Communities

Writing
Writing
Codidact Meta
Codidact Meta
The Great Outdoors
The Great Outdoors
Photography & Video
Photography & Video
Scientific Speculation
Scientific Speculation
Cooking
Cooking
Electrical Engineering
Electrical Engineering
Judaism
Judaism
Languages & Linguistics
Languages & Linguistics
Software Development
Software Development
Mathematics
Mathematics
Christianity
Christianity
Code Golf
Code Golf
Music
Music
Physics
Physics
Linux Systems
Linux Systems
Power Users
Power Users
Tabletop RPGs
Tabletop RPGs
Community Proposals
Community Proposals
tag:snake search within a tag
answers:0 unanswered questions
user:xxxx search by author id
score:0.5 posts with 0.5+ score
"snake oil" exact phrase
votes:4 posts with 4+ votes
created:<1w created < 1 week ago
post_type:xxxx type of post
Search help
Notifications
Mark all as read See all your notifications »
Q&A

Realistic alien skies on screen

+0
−0

Is there some astronomical / physics reason why it would (or would not) be realistic to have more than one "larger-than-Earth-moon" object in an alien sky as backdrop to a movie or tv show?

In other words, the view of Earth from our moon is quite impressive (takes up around 6 degrees of sky compared to how much the moon takes up in Earth's sky (0.5 degrees).

Often, to emphasize "you're now on an ALIEN planet," the sci fi writers will place multiple (usually 3) moons/planets in the sky. And they are usually shown larger than what the Moon would look like from Earth (so, larger than 0.5 degrees.)

Would this be realistic in the real world? In other words, in our solar system, Mars and Venus are so far away from us that they appear tiny, as stars.

However, if the Earth was a moon of Jupiter, then presumably, Jupiter would look huge in our sky, and if we also retained our moon, the Moon would look "moon-sized" in our sky, thereby having at least two large objects in our sky.

Or would an object the size/density of Earth not be able to both be a moon of a gas giant, while simultaneously having a large moon such as Luna?

History
Why does this post require moderator attention?
You might want to add some details to your flag.
Why should this post be closed?

This post was sourced from https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/q/109725. It is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.

0 comment threads

0 answers

Sign up to answer this question »