If we lived on 61 Virginis IV....

PhantomWolf

Penultimate Amazing
PhantomWolf
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So I am writing a story about a future human colony and after searching through a lot of systems to try and find one that would potentially work and wasn't already used in about 50 prominent Sci Fi Books, I settled on the idea that 61 Virginis does in fact have a near Earth mass planet in the goldilocks zone, and it is considered worth sending a colony ship there.

So assuming that the planet really exists and we were part of the colony looking up at the night sky, what would we see? How different to Earth would their night sky be, which parts would be similar, or the same? I'm guessing that they would have two maybe three very bright evening/morning stars (planets) with the super earths that orbit closer to the sun. Without large gas giants further out, the likes of jupiter or Saturn would be missing too, though one of more Mars like planets might be visible.

So what sorts of things in the night sky would be familiar or alien to those landing there?
 
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PhantomWolf said:
So I am writing a story about a future human colony and after searching through a lot of systems to try and find one that would potentially work and wasn't already used in about 50 prominent Sci Fi Books, I settled on the idea that 61 Virginis does in fact have a near Earth mass planet in the goldilocks zone, and it is considered worth sending a colony ship there.

So assuming that the planet really exists and we were part of the colony looking up at the night sky, what would we see? How different to Earth would their night sky be, which parts would be similar, or the same? I'm guessing that they would have two maybe three very bright evening/morning stars (planets) with the super earths that orbit closer to the sun. Without large gas giants further out, the likes of jupiter or Saturn would be missing too, though one of more Mars like planets might be visible.

So what sorts of things in the night sky would be familiar or alien to those landing there?
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OK I'll bite. But first you need to tell us what the characteristics of the hypothesized planet might be, since as of yet none have been detected earthlike comparable.

Is your yet to be discovered planet a waterworld? Ice world? Sweltering hot and humid with dense atmosphere? Who knows?

One thing we do know is that without the large gas giants the "asteroid belt" on this system would be HUGE and likely send a constant supply of meteorites/comets to the inner planets. That could be an interesting light display, though also pretty dangerous for the space colonists. Lots of plot drama there for your book.
 
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As for their constellations, you might find that some portions of their night sky (especially, when looking toward Sol) are somewhat familiar, with the constellations only slightly altered. They'd see some stars completely new to the constellation or missing entirely from it, some stars shifted dramatically within the constellation, and some barely moved. That's because the constellations we see are "deep;" that is, one star can be many times farther away than the star "next to" it. (Conventional star maps and celestial sphere globes might seem to imply the stars in a constellation are more or less equidistant from us, but that is very much not the case.)

You can look up star distances and compare them with the distance to 61 Virginis to get some idea. Actually mapping the colony's sky would take some work, but there's probably software somewhere that does this. Maybe some of the night sky/virtual planetarium programs include the option to shift the viewpoint to other stars.

Of course, if the planet has a perpetual high cloud layer or something, it might be a moot point.
 
Myriad said:
You can look up star distances and compare them with the distance to 61 Virginis to get some idea. Actually mapping the colony's sky would take some work, but there's probably software somewhere that does this. Maybe some of the night sky/virtual planetarium programs include the option to shift the viewpoint to other stars.
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There are. I had one a while back, when I was working on an RPG game setting based on near-earth space travel, that would let you import an astronomical data file (readily available from various sources) and would mal the starts into a 3d display that you could then move and view from different locations and angles. Wouldn't exactly give you "what would I see if I stood there", as it was just positions (didn't include stellar types or magnitude or similar), but it's a start.
 
Unfortunately it's overcast there, all day and night. Nobody who settled there has any idea what the night sky looks like.
 
The surface gravity would be bigger than Earth's. The density could be lower, as they have not stolen the core's of other objects like the Earth did with the moon. So the land area would be huge. Your novel could be exploring the consequences of that.

Would the inner planet be tidally locked with the sun?
 
PhantomWolf said:
So what sorts of things in the night sky would be familiar or alien to those landing there?
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Assuming you didn't write it: this website presents a detailed answer and even a star map.

Otherwise, star viewing might be very difficult. First, the planet has a very dense atmosphere and much higher CO2 levels. This would create a haze effect that would make seeing through the atmosphere difficult.

Second, the planet seems to be located outside of one or two gas giants orbiting within the orbit of Venus. This puts gravitational pressure on the planet and also exposes it to the very large asteroid belt without much of a shield. Its moons would take extensive damage and the planet itself would probably be hit with large rocks at a much, much higher frequency than earth.

But it's fiction and we don't really know. So you can make it whatever you want. If the story is good, its setting may not matter. Good luck.
 
Myriad said:
As for their constellations, you might find that some portions of their night sky (especially, when looking toward Sol) are somewhat familiar, with the constellations only slightly altered. They'd see some stars completely new to the constellation or missing entirely from it, some stars shifted dramatically within the constellation, and some barely moved. That's because the constellations we see are "deep;" that is, one star can be many times farther away than the star "next to" it. (Conventional star maps and celestial sphere globes might seem to imply the stars in a constellation are more or less equidistant from us, but that is very much not the case.)

You can look up star distances and compare them with the distance to 61 Virginis to get some idea. Actually mapping the colony's sky would take some work, but there's probably software somewhere that does this. Maybe some of the night sky/virtual planetarium programs include the option to shift the viewpoint to other stars.

Of course, if the planet has a perpetual high cloud layer or something, it might be a moot point.
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Thanks, this is what I was hoping for. :)
 
rjh01 said:
Earth only got the moon via a freak accident. Mind you, since this is a novel you can invent anything, like give it a few small moons. If there is a good asteroid belt this would be very plausible.
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I had actually planned to give it two captured moons similar to Mars, though likely bigger, but in more stable orbits so they aren't likely to crash into the planet in 50 million years.....
 
PhantomWolf said:
I had actually planned to give it two captured moons similar to Mars, though likely bigger, but in more stable orbits so they aren't likely to crash into the planet in 50 million years.....
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A stable orbit means it has an orbit that is more than the planet's day. This means that a day must not be too long.
 
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