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Could there be life on a planet if...



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Wed Jan 12, 2011 4:53 am
silentpages says...



If the seasons didn't change?

In my other-worldly fantasy novel, there's a race of people who live up in the mountains and there are big rebel groups who - as far as I know - live in a giant, ancient forest (treetops, platforms from tree to tree, etc.) pretty much all year. While filling out one of those world-builder question sheet things I started to wonder how that would work in the winter, when everything got all cold and icky. Nothing in my story is taking place during the winter... But I started to wonder. And since we'd just been on the subject in general science a few days ago, I started to wonder if they even had to have winter?

What I (kind of) know so far:
The seasons take place because of the earth rotating on its axis, yes? And in my science class we talked about how if the Earth DIDN'T rotate on its axis, there would be no seasons. It would pretty much be spring all the time in one place, fall all the time in another, etc. (and while during some preliminary research I found something implying that it could also potentially be summer all the time in one place, winter all the time in another?). Night and day wouldn't be affected except that the hours of daylight wouldn't change throughout the year, so there wouldn't be longer and shorter days. They would always be equal(?). Also, people I've asked thus far bring up the matter of people who live on the equator, who have kind of the same deal going on with them.

After asking my science teacher and doing a little browsing around on the web, right now it looks like it might be plausible for something like that to occur. But I kind of want some second (and third, and fourth) opinions on the matter so I don't put it into the revision now and then find out later that it's completely impossible and science geeks will pelt me with plungers if I try to write it like that.

So my main question is, could a world function like this? Could people live in a place where the seasons don't change?
And if you get really ambitious, you could try to help me out by answering these little things that make me hesitate (But don't feel like you have to answer everything. Just give me whatever info you've got on the subject, please):

1. Why do planets rotate in the first place, and if a planet didn't rotate what might happen in relation to the moon?
2. How would plants/animals be affected if the seasons didn't change? What kind of things could grow? Could anything grow?
3. What exactly would the climate be like in such a situation? Right now, I'm looking for 'warm'. Spring or summer weather, maybe. But would temperatures be totally unbearable?
4. What about oceans/tides etc.? I know tides are from the moon and sun, but if changing such a major thing like the earth's axis rotation would have any bearing on things like that, I'd kind of like to know about it.
5. If something like this occurred, would it be possible to have mountains in the north, an ocean in the east, desert in the west (with the possibility of another ocean on the other side) and fertile, resource-rich, forest-ey ground in the center-ish region and to the east? Would a setting like that be possible under normal circumstances? Because otherwise... I've got to rethink my world completely.
6. Anything else you can think of that could make this more plausible or less plausible?

Also:
This is a fantasy novel. It's not taking place on Earth. It's taking place in another world - a world where there are spider-people and portals and huge, huge, ancient forests. Lots of the plants and animals in it don't even exist on Earth, so if I have to I can adapt things like that to make it work. I'm probably overthinking this, especially since - if I do end up doing it this way - it'll probably just be the characters noting that "OMG! The seasons don't change here! Weird!" and then moving on to avoid me going into a science-ey lecture like I did in the rough draft (the girl with black and silver hair realized that it was possible because of codominance in genes! 8D). I'm not even sure if I'm really going to use this idea...

But it would be nice... And if I DO use it... I'd like to make everything as close to being realistic as a fantasy novel could get.

So. To anyone that remains after reading through that horribly long "Help Me" post, congratulations. Help? Pwetty pwease? :3

Thanks for reading, even if you can't help, and whatever help you CAN give will be much appreciated. ^^ Gracias!
"Pay Attention. Pay Close Attention to everything, everything you see. Notice what no one else notices, and you'll know what no one else knows. What you get is what you get. What you do with what you get is more the point. -- Loris Harrow, City of Ember (Movie)
  





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Wed Jan 12, 2011 10:00 pm
Kale says...



First things first, we need to set some terms straight.

The axis is the point around which a body rotates.

