What Are Some Interesting Planet Concepts from Sci-fi?

[CaptRobau]

If you've seen Interstellar, you'll know it has some interesting (and as far as I know original) concepts for planets,

such as the ocean planet with a half a meter deep water and huge waves, and the planet with the frozen clouds

. I was wondering what some other fascinating concepts for planets are from sci-fi.

[Bill Phil]

Arrakhis. Desert planet with some crazy spice. It's key for interstellar travel in the Dune universe. It has giant sand worms and the like.

Home, also a desert planet. It's the home world of the Race, a species of intelligent reptile-like creatures.

Pandora, which is a "habitable" moon orbiting Polyphemus, a gas giant.

There's a few.

[KerikBalm]

Are we talking any planet type?

Or are we talking habitable celestial bodies - habitable in the sense that you can breath the atmosphere at least.

Habitable moons around gas giants (this predates Avatar by a large margin... there were books dealing with such a scenario in the 90s, including one in which the moon was slowly spiralling inward towards the roche limit, and the civilization there needed to accelerate it technological development to become space faring before their world was torn apart in a matter of centuries)

Double planets (of roughly equal size, not like Earth-Moon or even Pluto-Charon, although I think this is unlikely, as any small initial imbalance will have a positive feedback loop causing one to get significantly bigger than the other)

Co-orbital planets (they are both at the lagrange point of the other, but other orbital resonances are possible, but its harder to imagine, especially since you want low eccentricity orbits for civilization bearing planets) - which may go to war when they discover each other.

Beyond that, I think most planet concepts are either unimaginative, or unreasonable, just taking one envorinment on earth and extending it to a whole planet - especially in star wars, such as Hoth. (sure, snowball planets can exist, but they aren't likely to have much complex life on the surface, and there are other examples of desert planets and swamp planets).

I guess Kharak from Homeworld was a bit interesting. Its a mostly desert planet, but the poles have oceans and were habitable. Kind of like titan a little-> with lakes at the poles.

The initial water content of such a planet would have to be low to prevent a runaway greenhouse, and it must be close enough to the star to prevent freezing at the poles, but I suppose its possible.

I've long wondered what it would be like to find a planet like Earth roughly 3 billion years ago -> teeming with life, but almost no oxygen in the atmosphere, and the life is mostly visible as "sludge" and "matts)

[1greywind]

Planet Mesklin from Hal Clement's "Mission of Gravity" - insane rapid-spinning disk-shaped world with surface gravity changing from 700g on ples to 3g on equator.

[xenomorph555]

There was an episode of Doctor who that was set on a dark, cold and mysterious planet. The planet itself was nothing more then a rocky mercury-esque planet but what made it cool was it was a lonely planet orbiting a black hole. Creepy stuff.

[CptRichardson]

Here's a whole bunch of planet concepts that a guy with too much time on his hands came up with to challenge the normal preconceptions of how life-bearing planets could form.

http://www.worlddreambank.org/P/PLANETS.HTM

He's working on a tide-locked planet right now, it's all pretty interesting.

[vger]

Beyond that, I think most planet concepts are either unimaginative, or unreasonable, just taking one envorinment on earth and extending it to a whole planet - especially in star wars, such as Hoth. (sure, snowball planets can exist, but they aren't likely to have much complex life on the surface, and there are other examples of desert planets and swamp planets).

Granted, George Lucas probably didn't think hard enough about such a thing, but in the EU, Hoth gets warmer the deeper you go. In SWG there was even a section of the Echo base where this 'ecosystem' was seeping in through cracks and fissures. They left the Tauntauns to graze there, as there was a lot of moss and other small flora growing around thermal vents. This may or may not be the cave mentioned in an early treatment of the ESB script, which the Wampas were using to get into the base.

[Motokid600]

Seems fitting. Happy ten year anniversary Halo.

[vger]

Seems fitting. Happy ten year anniversary Halo.

Technically, that's a space station.

[NERVAfan]

Planet Mesklin from Hal Clement's "Mission of Gravity" - insane rapid-spinning disk-shaped world with surface gravity changing from 700g on ples to 3g on equator.

Hal Clement had lots of great ones.

In addition to Mesklin...

Tenebra (from Close to Critical) is basically Venus with water and life - the temperature is constantly close to the critical point of water (thus the title) planetwide, so small temperature variations between day and night cause it to change from liquid to supercritical fluid. (I'm not sure life would actually be able to work in near-supercritical water since supercritical water tends to break down organic compounds... OTOH, I wouldn't have expected life to be able to exist at battery-acid pH and there are microbes that can do that).

Dhrawn (from Star Light) is basically a super-jovian-sized rocky planet with liquid ammonia/water mixtures which have weird freeze/thaw properties. It doesn't have intelligent natives, I think there might be some simple plants though (haven't read the book in a while).

