Gravitational Capture - Is this possible?

[drkaii]

I was at a system ages ago with CMDR S7 and we went to a gas giant and noticed that two moons were extremely close. We checked the system map and they were actually in separate orbits and we thought that was a really random amazing find with astronomically low odds.

Anyway, I went back to get there just to see if I would get lucky again on my way to another place we visited and noticed that they are now orbiting each other around the planet. There are 3 possibilities:

1. The first time we were there we actually got it wrong, through a mistake, through not checking properly, through inexperience
2. After a patch the background sim updated, and something was fixed or changed
3. They caught eachother gravitationally

Is possibility 3 real?

 

[Kolato]

I don't know, i guess it should be as else you could suddenly have 2 moons inside each other causing all sorts of crazy stuff, and making them binary fixes that automatically.

It would be very cool if this is true.

EDIT ; Okay that might have been a little stupid.

 

[neXib]

I was at a system ages ago with CMDR S7 and we went to a gas giant and noticed that two moons were extremely close. We checked the system map and they were actually in separate orbits and we thought that was a really random amazing find with astronomically low odds.

Anyway, I went back to get there just to see if I would get lucky again on my way to another place we visited and noticed that they are now orbiting each other around the planet. There are 3 possibilities:

1. The first time we were there we actually got it wrong, through a mistake, through not checking properly, through inexperience
2. After a patch the background sim updated, and something was fixed or changed
3. They caught eachother gravitationally

Is possibility 3 real?

The boring truth is probably that when the system generates this is all random.

 

[Katejina]

These two moons were orbiting each other and then orbiting their parent planet - a ringworld. There are some pretty strange orbits out there. Whether or not these actually change, I cannot say, but there are stranger things. Like 2 suns orbiting each other who also orbit around 2 other suns that orbit each other and these 2 orbits orbit with a 5th sun, the "core" sun of the system...

 

[drkaii]

The boring truth is probably that when the system generates this is all random.

It is procedural the first time, but as far as I know, it then survives and lives on. Next time you go you should be able to predict the positions of the moons etc, if you had noted down their orbital periods. Could be wrong

These two moons were orbiting each other and then orbiting their parent planet - a ringworld. There are some pretty strange orbits out there. Whether or not these actually change, I cannot say, but there are stranger things. Like 2 suns orbiting each other who also orbit around 2 other suns that orbit each other and these 2 orbits orbit with a 5th sun, the "core" sun of the system...

http://puu.sh/hMD6O/e22cedc50a.jpg

The crazy orbits are some of the most interesting things about exploring