a rather  "minovsky particle" like effect, electromagnetic waves are scrambled as they move through the medium; no conventional long range communication,no active detection. Like a metallic dust the aether would make lasers very difficult to employ,  it's not to kind to particle weapon either. ships use missiles and kinetic weapons.  At low enough temperatures the aether will condense from a gaseous  state to a liquid, in  deep space away from the photosphere of a star/sky-fire the aether becomes  dense and highly viscus fluid; while the aether cannot solidify it will gelatinize. This all adds to the http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/SpaceIsAnOcean space is an ocean [ /URL] feel as dose their being an abundance of aether born life.

I never thought of the aether as something that mixed with the atmosphere of planets, one definitely can not breath it, though I'm not sure why maybe a planet's atmosphere somehow acts as buffer against it or  it gives off an energy that repels aether? 

I never really considers  using the aether as a fuel source, while antimatter tech is something I don't see being in wide spread use if it exist, matter degeneracy is.  What is matter degeneration? Matter to energy conversion, though it's not one hundred percent efficient yet, a process for unbind the forces that hold matter together dose exist; it will work on any form of matter, though the device has to be calibrated for it. So yeah you could burn aether as fuel.


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## Ravana (Aug 28, 2014)

Sounds like you're well on your way. Again, I'd warn that making the aether do what you have it do would also "scramble" a lot of other things–such as light from the star to its planets. I gather your "stars" aren't really stars, so possibly this has already been dealt with; still, having the aether disrupt lasers but not light from a "sky-fire" might leave you with "some 'splainin' to do"  .

One possibility: the aether is relatively transparent to some, possibly even most, e-m wavelengths, but blocks/reflects others. The reason short-wave radio works so well on Earth, for instance, is that the wavelengths it uses bounce off the ionosphere. I imagine lasers would be far less popular if the aether reflected their wavelengths…  . Of course, lasers being light, it might be difficult to explain why local science doesn't simply use lasers which operate on wavelengths that would pass through the aether… though this might be answerable by saying that the aether, while allowing those wavelengths to pass, causes them to scatter. That way, the light from the star could still make its way to the planets–albeit in a Brownian-motion sort of fashion, much the same way as photons generated by stellar fusion make their way to the surface of the star before departing in straight lines–but coherent beams rapidly lose their coherence and thus their utility as weapons. (This may well be what you had in mind already… think it is, in fact, and I'm just describing the same thing in different terms.) Or, perhaps more simply, local tech has yet to develop lasers which can operate on all wavelengths, and the ones it has developed to date are the ones inconvenient for use in the aether. Alternately, or in addition, it might be reasonably easy to produce ship coatings which reflect or are otherwise relatively unaffected by those wavelengths which can pass the aether… making lasers possible but not particularly effective weapons, at least as far as targeting other ships: they may have defensive uses (more on that in a minute). 

Particle beams… probably would be better ignored, since it might be difficult to rule them out: friction would dissipate them, of course, but it would be simpler to say that nobody operates ships large enough to carry their own cyclotrons. (And consider how few particles a cyclotron accelerates anyway: they may be able to create nifty patterns in a bubble chamber, but their effect on a ship's hull would be too minimal even to measure.) This might be a weapon mountable on a death star… and if you want death stars with unique, devastating capabilities, hey, you've got an easy one here. I get the impression you aren't trending that direction. Maybe orbital defense bases could have them, if you really want to. Might even be a good choice, if the orbits are inside of whatever effect deflects the aether from the planet: they'd work there (as would lasers), but nowhere else. Keeps the combat from reaching planetary surfaces… which is a good thing.

"No long range communication, no active detection" could get really ugly really fast: starships relying on naked-eye spotting and signal flags (heehee) are gonna be very wary of working up any speed at all, even outside of combat. In fact, especially outside of combat, since in combat the risks of going slow might exceed the minimal chance of catching an uncharted piece of whatever… or of colliding with the enemy. Or with another friendly. Conversely, the chances of two opposing ships locating one another in order to engage in combat will be pretty minimal–all but random (and with an astronomically [sic] low probability), apart from when they are in immediate proximity of planetary bodies. Of course, this may well be what you want: just mentioning it.

Also, keep in mind that "active detection" includes spotting that stray asteroid/comet/aethercetera in time to avoid it. No matter how well you chart a system, you'll never know where everything is. Presumably, if the aether degrades (scatters) e-m signals rather than simply blocking them, you'd at least be able to use radar at short ranges–it just becomes increasingly unreliable as distance increases, ultimately reaching a point where noise exceeds signal: past that point, your radar returns a uniform signal, telling you you're enclosed in a solid sphere. (Now _there's_ an image that would be disconcerting to anyone accustomed to the way radar works in the real world.… "Sir, I have a bulge in the surface, bearing 038 by 217.") Keep in mind, too, that if you want your missiles to be guided, they have to be guided by _something_: most options involve e-m, though there could be other possibilities (say, if the missile could follow the aetherial "wake" of its target, or home in on pressure differentials: essentially, aetherial passive sonar–and active sonar might be possible as well). And, to pass you a freebie idea I've long contemplated regarding the long-term feasibility and effects of space combat: debris salvage would likely be a _very_ assiduously pursued industry… or else the multitude of ship fragments, spent missile stages, kinetic projectiles, etc. left behind from battle would rapidly make any travel unacceptably hazardous. (The kinetic projectiles, at least, might disintegrate from friction with the aether after a reasonably short distance, given their high speeds; the other items, not so much.) This is where you might profitably employ those lasers: they'd be useful in vaporizing most forms of space junk encountered at close range, and possibly incoming missiles if the requisite anti-laser coating is too bulky (or whatever) to be applied to missiles or other projectiles. And it will never be profitable to chase down and recover every last softball- or even trashcan-sized piece of debris: that level of operation would need to be subsidized by government or other entities interested in keeping their space clean enough for commerce to be possible. Assuming that's a consideration in the first place, at any rate.

