Questions tagged [day-night]
For questions regarding the day-night cycle of a day on a world. Usually regarding the dark-light cycle.
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Would this sort of climate be possible on a tidally locked moon? [duplicate]
In the current fantasy novel I'm working on, I decided that I wanted to have a part of the planet where it was always daylight. After doing some research I learnt about the concept of tidally locked ...
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4answers
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What would days and nights look like on this cylindrical world?
This is yet another "literal worldbuilding" question, as in, building worlds. Inspired, in part, by this question.
What if this world is a very long (effectively infinite) hollow cylindrical cavity ...
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6answers
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I want ten Earth-years long day on my planet. Can I have it?
I need ten Earth years long day-night cycle on my planet.
Hemera is a world I am creating as a setting for my story. Name comes from Greek deity - personification of Day. Needs of storytelling have ...
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2answers
40 views
Frequent Solar Eclipse Cycle and Its Effects [closed]
I’m trying to imagine a sci-fi/fantasy world in which a solar eclipse occurs roughly once every 3 or 4 days. The exact frequency can be arbitrary and varied, but it does need to occur often. I would ...
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6answers
910 views
How do I calculate the hours of daylight on an arbitrary planet for a given day at a given latitude?
I want to be able to graph the change in daylight hours across the year for a given latitude, to get an idea of what kind of cycle in available daylight people at that latitude would live through and ...
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1answer
176 views
Under which circumstances could a planet have two visible suns?
In the story I'm making, it is important that there are two suns in the sky, going at different rythms (maybe the planet orbits one of them each year, and the other each four years, for instance), and ...
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3answers
109 views
Could a planet have a week long day and a week long night depending on the season?
Essentially I'm looking for a plausible way that a planet could have odd, extreme seasons. Basically I'm wondering how (or if) a planet could work that has a week long day during the summer and a week ...
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2answers
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Alien Speices with extreme day/night cycle
I am creating this alien species and they live on three separate worlds blah blah, that doesn't matter right now.
This one planet I have has a fairly long day-night cycle (I haven't decided on how ...
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2answers
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Creating “Sunfall” on the moon of a gas giant
I'm attempting to figure out the orbital physics of a system that has a habitable body that has intense periods of waxing and waning sunlight. I've come to the assumption that the best body for this ...
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Realistic ways a Planet or Large Moon could have Variable Day/Night periods
Hello I imagine this is a pretty straightforward question, perhaps already covered in another post, but I wanted to get extra perspectives and options for achieving this type of planet or moon. So ...
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1answer
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Days and Seasons via Daily Eclipses in a Flat World
While working on the cosmos of a flat world, I came upon the idea of using a dim sum rotating about an axis through the central pole (as described here) in order to accomplish days and seasons. The ...
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2answers
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Sleeping in a world without night
I'm working on a game world where light (Lux) gives literal definition to all matter. Anything in complete shadow (Umbra) is without definition and completely amorphous.
At the center of the world, ...
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7answers
292 views
Always night in one hemisphere. Is it viable?
I am building a world where one side of the planet has normal progression of day and night whereas in the other hemisphere it is always night.
At first I had no idea how this could be possible in the ...
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2answers
307 views
Nocturnal Photosynthesis
It's a basic fact that most plants need sunlight to generate growth. Sure, they also need water and nutrients, but their reliance on sunlight is the one sole thing that separates them from animals.
...
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3answers
246 views
How could I scientifically explain a world with day/night cycle only on the equator?
I'd like to build a world that has one pole where it's constantly day (all year long) and the weather is very hot, and one where it's constantly night (all year long) and the weather is freezing.
I'd ...
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7answers
878 views
A planet of ice and fire
I had an idea for a planet which has very hot days, roughly 40 degrees C on average, and very cold nights, average -5 degrees. These figures are subject to change. Of course, there are places which ...
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4answers
318 views
Could a Stanford torus rotate on an additional axis to give it a diurnal cycle?
Suppose you have a regular old Stanford torus space station with a 'glass ceiling' rotating at 1.3 RPM. Put it in orbit around a star such that its axis of rotation intersects the star (in other words,...
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1answer
119 views
Seasons & days with steep axial tilt?
