Celestial arrangement for the Cube World

An earlier question here concerning a cube-shaped planet got me thinking.

Suppose an artificial world-sized engineering project as described in this answer

The K-II civilization that built it would stock it with interesting life, just as we would fill a garden pond or terrarium. If that civilization still exists, they would be watching.

What kind of mechanical arrangement could provide for different planetary analogs on each face? I'd like to have regular sunlight (like ours) on 4 faces, with rising and setting. But, 2 faces have red dwarf suns that are fixed in the sky.

For example, the planet could be in orbit around a neutron star, with the main sun at a trojan point (L4) and a red dwarf in L1.

The problem is that the planet's axis won't turn to stay pointed at L1. In general, the planet rotation needs to be roughly in the same direction as its orbit, to keep the 4 "belt" facets turning under the sun.

There are things like statites to allow something to hover over the pole, and that could be a mirror to implement the red dwarf. But, I want something more durable. It should be stable over geologic time with minimal corrections.

The stars themselves don't have to be normal. They can be (relatively) low-mass and nearby constructed suns, so there is some flexibility in the mechanics. I don't even mind having them turn on and off! A constructed sun would still be too large and heavy to simply orbit the planet: the planet would be lighter.

Any ideas on how to arrange things? The big problem is how to keep something unmoving when everything is moving to remain in orbit.

If the planet were locked with its orbit than the near face would be non-moving. So how do we get sun movement over 4 other faces? I like the idea of a statite or some less durable implementation for the second red face, and this has indeed been lost before the present time in the story.

I don't mean to allow the motions to be arbitrary, still powered by mysterious means. The system should work according to normal laws of gravity and mechanics, once it has been set up.

So the example, "The problem is that the planet's axis won't turn to stay pointed at L1." Is problematic because "just making it turn" via unknown technology is not a hard-SF answer. I want a mechanical system that will move naturally according to known laws.

posted over 8 years ago

JDługosz‭

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