Abyormen (from Cycle of Fire) is a planet in a binary system that passes between a cooler and a hotter sun; totally different forms of life exist on the planet in the different seasons (one is water-based and organic like us, I can't remember what the super-heated life uses).

[NERVAfan]

Granted, George Lucas probably didn't think hard enough about such a thing, but in the EU, Hoth gets warmer the deeper you go. In SWG there was even a section of the Echo base where this 'ecosystem' was seeping in through cracks and fissures. They left the Tauntauns to graze there, as there was a lot of moss and other small flora growing around thermal vents. This may or may not be the cave mentioned in an early treatment of the ESB script, which the Wampas were using to get into the base.

That could actually work. I couldn't see complex life evolving on such a planet, but Hoth might be an Earth that went into a temporary Snowball Earth phase. Most stuff would go extinct, definitely, but some life would persist around hydrothermal/volcanic features. I'm not sure it would be able to support animals as big and energetic as the Tauntaun and Wampa, but...

EDIT: The ice planet in Alan Dean Foster's Icerigger and sequels has a warm/cold cycle tens of thousands of years long, and the life switches between 'ocean age' and 'ice age' forms. There are plants that burrow roots through the ice.

Edited November 11, 2014 by NERVAfan

[Tommygun]

Philip José Farmer's Riverworld where people are reborn in an after life like world along a massively long river system.

Robert L. Forward's Rocheworld, a double planet that almost touch. One desert and the other a water world.

Niven's Ringworld and The Smoke Ring both not planets.

The Smoke Ring is a gas torus of a breathable atmosphere orbiting a neutron star and replenished by a gas giant and all of this orbiting a nearby star.

Plants and animals evolved to live in a micro gravity world without any land.

Edited November 11, 2014 by Tommygun

[dharak1]

Rocheworld from the book of the same name is pretty cool. Hard to explain so I would read the Wikipedia page if you want to know more but the basic idea is a double planet where the planets are very close and share an atmosphere and water from one occasionally gets to the other.

Edit: Ninja'd

[Bigbootie]

Game of Thrones long seasons. Winter is coming.

[Tommygun]

Game of Thrones long seasons. Winter is coming.

I've kinda wondered what kind of solar system the Seven Kingdoms is in.

Like a binary star system to have such irregular long winters that can last years or none at all at rare times.

[KerikBalm]

http://www.sciencemag.org/content/340/6129/126.3.full

Game of Habitable Zones

In the world of Game of Thrones, summer can last for years, winter for a generation. Fans have long debated the reason for these unpredictable seasonsâ€â€and now astronomers at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland, offer a hypothesis: The show's setting may be a world that orbits two stars instead of one.

On this hypothetical planet, years last 700 days, and the two sunlike stars orbit each other every 100 days. This complicated dance results in erratic seasons, with winters that can last anywhere from 600 to 850 days. Because the orbit is a three-body problem, predicting the length of the seasons in advance would be impossible for the computerless maesters of Westeros. "With heavy hearts, we conclude that our attempts to provide the good folks of Westeros with a reliable weather forecast are inconclusive," the authors wrote in a paper posted on the arXiv server on 1 April.

Other earth scientists are skeptical. The pattern of winters and summers plotted in the paper "doesn't quite seem chaotic enough" to cause the turmoil observed in Westeros, says Stephen Kane, an astronomer at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena who has studied the habitable zones of exoplanets in such circumbinary orbits. He suggests injecting a bit more chaos by introducing a third star to the system or reimagining the planet as an exomoon orbiting a gas giant. Still, this paper "is on the right path to providing a purely physical explanation" of the Westerosi seasons, he says. "Of course, if there's magic involved, all bets are off."

I think we would have noticed if the world of GoT had 2 suns though

[Nuke]

i always figured westeros was on a dyson sphere around a very unstable star (perhaps on the verge of going nova). hence the curve of the intro map and the we all live in the eye of a giant myth.

[heng]

are you asking only in terms of physical properties?

Robert L. Forward: Dragon's Egg - A civilization evolved on a neutron star. Hard SF, less plot driven, more setting and accuracy focussed.

or do you allow interesting concepts, that are engulfed in a gripping narrative?

Neal Asher: Spatterjay - extremely well done and 'fleshed out' - pun intended - fauna. my personal SF must-read recommendation ;-)

Jack L. Chalker: The Warden Diamond - four planets in one habitable zone, with a catch: once there, you cannot leave. SF classic

[Rakaydos]

http://scientificgamer.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/halo.jpg

Seems fitting. Happy ten year anniversary Halo.

*cough*

[Tommygun]

I think we would have noticed if the world of GoT had 2 suns though

One or two of the stars could be something like a neutron star in a triple star system?

