My First Binary ELW!

Pinda Gupta

P
69 ELWs later (no, not funny), three of which are ringed and one of which is a ringed ELM, I've finally found my first binary pair of Earth-likes! Unfortunately, they're not close enough for picturesque views, but still incredibly neat nonetheless.
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Deleted member 115407

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I wonder how the tides work with those things?
 

Maolagin

M
vindelanos said:
I wonder how the tides work with those things?
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If they're not tidally locked (day length doesn't equal orbital period) then just like tides on Earth, but probably larger amplitude since the companion is a larger body.

Commonly these binaries are tidally locked though. In that case you would have only very minor observable tides, because the distortion of the planet (and it's water) is stationary relative to the surface. You would just have oceans that are a little deeper on average on the sides nearest and farthest from the companion, and a little shallower than average along the great circle perpendicular to that axis.
 

varonica

varonica
Well done, I found a binary pair this trip I am on at the moment, the really nice thing was they are the only two bodies in the system, so that's got to be super rare!
 

mpfj

mpfj
Congrats OP ...

On my current trip, I've now found 2 binary ELWs, so I'm a happy chappy.

Just waiting to find a ringed binary pair, then a triple, maybe a binary ELM pair .... argh, the list goes on !?!
 

marx

marx
mpfj said:
Just waiting to find a ringed binary pair, then a triple, maybe a binary ELM pair .... argh, the list goes on !?!
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Now that you mention it... Looks like a ringed binary pair would be more rare than a trinary. I only know of the one, Blua Hypue QI-Z d1-4516. Little wonder though; even there, it's most likely because there are no other planets in the system.
 

Evoflash

Evoflash
I love to think of the two dominant races of life on those planets. Do they hate each other? Do they work together? Awesome. If we had a binary Earth2 we would be probably starting to colonise it now. Brilliant stuff. This is what I love Elite for.
 

Orvidius

Orvidius
Cool find! I would love to find a pair that are in fairly eccentric orbits with each other, and not tidally locked. It's amusing to think about just how nasty the combination of tides and resulting geological activity might be for its inhabitants. ;)

Oh gosh, did that sound evil? This is just for SCIENCE. :D
 
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Pinda Gupta

P
LifesAJourney said:
Do I see chemtrails on OP's third picture...? ;)
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*Conspiracy theories incoming*

Evoflash said:
I love to think of the two dominant races of life on those planets. Do they hate each other? Do they work together? Awesome. If we had a binary Earth2 we would be probably starting to colonise it now. Brilliant stuff. This is what I love Elite for.
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Judging by how us humans are, I guarantee that one of them wants to build a wall around their planet and the other wishes to drill for oil on the other planet :p

Orvidius said:
Cool find! I would love to find a pair that are in fairly eccentric orbits with each other, and not tidally locked. It's amusing to think about just how nasty the combination of tides and resulting geological activity might be for its inhabitants. ;)

Oh gosh, did that sound evil? This is just for SCIENCE. :D
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I wonder how far they'd have to be from each other to be un-tidally locked? The ones I found are 3+ light seconds away but are still tidally locked.
 

Maolagin

M
Evoflash said:
I love to think of the two dominant races of life on those planets. Do they hate each other? Do they work together? Awesome. If we had a binary Earth2 we would be probably starting to colonise it now. Brilliant stuff. This is what I love Elite for.
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Consider the golden age of sci-fi. A lot of it grows directly out of that brief period after we learned that astronomical bodies like the Moon, Venus, and Mars were planetary bodies like the Earth - but before we understood that they were likely uninhabitable. Back then you could base your book around Martians or Moon-people and some of the excitement came from the fact that they're *right there* in the sky. But most of those books don't work out super well for humanity, or the Martians, or both.

Then again, based on the single available data point, it takes billions of years for an Earth-like planet to evolve complex enough life for intelligence to potentially arise. So it's not very likely that civilizations would arise on the two planets even within a million years of each other. Most likely either the species that wins that race colonizes the losers' planet (who if they're lucky wind up in a nice nature reserve, but more likely end up like our chimpanzees or Neanderthals), or else the second species to come along discovers the ruins of a long dead civilization when they get around to exploring the first planet.
 

Maolagin

M
Orvidius said:
Cool find! I would love to find a pair that are in fairly eccentric orbits with each other, and not tidally locked. It's amusing to think about just how nasty the combination of tides and resulting geological activity might be for its inhabitants. ;)

Oh gosh, did that sound evil? This is just for SCIENCE. :D
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Yer a mad scientist, you are!

Pinda Gupta said:
I wonder how far they'd have to be from each other to be un-tidally locked? The ones I found are 3+ light seconds away but are still tidally locked.
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Without knowing the details of Stellar Forge, it's impossible to say. Supposedly SF does a quick simulation of the dynamic evolution of a solar system when it proc-gens its bodies, so tidal locking is probably loosely based on reality though. In reality, you can say to first approximation that every binary will *eventually* tidally lock, and how long it takes depends on a number of factors but most strongly on their separation. So if SF simulates that, finding non-locked binaries in ED mostly comes down to finding binaries with wide orbits in young systems.
 

Sapyx

Sapyx
Pinda Gupta said:
69 ELWs later (no, not funny), three of which are ringed and one of which is a ringed ELM, I've finally found my first binary pair of Earth-likes! Unfortunately, they're not close enough for picturesque views, but still incredibly neat nonetheless.
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I'm at 83 first-discovered ELWs; none ringed, three ELMs, and no ELW pairs. I haven't even found a system with two or more non-binary ELWs in it. :(
 
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