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Old December 28th, 2006, 08:04 AM   #17
Damocles
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Default Cold water on the specualtions.

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Originally Posted by Sarika
Your opinions, knowledge and thoughts here are all totally fascinating!
More speculation follows.

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But if the 12 colonies orbited thier host star -sun similar to Earth...though I hardly think this would be likely, as I wonder how in hades could twelve planets orbit a single star in similar obital patterns as each other, when our own solar system planets all have a different path each around the sun, hence having a different length of measure for a year on those planets?
Have you ever heard of the Klemplerer Rosette? There is a limit to the Lagrange nodes but twelve is quite workable though six seems to be more likely. Note that this condition would be artificial? The Colonials apparenently don't know that. We would.

http://www.burtleburtle.net/bob/physics/kempler.html

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The other thing that bothers me, is in I think the episode of "The Lost Planet of the Gods", Part 1, Adama says to Serina,( after dining on a fine meal prepared by her, for Adama, Apollo, and friends, to announce her engagement to Apollo), "If only I were 100 yahrens younger....", to mean he would be just as interested in Serina if he were more her age contemporary.
If it is not an Adama exaggeration, then that instantly tells me Caprica's orbital period based on his actual physical condition.

1/2 year.
Mass =1 earth
Orbital radius mean 4.7 light minutes.
Solar mass of star =0.4->0.6 Sol
Luminosity per square meter 1/2->1/3 shifted toward the yellow.

Caprica would have to be within 10% of Earth normal to account for Caprican physiology.

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So how old do the Colonials live to? How old was Adama? If he took off 100 years from his age, would that make him the age of Serina and Apollo ?How old were they?
A human-sized animal without our mechanical aided enhancements of fire and machines has a maximum mean average in the wild, a life span of 40 years.

This is the body design limit. After age 40 we start to die in earnest.

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Does a year on their home planet(s) in the great 12 colonies, take much longer to orbit their sun? Hence forth, they age slower?
No. Human means Human. Entropy like gravitation is a[relatively] fixed constant. We are as subject to it, as the merest rock. We go from a more disordered condition [living and warm] to a more ordered condition.[cold and dead] within a clearly defined decay rate based on our metabolism. This is biologically ratioed as to our size and species type. Mammals decay faster than reptiles. Large mammals decay slower than small ones. Logically crocodiles should be able to live longer than elephants, which live longer than us. All variables being equal this would be true and it so evidences out.

Crocodile=75 years
Elephant=60 years
Human=40 years.

But we cheat. So the crocodile becomes a handbag when he is big enough, the elephant winds up overworked in a circus, and we die of heart attacks, diabestes, the flu, and cancer between 60->80 years of age.
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Love to hear your thoughts people?
This continues, further;
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Originally Posted by Semmut
The Colony of Caprica orbited a binary sun, as evidenced by the view from Adama's ruined home in the pilot movie.
Quite possible, though it would not be as seen. The second son should not be so bright or large or close. Roche limits. That close and the two suns would look like lopsided eggs, with the narrow ends pointed at each other.

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Baltar looks out over the bay, as the suns come up. In such a system, more than one planet might orbit within the so-called "life zone". Also, if we postulate that orbiting furthur out from the twin suns, say at a distance similar or greater than the distance of Pluto from our sun, is another star of similar spectral type, it could also have planet capable of supporting life forms. So, it might be possible to have Twelve Worlds, some probably moons of major planets, all withing a fairly small area of space.
There would be stellar dimorphism. every binary we see has a large star and a dwarf orbitting around each other in a maypole dance. We have yet to discover planets in the vicinities of such binary pairs yet. That doesn't mean that the rosette description below is impossible.

See above for how a Klemperer Rosette functions.

That rosette would be aproximately ten light minutes across and could orbit a blue white stellar primary at a distance between 4->6 light hours radius. The blue white primary could be no more than 3 solar masses to act as a stable locis A anchor point and not introduce too much tidal tug into the rosette to destroy it.

One thing is certain. Seasons on Caprica are weird. You have a long period summer fall winter spring cycle that has each season lasting aprroximately fifty terrestrial years while inside that cycle you have four mini seasons that last forty to fifty days each depending on the rosette's orbital inclination to the primary and whether the Twelve Colonies of Man have any sideral period. Some of those worlds could be tidally locked.[Caprica isn't, it has a day night cycle(SoaSW)]

Interesting conclusions? Once every 225 years or so the Colonials have an ice age that deep freezes them.

Colonial worlds would be iron rich with thinner atmospheres and more CO2 than our own. They need the thinner air with more greenhouse gasses to get the necessary sunlight from their weaker shiner star pair than we get from our own warm lovable sun and to trap the heat from reradiating into space. In point of fact their worlds could be actually smaller than Earth by about 10% with a corresponding weaker gravitational influence. that would make for less tidal stress and a more stable rossete.

Did I forget to mention that the Colonials would be very familiar with planet quakes and coriolis storms[hurricanes]?

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Once the Colonials rediscovered spaceflight, it would only be a matter of time until they began visiting each other. Even for the most distant colonies, the trip would be possible before FTL was developed, if somewhat protracted.
A Hohlman trajectory could take up to a year long depending on what pursuit ellipse was selected in the orbital plane.

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