Are these conditions for a planet realistic?
Since I'm creating a "new world" for my story, I wanted to know if the following conditions would work for an Earth-like planet:
- Its moon (more or less same size as our moon) being much closer (but in a stable way).
- Higher tides than Earth.
- A twenty-six (26) hour day/night cycle (full rotation of the planet with respect to its Sun).
- A twenty (20) day lunar cycle.
I just want to know if all the conditions I mentioned above are realistic, and if they could lead to a planet that has complex life- just like Earth.
Thanks in advance!
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1 answer
All your settings are completely plausible.
I upvoted the @ventsyv answer; but I need to correct one thing: Planets can rotate at any speed; in any direction; thanks to collisions during their formation. It is not mass dependent. Asteroids can spin like tops!
See the NASA Planetary Fact Sheet, or for a more detailed explanation, see this more technical explanation.
Venus, Uranus and Pluto all have opposite directions of rotation. Also look at the Length of Day in the NASA table; correction if anything bigger planets have shorter days. Earth is 24hrs, but Mars has a slightly longer day with less mass; in fact Mars is about 1/10th the mass of earth, yet rotates slightly faster.
Venus is lighter than Earth, it's day is 100x longer. Jupiter is the heaviest, with the shortest Day: 9.9 hours.
Day length can be anything you want it to be.
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