What if we lived on a planet with two suns?

I just realized that if there were an alien planet that was surrounded by two suns, one on each side, that it would never be night. And if it was never night, they would never see the stars, and that because of this, they wouldn't know there was a universe.

Well, I guess eventually they would make planes that would take them up high enough to discover the stars by accident. But the reason I bring this up is because... what are our "two suns"? What is preventing us from seeing something that we didn't know existed?

Originally posted by CaptnCrunch
I just realized that if there were an alien planet that was surrounded by two suns, one on each side, that it would never be night. And if it was never night, they would never see the stars, and that because of this, they wouldn't know there was a universe.

That would depend on the orbits of the binary stars and their planets.

Originally posted by CaptnCrunch
Well, I guess eventually they would make planes that would take them up high enough to discover the stars by accident. But the reason I bring this up is because... what are our "two suns"? What is preventing us from seeing something that we didn't know existed?

This doesn't make any sense, can you rephrase it?

What does this have to do with Aliens and UFOs? Shouldn't this be in the Astronomy section or something?

We have nothing to reference as far as what it's like to live on a planet that has 2 Suns, so how are we possibly supposed to sit around and guess "what ifs" about it?

Just because you have 2 Suns and it's light all the time does not mean you would never be able to see stars and realize that there is other stuff out there...

I dont think its possible that humans can co exist with a 2 planet solar system basically because our skin can only withstand so much heat that it may turn black to the darkest extent. Wed be blind if not be forced through mutation/adaptation.

I think he's on about Tatooine, and all those funky aliens in the Mos Eisley canteena.

Stars in a binary system are not fixed the smaller sun would orbit the larger sun like some hot fiery gas giant.

There is a screensaver called Gravitiation, that simulates star systems and gravitational effects of sun's, planets, asteroids and comets in a system. It's a very old program from like 1995. It's a great little program, I once had a binary system, with a planet doing a figure of eight orbit around the two stars. It was stable too for ages, until a comet hit it and pushed it's orbit closer to one of the suns. What happened next was the suns slingshot effect launched the planet out of the system.



Peace

It will not always be daylight all year long.It will be like here on Earth. Except you will two sun. It only be daylight only for a third of the years. With sun on one side and the other on the other.Because the planet will orbit one of the star only. And Tatooine orbit both stars at the sametime.

[edit on 28-2-2008 by kennethmd]