Blitzen
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Planet goes the wrong way
Wow
Don't know what effect this would have? Maybe instead of day becoming night, night would become day? 
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8/13/2009, 9:29 am
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Firlefanz
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Re: Planet goes the wrong way
Interesting.
This planet seems to have a weird orbit, and they don't say in which direction it spins. Hmmm.
Thanks for the link. 
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8/13/2009, 10:37 am
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Corvus
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Re: Planet goes the wrong way
quote:
Firlefanz wrote:
Interesting.
This planet seems to have a weird orbit, and they don't say in which direction it spins. Hmmm.
You mean, which way the planet itself revolves?
Last edited by Corvus, 8/13/2009, 3:14 pm
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8/13/2009, 3:10 pm
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Firlefanz
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Re: Planet goes the wrong way
Yes, exactly. That would determine where the sun rises and how it would seem from the surface.
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8/13/2009, 6:02 pm
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Corvus
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Re: Planet goes the wrong way
quote:
Firlefanz wrote:
Yes, exactly. That would determine where the sun rises and how it would seem from the surface.
Not exactly. You could always change which way you wanted "north" to be, shifting sunrise from "west" to "east" or vice-versa.
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8/13/2009, 7:20 pm
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Firlefanz
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Re: Planet goes the wrong way
Well, of course. Yet that would simply be a change in terminology. I was thinking of the experience in contrast to here.
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8/13/2009, 7:41 pm
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QS2
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Re: Planet goes the wrong way
Well.... but there isn't an absolute north or south in the first place... so which side of the planet you choose as north is rather arbitrary.... 
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8/13/2009, 7:58 pm
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Blitzen
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Re: Planet goes the wrong way
But wouldn't there be other effects if the planet spun in the opposite way from its travel? Assuming it was an earth-like planet capable of supporting life.
Or would there be nothing worth noticing?
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Quick! Competition! Vote for your favourite comic scripts
http://forums.millarworld.tv/index.php?showtopic=90564&st=20
It's not clicky, though, sorry
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8/13/2009, 9:28 pm
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Reythia
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Re: Planet goes the wrong way
That's pretty cool!
But I'm going to have to stand with QS on this one: "day" and "night" would be effectively the same, regardless of the direction of orbital motion or even the direction of the planetary spin. The relevant question is the SPEED of the spin. (Tidally-locked planets have to be the strangest places to live on!) If the planetary spin is much faster than the orbital rotation rate (ie: 24 hours vs 366 days), then there won't be a very large difference in the day/night cycle, regardless of the parity of orbital and spin direction. (Ie: whether they both turn the same way or not.)
Actually, I just sketched out the situation of a planet with a spin opposite to its orbital rate. There should be absolutely no APPARENT difference between a "day" on a normally-rotating planet and one on a backwards-rotating one. The only thing that would be different would be the change between sidereal and solar days. On Earth, we say it takes 365.25 days to go around the sun, but in reality it's 366.25 -- the extra day happens because our planet rotates in the same direction as the sun. On a backwards-rotating planet, I'd think your true rotation period would be one day LESS, rather than one day MORE than the apparent, planet-fixed period.
Which means that their astronomers might have a slightly more interesting time of things, but wouldn't really affect farmers, fishers, and businessmen!
Remember, too, that we've got some odd planetary bodies right here in our own solar system. Good ole sideways-spinning Uranus immediately comes to mind. And a slew of little moons orbit "backwards", besides.
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8/14/2009, 1:23 am
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