Talk:Vlerëi

From Almeopedia

If Vlerëi's year is 548 days, and Ënomai is the same mass as the Sun, its distance from Almea should be 1.31 AU by Kepler's Third Law (as opposed to Mars, which varies from 1.38 to 1.66 AU). I imagine its orbit is probably more circular than Mars'. At any rate, it should get 58% as much sunlight as Earth (Mars gets 43%). And from what I know about planetary chemistry, if it's blue, it almost certainly is basically a colder version of Earth, with liquid water oceans... if it had frozen over, it would probably be completely white, or white and yellow-orange. And, to hold onto oceans, it is probably Venus or Earth size... I am personally expecting it to be larger than Almea, and possibly even Earth too. The Habitable Zone article on Wikipedia in fact suggests that Vlerëi should be habitable, since the Habitable Zone is believed to extend out to 1.37 AU in our system. BGMan 18:15, 31 May 2008 (PDT)

Habitable zones may be overrated, since geothermal energy is also important, and that depends on the size of the planet. I take Vlerëi as being larger too. Are you using Almean days in your calculation (roughly 1.02 terrestrial days)? I also shaved off a few days from the orbit just to be safe. :) Zompist 18:52, 31 May 2008 (PDT)

I think the current year length would work just fine... especially since you brought up geothermal energy and volcanism. That would be an important factor in keeping Vlerëi Earthlike, and as it correlates with mass, Vlerëi might need a bit more mass than Earth but not too much. I would put its mass at 1.1-1.3x Earth's (or more like 1.5x Almea's) but no more than that. Surface gravity would differ roughly by about half the difference in mass (Venus has 0.91 Earth's surface gravity but 0.815 Earth's mass, so Vlerëi would have ~1.1 g if it were 1.2 Earth mass.) I was assuming Almean and Earth days are close enough not to matter all that much. BGMan 13:51, 15 October 2008 (PDT)

It's not just outer planets that exhibit retrograde motion; "Mercury retrograde" is astrology-talk for "communications failure", for example.Neon Fox

True. My understanding is that Kepler focussed on Mars because it was easiest to observe. Zompist 09:03, 2 June 2008 (PDT)

Inferior planets have retrograde motion around inferior conjunction, when they're in front of the Sun and can't be seen. Superior planets' retrograde motion is very easily noticed, as it happens at opposition, when they're closest to Earth. BGMan 13:51, 15 October 2008 (PDT)