Given tilt of about 90deg (like Uranus), with day & year like Venus (day longer than year), orbiting a purple (brown) dwarf (not tidal locked). I'm having trouble getting "seasons" & day ...
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6answers
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Would separating people into 2 groups help the economy in any way?
Would splitting humans into two groups, those that work and live during the night, and those that work and live during the day, help the economy in any way?
What would be other considerations of ...
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3answers
288 views
What is the optimal sleep scheduling strategies for a 24h sleep cycle on a 48h day planet?
I have a planet with days that is exactly two times longer than in real world. I'm trying to find out the best time to sleep if people still need as much sleep as they do even if they are on a planet ...
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2answers
139 views
Is it safe to have an earth-like temperature for a 48-hour day-night cycle on a big planet?
I want this planet to be very earth-like on all aspects except for its size and the day-night cycle. The circumference is three times greater than the earth's circumference. The day-night cycle lasts ...
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4answers
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Ways other than sleep to restore cells/neurons
So I have a planet with multiple species on it. My planet is tidally locked. I know it is generally thought a tidally locked planet couldn't harbor life because of the extreme temperatures, but my ...
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1answer
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If the Earth was part of an ultimate solar system, what would the sky look like?
I once show a picture depicticting the idea of an ultimate solar system:
Image Copyright Sean Raymond
In this solar system there are 8 planetary orbits, each containing 52 equal-mass, evenly-spaced ...
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5answers
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What are the day and night fluctuations for a moon orbiting a planet the size of Jupiter?
In a nutshell, I'm trying to build a world with erratic day/night cycles.
To get the erratic days, I'm working with a habitable moon. It takes 3 full earth days (72 hours) for the habitable moon to ...
6
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2answers
199 views
2 weeks day, 2 weeks night, how would the sleeping pattern of the planet's dominant species work with a 28 'day' Day?
Okay, so I have this binary planet system. The main planet a bit bigger than earth with a size appropriate moon-planet. Both are habitable and with a humanoid species that evolved there.
But, I know ...
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4answers
209 views
Day/night cycle science help?
So I am building a world but need help with its day/night cycle and the science to make it work.
The planet has a 32 hours day cycle, however there is only 10 hours of light a day. This planet is ...
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8answers
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Why would it be unfortunate for a day length to vary in a planet; other than that Java API developers need to work a few hours more? [closed]
Quoting from the Java Docs:
Unfortunately, as the Earth rotates the length of the day varies. In
addition, over time the average length of the day is getting longer as
the Earth slows.
I am ...
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3answers
290 views
Effects of 6 hours days on my planet
One of the planets I am working on is supposed to have a day of about 6 earth hours long & I’m wondering what effects this will have on its surface and climate. Also, I don’t know if this is ...
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6answers
296 views
What sort of setup of a binary star system would allow only one sun to be “up” at a time?
I have a sci-fi/fantasy world with two suns. Only one sun can be present in the sky at a time. A full day-night cycle would be:
Night time
Sun 1 rises
Sun 1 sets
Sun 2 rises
Sun 2 sets
Night time
Is ...
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votes
5answers
234 views
A planetary region with no night and no tidal locking?
Without tidal locking, would it be possible to have a planet with a region roughly the shape and size of the USA and Canada in which it is always "day"? (By day I mean at least as bright as a clear ...
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3answers
138 views
How would the people survive in darkness and be affected by the short periods of sunlight?
I'm trying to make a fantasy world with a longer night cycle than day.
With the advice of Renan, 12 hours of proper night, 4 hours of near/partial dark and 8 hours of good light. Similar to earth the ...
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4answers
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How would flora be affected by longer night than day cycle?
Night/Day Cycle
I'm trying to make a fantasy world with a longer night cycle than day.
With the advice of Renan, 12 hours of proper night, 4 hours of near/partial dark and 8 hours of good light. ...
3
votes
3answers
184 views
How thick does an atmosphere have to be in order to make the sky “light up” during “daytime” human or near human ocular sensitivity?
If a planet were to have a very thin atmosphere how thick or thin would it have to be to allow there to be a daytime and a nighttime given human or near human ocular sensitivity?
In other words, ...
