Eyeball Planets

[ysabetwordsmith]

Tidally locked planets tend to have very different conditions on the hot and cold sides.  This isn't a new idea, but the nickname is new and amusing.  It comes from the circular pattern of zones that can make a bullseye design.  This can have various configurations depending on how close the planet is to its sun.  The article includes several illustrations to show how they might look.

I would love to write this kind of setting.  It sounds like so much fun.

Comments

Re: Thoughts

[ysabetwordsmith]

>>Well, brown dwarfs are not good choices for life-bearing planets. <<

Depends on who you ask. There are competing theories.

>>I'm considering a number of ideas for climate moderation. Higher water to land ratio, or the land being more broken up. Strategic placement of bodies of water, etc.

Heck hills or mountain ranges might direct the flow of weather to a greater extent.<<

Those are all promising.

Re: Thoughts

[kengr]

Well, the problem with brown dwarfs is that they are just barely stars. They aren't massive enough to start the Bethe cycle, so they can only fuse deuterium and lithium which are a lot less abundant and don't release nearly the energy that p-p fusion does.

Estimates for the "lifetime" of a brown dwarf are in the millions of years, not billions. Which is why Whereisit is of interest. It *might* be as much as a billion years old. so how does it already have life?

And since brown dwarfs are cooling from day one, the life zone is steadily shrinking.