I had considered orbiting a gas giant too and I think you would need it to orbit a gas giant in a triple star system to keep it in place.

You still need something that could make things go from winters of several hundred days to decades. Unstable star...maybe.

But my best next guess is they are living on a giant magical mechanical orrery.

Edited November 11, 2014 by Tommygun

[KerikBalm]

Well, if they were on a moon in a tight orbit around a gas giant, they may have days of a similar length to our own. The moon would of course be tidally locked, such that from half the surface of the planet, you'll never see the gas giant - I read one sci fi book in such a scenario... when they reached the age of sail, and sailed across the open ocean, and the massive disc of the gas giant hanging in the sky, it was dubbed the face of god, and a new religion started. They would go on ships and make pilgrimages out onto the open ocean to see "the face of god", as their continent was on the side facing away from the gas giant.

Anyway... I don't see how orbiting a gas giant helps change the winters.

As I see it, the winters changing lengths must be caused due to either a change in axial tilt, or a change in eccentricity (where winter would be when you are at apoapsis).

I suppose an eccentric enough orbit, combined with an axial tilt would allow "winters" from both being near apoapsis, or having your axis tilted away from the sun, and the two would obviously be of different lengths. If there is precession of the axis, then the two would sometiems combine for "super winters" which Westeros+ Essos seem to experience.

Yet there would still be clear cycles, and I'd be surprised if they hadn't figured it out.

It seems like it can't be explained.

It seems there can't be two main sequence stars, but a brown/white dwarf or neutron star may be too dim to be visible, while still having enough mass to make things weird.

[Kryten]

*cough*

http://upcoming4.me/images/phlebas.jpg

*cough*

[Red Iron Crown]

Canyon from Larry Niven's Known Universe series is interesting. A planet with an incredibly thin atmosphere, but with a deep, deep canyon in which the atmo is thick enough to be habitable. Pressure suits are required on the surface but not in the canyon.

[magnemoe]

Philip José Farmer's Riverworld where people are reborn in an after life like world alone a massively long river system.

Robert L. Forward's Rocheworld, a double planet that almost touch. One desert and the other a water world.

Niven's Ringworld and The Smoke Ring both not planets.

The Smoke Ring is a gas torus of a breathable atmosphere orbiting a neutron star and replenished by a gas giant and all of this orbiting a nearby star.

Plants and animals evolved to live in a micro gravity world without any land.

http://www.larryniven.net/images/NSFPhys05.gif

http://s3.amazonaws.com/stripgenerator/strip/66/46/66/00/00/full.png

http://storypeg.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/integralniven2.jpg

yes the smoke ring is cool, as unlike earth as you can get.

Rocheworld is a close second, an double planet is an cool idea, it also has some benefits, you will get transfer of organisms between them.

Question how would gravity behave on ground between them?

Launching something into orbit would be harder than sending something to the other planet

Ringworld is to big to be plausible, an smaller habitat like Halo is plausible. However why not spikes to an hub like wheel, it give you easy access to micro gravity and makes docking easier.

[magnemoe]

Well, if they were on a moon in a tight orbit around a gas giant, they may have days of a similar length to our own. The moon would of course be tidally locked, such that from half the surface of the planet, you'll never see the gas giant - I read one sci fi book in such a scenario... when they reached the age of sail, and sailed across the open ocean, and the massive disc of the gas giant hanging in the sky, it was dubbed the face of god, and a new religion started. They would go on ships and make pilgrimages out onto the open ocean to see "the face of god", as their continent was on the side facing away from the gas giant.

Anyway... I don't see how orbiting a gas giant helps change the winters.

As I see it, the winters changing lengths must be caused due to either a change in axial tilt, or a change in eccentricity (where winter would be when you are at apoapsis).

I suppose an eccentric enough orbit, combined with an axial tilt would allow "winters" from both being near apoapsis, or having your axis tilted away from the sun, and the two would obviously be of different lengths. If there is precession of the axis, then the two would sometiems combine for "super winters" which Westeros+ Essos seem to experience.

Yet there would still be clear cycles, and I'd be surprised if they hadn't figured it out.

It seems like it can't be explained.

It seems there can't be two main sequence stars, but a brown/white dwarf or neutron star may be too dim to be visible, while still having enough mass to make things weird.

Main effect for an gas giant moon would be the light at night on the inside. Not much heat from it but lots of light.

And yes the planet would be some of an surprise, more fun as earlier migrations would probably have moved into that area in prehistorical time and gotten used to the planet, take it for granted and would miss it a lot then moving out.

Another effect is all the other moons, lots of nice targets for spaceflight, might even have multiple moons with life.

Downside might be more asteroid impacts.