Are planetary orbits absolutely necessary?

One of my more brilliant characters is taking a terraforming class and at one point, early in the story, she has to leave the action to take an exam. The question presented in that scene is listed below, and by authorial coincidence, she wil encounter such a solar system during a deep space survey. So I want her answer to make sense for my smarter readers.

Please describe a solar system where the goldilocks zone planet(s) do not orbit a gas giant or sun. For purposes of this question, said solar system can be of manufactured origin as long as the resulting system is stable across astronomical time.

Could an arrangement of three or more proximal stars produce one or more points of balanced gravitation pull, each of which could hold a planet such that it would rest in a stationary position relative to all stars in the system?

If so, what would it be like?

• Would these stationary planets spin on their own axis or must they be tidally locked?
• Could these stationary planets have moons?
• Could their host suns have additional non-stationary, close-orbiting planets?
• Aside from occasionally blocking some sunlight, could the motions of those planets have any geological effects on the stationary planet?

What should she write?

posted over 8 years ago

Henry Taylor‭

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