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To: Ernest_at_the_Beach

The tidal forces on those planets must be enormous. Also bet that the orbits are not stable. Hot for a while and cold for a while.


6 posted on 09/16/2011 9:34:36 AM PDT by glorgau
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To: glorgau

Sky and Telescope article says the orbit is stable, at least on a time scale of millions of years, or else it wouldn’t be around today. Tidal forces would be an interesting topic. The planet’s orbit is about 3 degrees off the orbit of the two stars, and is precessing smartly, as you might expect. In a few years, it will only transit one of the two stars and then neither, until it comes back in 2047. I can’t wait. (The nodes of the orbit will no longer fall along the line of sight to the Earth.)

As to tides, one would expect that objects in close proximitity and so deformable to be tidally locked. The motion of the planet around the stars would be quite non-keplarian, as the two lumps moved around their mutual center of gravity, but I think this would cause considerable liberation, but not a whole lotta tides. Anyway, you raise an interesting point.


13 posted on 09/16/2011 10:36:52 AM PDT by Lonesome in Massachussets (Ceterum autem censeo, Obama delenda est.)
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