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Trying to make a world with a P-type binary star system, with a habitable planet orbiting around them, and one moon orbiting said planet. I am terrible with physics so I've been wondering if any of these occurrences would be possible:

  • One star eclipses the other once every 10 days?
  • The moon eclipses one star once every 60 days? (Would that even be visible?)
  • There is a total solar eclipse (both stars and the moon align) once every 360 days? (360 days = the planet's full orbit)

    If any are possible, with the planet still habitable, is a combination of some (or all) of them possible? If not, why?
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  • $\begingroup$ Please clarify your specific problem or provide additional details to highlight exactly what you need. As it's currently written, it's hard to tell exactly what you're asking. $\endgroup$
    – Community Bot
    Jun 28, 2022 at 12:16
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    $\begingroup$ What is a "P-type binary star system"? $\endgroup$
    – Daron
    Jun 28, 2022 at 12:26
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    $\begingroup$ @Daron: S-type system = the planet orbits one star, the other star is far away. P-type system = the stars orbit close together, the planet is outside and orbits their center of mass. See Wikipedia. $\endgroup$
    – AlexP
    Jun 28, 2022 at 14:15

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  • One star eclipses the other once every 10 days?
  • The moon eclipses one star once every 60 days? (Would that even be visible?)
  • There is a total solar eclipse (both stars and the moon align) once every 360 days? (360 days = the planet's full orbit)

These are all geometrically possible. Probably you cannot have all at once though. And I suspect they are unlikely considering how rarely eclipses of any sort are on Earth.

One star eclipses the other once every 10 days?

I wonder what this would look like. Maybe the planet gets darker. Maybe one star is a different size or color to the other.

enter image description here

If any are possible, with the planet still habitable, is a combination of some (or all) of them possible? If not, why?

You should look elsewhere on the site about whether binary systems are habitable

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  • $\begingroup$ Relative rarity of solar eclipses on Earth is due to multiple factors: the Moon has barely the angular size of the Sun (some eclipses are annular due to orbit factors); the Moon's orbit isn't coplanar with Earth's, the Moon's period is not a rational fraction of Earth's, and Moon's orbit (largely due to being so far out) is chaotic both in inclination and period. With this proposed world's resonant orbits, there might well be eclipses this regularly, over a much larger fraction of the lit face than with Earth/Moon/Sun. $\endgroup$
    – Zeiss Ikon
    Jul 28, 2022 at 14:40

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