Subject: (urth) Green the Outer World

From: Michael Andre-Driussi <mantis at siriusfiction.com>
Date: Tue, 26 Mar 2002 00:39:17 +0000

Duh!

In my previous figurings, I put Green as a Venus stand-in.  Those jungles,
doncha know.

But hey, if Green is a full disk in the sky (iirc it is always a disk,
never crescent--another big tip if that is correct, since outer worlds are
always seen as disks), then it must be located further from the Breenstar:
an outer world dipping in, rather than an inner world reaching out to Blue.

This could help a lot with the whole six-year problem.  It probably plays
havoc with the estimated "habitable zone" around Sol-type stars, but maybe
not.

Let's see . . . put Blue at 0.95 AU (Fogg's Moist Greenhouse outer edge),
put Green at 1.83 AU (Fogg's outer edge of Juvenile Mars, just this side of
Runaway Icehouse) . . . hmmm.  Sure, that's right: Green at 1.83 AU would
have an orbit of around 2.5 years. And Blue would have an orbit of 0.93
years.

Now we can have the case where Green slowly gets into position at
periastron and Blue comes racing up and past.  But how often would the
closest encounters be?

Back to Roy's Blue Moon: it is the sense that Green has been =steadily=
shrinking in size, right?  That's what makes it seem like Green is a moon.
If it were the planet I'm talking about, it would be growing and shrinking
every year, but its maximum size every year would be increasing up to
closest encounter and then shrinking every year after that until the third
year when it would start growing again (while still growing/shrinking every
year).  A series of oscilations (planet) rather than a stately progression
through the night sky (moon).

(Oo, that's another thing--first glimpse of Green from Blue, at the end of
EXODUS, was near sunset, no?  Datapoint.  Is it ever seen during the day?)

=mantis=

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From: Jerry Friedman <jerry_friedman at yahoo.com>
Date: Tue, 26 Mar 2002 17:31:01 +0000

--- Michael Andre-Driussi <mantis at siriusfiction.com> wrote:
> always seen as disks),

Not quite.  It should never be an exact disk except when it's in
opposition (and when it's in conjunction on the *other* side of the
short sun), and if its orbit is only a little bigger than Blue's,
it should be noticeably gibbous at some points.

> then it must be located further from the Breenstar:

You're presenting strong arguments for this.  The strongest argument
against it is that the narrator consistently uses "conjunction"
rather than "opposition" for the time of closest approach.  According
to <http://www.m-w.com/cgi-bin/dictionary>, the astronomical meaning is
"3 a : the apparent meeting or passing of two or more celestial bodies
in the same degree of the zodiac b : a configuration in which two
celestial bodies have their least apparent separation".  Thus if
Green is an inner planet, it approaches closest when it's in
"inferior conjunction" with the short sun.  (Note, by the way, that
from the point of view of Bluvians, Blue is not a "celestial body".)
On the other hand, if it's an outer planet, it approaches closest when
it's in opposition, "1 : a configuration in which one celestial body is
opposite another in the sky or in which the elongation is near or equal
to 180 degrees".

> This could help a lot with the whole six-year problem.
...

Could you possibly remind me of the source of "six years"?  Somewhere
near the beginning of OBW, the narrator warns the Gaonese that the
conjunction will happen again "next year" or so it seems.  I'll try
to find a reference for that.

Jerry Friedman

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