Rotation is spinning around an axis.

rotation.png
Ball with stick = Axis
rotation.png (17.32 KiB) Viewed 97 times


The tilt is the angle at which an axis is located relative a reference plane. In the case of planets, that plane is usually its orbit.

tilt.png
Red line = Equator
Grey line = 90* line
tilt.png (30.21 KiB) Viewed 97 times


An orbit is the path an object travels around another central object.

orbit.png
Orbits are not always circular or perfectly centered.
orbit.png (20.8 KiB) Viewed 97 times


Wobble is the changing of the tilt's angle.

wobble.png
Wibble-wobble.
wobble.png (23.83 KiB) Viewed 97 times


Seasons exist because the Earth has a tilted axis. Also, the Earth's orbit around the Sun is elliptical, meaning that the Earth does not stay a constant distance away from the sun throughout the year. For a planet to have absolutely no seasons, it would have to have a 90* axis relative to the plane of its orbit, and its orbit would have to be perfectly circular. In addition, there could be no wobble to the planet's axis.

Even with those conditions, there would be regions of differing climate simply because different regions of the planet would receive different amounts of sunlight due to the curvature of the planet's surface and atmosphere. The equator would receive the most sunlight because there is just a thin layer of atmosphere between the direct rays of the sun, while the polar regions would receive the least due to the curvature of the atmosphere and planet leading to a thicker layer of atmosphere between the surface and the sun. This is the main reason why the polar regions on Earth and Mars are covered in ice.

The Earth's rotation around its axis is what gives us day and night. Without rotation around the axis, you wind up with a planet where one side faces its sun at all times, while the other side always faces space. This results in one side being always frozen, and one side always being exposed to solar radiation. Depending on the distance from the star to the planet, the side facing the star may be completely unlivable due to extreme, non-stop heat. About the only habitable region on that sort of planet would be the twilight belt separating the always-frozen and always-illuminated sides of the planet, assuming that the planet is just close enough to its star to be warm enough to support the life you want.

In any case, you'd wind up with three main zones: winter, temperate, and summer. Within these main zones, you would have variation in climate based on altitude, weather patterns, the presence or absence of volcanic activity, and so on.

You have to realize, though, that this scenario is extremely unlikely. Not impossible, but extremely unlikely nonetheless.

---

Now, to answer your questions:

1. Planets rotate for various reasons tied to how they were formed and the pull of gravity from nearby bodies. When a planet or satellite is within a certain range of distance from what it's orbiting around, it gets stuck in what is called a tidal lock. Basically, the planet or satellite winds up with a rotation that matches its orbit so that one side always faces what it is orbiting. The moon is an example of a tidally locked satellite.

I don't know of any planets that don't rotate, or if that's even possible, however I don't think it would affect the moon's orbit any. Gravity is tied to mass, and since orbits rely upon gravity and the velocity of the orbiting body, even if a planet has no rotation, it would still have mass and gravity, so if it's large enough, it should still be able to have a moon with a fairly stable orbit, so long as the moon is traveling fast enough.

2. Everything on Earth takes cues from seasonal changes, and without those seasonal cues, most of them can't survive. Basically, different world = different forms of life. It's not impossible for life to exist in those conditions; it just won't be life that we're necessarily familiar with.

3. Already answered earlier, but there would still be variation, and there would not be one single climate all over the planet.

4. Tides should remain unaffected as they're dependent on a satellite's pull of gravity.

5. How geologically active is your planet? Does it have tectonic plates? Volcanic activity? What of metor impacts?

Basically, there's nothing that dictates that you can't have that sort of geography, but you have to be aware that these things will alter your planet's axial tilt and climate. Hence why I said that the above scenario is extremely unlikely.

6. Define plausible. And how much do you want?

The scenario I mentioned above is possible, but it's so unlikely that it takes away from the plausibility. However, within the context of the above scenario, it is plausible, if that makes sense. Your greatest hurdle will be to get people to accept the above scenario. Some ways of doing this might be to include mention of past climate changes, or even have a plot revolving around a catastrophic natural disaster that begins to alter the world's climate.

Since this is a fantasy novel, overcoming that hurdle shouldn't be too difficult as most people are willing to suspend their disbelief quite a bit so long as the internal story is consistent.
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