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Most common planetary system layout.


Quartofel

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Hello there.
I'm creating a fictional near sci-fi universe and one of my main goals is to make it as plausible as possible. One of my main concerns is planetary system tough. I'm not convinced if it could by any means exist in reality. Searching this topic gave little-to-none results, so I'm here now, asking greater minds than mine, what's the most common planetary layouts out there. What limits ammount and size of celestial body in one system circling around a star similar to Sun.

Cheers!

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The problem with exoplanet lists is there is a strong bias for what we can easily detect.

 

Your question doesn't have a simple answer. What is your idea? If is probably easier to know if it's not possible. E.g. lots of odd intercepting orbits wouldn't be stable, both counter and clockwise orbits around the same object would be difficult to explain the cause of etc...

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This is a very, very broad question. It would probably be easier to look at a specific idea and explain what, if anything, is wrong with it and how it could be fixed to be more realistic than to give a breakdown of all of the things you might expect to see in a plausible planetary system.

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Hello there.

I'm creating a fictional near sci-fi universe and one of my main goals is to make it as plausible as possible. One of my main concerns is planetary system tough. I'm not convinced if it could by any means exist in reality. Searching this topic gave little-to-none results, so I'm here now, asking greater minds than mine, what's the most common planetary layouts out there. What limits ammount and size of celestial body in one system circling around a star similar to Sun.

 

Cheers!

If you are concerned on how stable a particular arrangement is, you could try downloading some software like http://www.orbitsimulator.com/gravity/articles/what.html , plug your proposed planetary system into it and watch to see if it stays stable.

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Very true. Point taken.

 

Apparently the "transit" method finds most exoplanets. This is when the planet moves between us and the star and the star dims. So it would seem the transit effect is related to volume of planet/object, which is related to mass and density. So the transit method's detection population reflects on the how common objects are in relation to their volume.

 

Of-course if objects are transparent to EM radiation, or even translucent to different degrees, that would negatively affect their observability via this transit method too.

 

So the numbers would not reflect well on highly translucent or highly dense objects, both of which could have significant gravitational influence on the solar system they are in.

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Thank you for replies guys.
Planets from the closest one to Sun-like star:
-Super hot terrestial planet with super dense atmosphere with lava lakes and high volcanic activity.
-Terrestial planet with sponge-like structure, tidally locked, one moon.
-Gas giant with ring, numerous moons (Other question here, would it be possible - with sufficient technology - to harvest hydrogen and helium from gas giant's atmosphere?)
-Earth-like planet with two moons, two large continents, mostly covered with ocean (I'm concerned about ocean's behaviour with two moons)
-Cool terrestial planet, crust mostly composed from copper compounds (complete abstraction?)
-System's dense asteroid ring.
-Large ice-giant with handful of moons but with one large one (about 1/2 Earth's diameter).
That moon would have surface temperatures above water's freezing point due to geothermal activity and giant's Kelvin-Helmholtz mechanism.

@AbstractDreamer
I'm making decent use of this freedom, but it annoys me how classical fantasy puts physics into complete disregard and explains everything with "Ancent Magic", "Mighty Forces" or "Primeval Evil".
I want elves, dwarfs and griffins but with prosthetics, weak AIs, smartphones and common VTOL aircrafts. With actual explanation why humans and elves fight, why world is divided like it is and take my time to refine every detail.
When I'll finish working on version in my native language I'll probably try to translate it into english, but for now there is still lots to do.

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Well if you're writing novel or series, with the intention of making money, you have to consider your target audience and market niche.

 

Writing ultra realistic stories that impress the scientific world, you would probably find it hard to get published. Fire breathing dragons, time warping blackholes, hordes of bug-like nano-assimilating hive-mind aliens with acid for blood whose sole intention is to terrify before killing to the beat of a soundtrack.... these things sell. You don't have to worry about how much biomass is needed to sustain a single dragon, or how cool graphics makes time travel work, or how a non-carbon based lifeforms with such predisposition for violence might actually have evolved to conquer space.

 

Explaining how your complex binary star system, with multiple eliptical planets on bi-planar orbits and hyperbolic asteroid trajectories is an entirely realistic possibility doesn't really appeal to the masses usually.

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It is mainly to my own entertainment and to keep my brain fresh. I'll publish it online as universe, for other, more talented writers to place their stories in it. But I've never tought about making real money with it. If I ever will, I'll be seriously surprised.

 

I'm not aiming to make it fantasy "The Martian", I'm not such a bright-mind, tough still, I'd try to put dragons in ecosystem which could sustain them.

In other words, my goal is universe as plausible as I'm able to create.

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