You canna change the laws of physics. . .or can you?

[Jackie Silver]

Orbital resonance theory? Interesting, but remember that there are different modes of resonances just like harmonics on a guitar string. So it's not just a doubling like octaves, but could also be in ratios of 5:3, 3:4, 5:9, etc...

I will go through the data we've got some time and see what patterns can be pulled out - my guess is that by going with "somewhere between a third and a half of the way to the next planet out" we're probably right more than not, but I should check properly before suggesting it.

 

[Ziljan]

Let me know what you find. I would be interested to know if the ratios that the stellar forge pops out are just random or if they hint at some kind of stable resonances. It should be a mix. Of course if you look hard enough, you can find ratios (or near ratios) between objects that don't really resonate because their aphelions don't quite line up over large enough time scales.

For instance. Sol sytem has some pretty interesting (near) ratios that are coincidental and non-resonant:

(9:23) Venus−Mercury

(8:13) Earth−Venus

(1:3) Mars−Venus

(1:2) Mars−Earth

(1:12) Jupiter−Earth

(2:5) Saturn–Jupiter

(1:7) Uranus−Jupiter

(7:20) Uranus−Saturn

(5:28) Neptune−Saturn

Unfortunately, without a more detailed system map or a predictive orrery in the nav panel, we'd have to watch the systems play out over several eons to know if their ratios are currently shaped by orbital resonance or if they were simply formed from some other harmonic process that is no longer in effect.

 

[Jackie Silver]

Based on scanning a few new systems and checking that simple guess formula against existing data in the spreadsheet, it works tolerably well for the case of terrestrials among other terrestrials in the inner system.
(i.e., terrestrials in the inner system do tend to be found with orbits in roughly 1:2:4:8:16:...)

Being an idiot I wrote it wrong earlier; here's the correct formula as a Python snippet:

def sma(lower,upper):
    adjust = (upper - lower) / 3
    result = lower + adjust
    return result

This is actually proving quite handy!

 

[Ripster]

I feel like the dumb kid at the class

I would love to post a formula that would blow you all away, but smucks like kepla have beaten me to it .........

So I will now content myself with posting random music links and random restaurant reviews

 

[Asteroidnerd]

If you want to see how crazy orbital resonances can be, look no further than Saturn's Rings Cassini has been there since 2004, and will last until it is destroyed in 2017. Raw images from the mission can be seen most days here:
http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/photos/raw/?start=1

Of course if you want to watch them put to music, this is a beautiful movie made of some of the pictures over 8 years in the space of under 4 minutes
https://vimeo.com/70532693