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1answer
148 views
A K-Type Binary Dawn/Dusk in the Equator
In this alternate scenario, Earth is the third planet in a binary star system. One star is a K-type main sequence star--or "orange dwarf"--that has 80% the mass of a G-type main sequence star--or "...
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1answer
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Earth Orbits a K-Type Star. What Would the Visual Scenery Look Like?
To clarify on the title, K-type main-sequence stars--shortened as "orange dwarves"--are subjects of excitement for astronomers and astrobiologists.
Why?
They emit enough radiation to provide a ...
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7answers
974 views
Could I have an earth-like planet from which sun and moon would never be simultaneously visible?
On earth there can be hours where the moon is up during the same time the sun is in the sky (daytime moon) due to the combined rotation of earth and orbit of the moon. I would like to have an earth-...
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1answer
382 views
How does the day/night cycle work on a non-tidally locked moon?
So to keep this simple, imagine a planet much like ours, orbiting a star. For the sake of this example, let's give the planet a 24 hour rotation, and a 364 day orbit around the star.
Now, this planet ...
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4answers
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Tree growth rings without seasons
Tree growth rings are created because the time of day with sunlight differs throughout the year. How would the inside of a tree look, if it were to grow up on a planet without seasons, where day and ...
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0answers
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Night/Day Cycle Magic [closed]
How would a world evolve where magic users can either only use magic when the moon is up, or only when the sun is up. How would this effect where magic users live, and how would they interact with the ...
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13answers
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Terminology for 24 hour wake-sleep cycle on world with longer dark-light cycle?
Take the Jovian moon Ganymede as a real-world example. It has an orbital period of ~7 days around Jupiter, which is effectively its day and its year simultaneously.
My characters will need the words ...
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votes
1answer
182 views
What would the temperature variation be on this planet? (High eccentricity & slow rotation)
I've been trying to figure out a model (or find a relevant paper) for calculating the approximate day/night and periapsis/apoapsis temperature variation for an earth-like planet that has a high ...
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4answers
410 views
Spotlight distribution in a hollow earth?
I've been toying with a concept for a hollow/inner Earth universe in which I would like to achieve an even distribution of light. The pickle is that the "sun" of this world operates like a beacon/...
5
votes
1answer
117 views
Climate on a world with a Sun of varying luminosity
Given the daylight cycle discussed here (see the graph in the selected answer), suppose that the moon revolves in the equatorial plane, at a distance sufficient to light (barely) the poles, avoiding a ...
5
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3answers
520 views
Could I make this dark and eerie world possible?
The inspiration came from the music in the title sequence of the film Alien. The idea is a planet that humans have colonized where it's almost always drizzling slightly. It's always dark but there is ...
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16answers
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On a world where everyone is nomadic, how does civilization start?
As previously stated, I am constructing a world that has a day lasting nine years. The inhabitants must always be on the move in order to avoid the freezing wastelands of the night, but not so fast as ...
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2answers
234 views
How would society without a change in day or night form time, or structure to anything? [duplicate]
I'm working on a conceptual planet that is tidally locked to its star, and that there would be a ring or "twilight" zone of life on the planet. But because of this, there would be no sunset or sunrise....
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7answers
376 views
Feasibility and challenges of a kingdom existing within an eternal night?
Okay, so admittedly I was going for a title that was a bit more catchy than the actual question, but not by much. On a technical level, the real question is "Feasibility and challenges of why a large ...
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4answers
866 views
Would a species that migrates across the globe discover its roundness sooner?
I have a world with 9 year days. That is, the day-night cycle here lasts 9 years, where ours lasts a mere 24 hours.
Very similar to a tidally locked planet, except the habitable belt moves. The ...
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3answers
343 views
What is the optimal circadian rhythm?
We have 24 hour schedules because the earth rotates about once every 24 hours. But what if humans were on a planet that didn't have 24 hour days? Would their bodies adapt to stay awake for far longer ...
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2answers
577 views
Can a planet with a very long day/night harbor life such as Earth?
The year of this planet is 1,000 earth-days-long around its star, and its night lasts half a year.
Can it support life such as Earth?
With humans and lush forests and liquid water and good ...