I'm guessing that the aether is simply not dense enough to "mix" with atmospheres: once it encounters a certain level of atmospheric pressure–or some other phenomenon, such as the magnetosphere–it gets pushed out of the way. My point was that if the aether creates friction, it will do so for planets (etc.) moving through it, so if you plan on getting detailed about orbital dynamics, you'd need to take that into account. My recommendation is to not reach for that level of detail about orbital dynamics, and just ignore this issue.  Of course, it could open other possibilities: the friction between the aether and the outer atmospheric layers might produce some pretty spectacular–and continuous–auroras. Another visual side-effect your aether might produce is, if you decide it is transparent to some e-m wavelengths, certain colors might be highlighted or absent. ("Oh, wow… everything is so, like, _blue_, dude!") Yet another, if you like the Brownian-motion notion of light traversing the aether, would be that night would never be completely dark: some light would be scattering off the aether onto the night side of the planet. (How much is entirely up to you. And, again, which colors. "Red by day, green by night.") Also, the planet shunting aside the aether would produce a bow shock and a turbulent wake… items you could use to make travel near large masses more, eh, "entertaining." 

You may well want the aether to be deflected by something other than the atmosphere _per se_, by the by… since friction would inevitably ablate matter away over the long term, no matter how minimal the immediate effect: this would result in gradual atmosphere loss for those bodies which had them. It will also result in gradual mass loss for bodies which do not have atmospheres–meaning everything in the system would have a particulate comet-like "tail," albeit a highly diffuse one. In other words, whatever problem friction causes for ships, it'll cause the same problem for everything else. This isn't necessarily a problem for _you_: like I said, take advantage of it to create some impressive visuals and unique navigation challenges.


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## Logos&Eidos (Aug 29, 2014)

Ravana said:


> Sounds like you're well on your way. Again, I'd warn that making the aether do what you have it do would also "scramble" a lot of other things—such as light from the star to its planets. I gather your "stars" aren't really stars, so possibly this has already been dealt with; still, having the aether disrupt lasers but not light from a "sky-fire" might leave you with "some 'splainin' to do"  .
> 
> One possibility: the aether is relatively transparent to some, possibly even most, e-m wavelengths, but blocks/reflects others. The reason short-wave radio works so well on Earth, for instance, is that the wavelengths it uses bounce off the ionosphere. I imagine lasers would be far less popular if the aether reflected their wavelengths…  . Of course, lasers being light, it might be difficult to explain why local science doesn't simply use lasers which operate on wavelengths that would pass through the aether… though this might be answerable by saying that the aether, while allowing those wavelengths to pass, causes them to scatter. That way, the light from the star could still make its way to the planets—albeit in a Brownian-motion sort of fashion, much the same way as photons generated by stellar fusion make their way to the surface of the star before departing in straight lines—but coherent beams rapidly lose their coherence and thus their utility as weapons. (This may well be what you had in mind already… think it is, in fact, and I'm just describing the same thing in different terms.) Or, perhaps more simply, local tech has yet to develop lasers which can operate on all wavelengths, and the ones it has developed to date are the ones inconvenient for use in the aether. Alternately, or in addition, it might be reasonably easy to produce ship coatings which reflect or are otherwise relatively unaffected by those wavelengths which can pass the aether… making lasers possible but not particularly effective weapons, at least as far as targeting other ships: they may have defensive uses (more on that in a minute).
> 
> ...



See this is why I talk to people. You and others have brought up things that i hadn't even taken into consideration.
While the sky-fire is definately not a star, it's doing the same job. Bring up  Brownian-motion is what i had in mind to put a real world scientific theory to it. I need the aether to mess with carrier waves and diffuse coherent beems but still allow heat and light to flow through it.  My initial idea for how aetheric interference worked, was inspired by how the atmosphere diffuses lasers and limits the range of direct open air optical communication;just cranked way up to the point where using either was impractical.

I do have a form of passive detection,it is for the time being gradar(gravametric detection and range). sensors listen for the ripples in space caused by moving objects and high-fidelity scopes what in all direction; until I can think of something better it's staying. I have some ideas about communication, mostly some sort of "hyperwave" and or bouncing singles through alternate dimension. a form of quatum-entanglement comm exist but it's only good for peer to peer communication,you cannot just hale somebody like on star trek. 


The space combat style where energy weapons are only used in close range, sounds allot like the space combat lore from MassEffect. And might just work for me, i never conceived of atheric beam diffusion as being complete just enough to make energy weapons rather impractical. Haven't ironed all the details yet but space combat in this world is closer to what's seen in nBSG than Star Wars or Star Trek; jump drive included. Beyond the night sky being pitch-silver instead of black I hadn't thought at all about what having an aether would do visually.


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