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Nightfall: Can Kalgash Exist?

Posted by timothy on from the burning-questions dept.

First time accepted submitter jIyajbe (662197) writes Two researchers from the Indian Institute of Astrophysics investigate the imaginary world of Kalgash, a planetary system based on the novel 'Nightfall' (Asimov & Silverberg, 1991). From the arXiv paper: "The system consists of a planet, a moon and an astonishing six suns. The six stars cause the wider universe to be invisible to the inhabitants of the planet. The author explores the consequences of an eclipse and the resulting darkness which the Kalgash people experience for the first time. Our task is to verify if this system is feasible, from the duration of the eclipse, the 'invisibility' of the universe to the complex orbital dynamics." Their conclusion? "We have explored several aspects of Asimov's novel. We have found that the suns, especially Dovim are bright enough to blot out the stars. Kalgash 2 can eclipse Dovim for a period of 9 hours. We also tested one possible star configuration and after running some simulations, we found that the system is possible for short periods of time."

4 of 86 comments (clear)

  1. An excellent book... by poptix · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I would recommend this book to anyone, it's an easy read and thought provoking.

    --
    Just because you disagree doesn't mean it's not true.
    1. Re:An excellent book... by Jason+Levine · · Score: 5, Funny

      The short story ends as Nightfall is starting. The book extends past into the nightmare of the stars.

      I remember reading the book once and I was completely absorbed in the story. I finally looked up and noticed it was dusk. For a brief moment, I felt panic rising because the stars were going to come out soon. It took a moment to disentangle myself from the story.

      Being able to completely lose yourself in a book can be a good thing most times - other times, it can backfire.

      --
      My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
  2. Stability by Livius · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Asimov's story only assumes that the suns' and planets' orbits are in that configuration for a few tens or maybe hundreds of thousands of years, not that they are stable for what astronomers would call the long term.

  3. Re:fundementally impossible by jeffb+(2.718) · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Epsilon Lyrae, and the vast number of amateur astronomers who've known about it for ages, would beg to differ. Two components that are naked-eye visible, one a double, one a triple. All gravitationally bound, and apparently quite dynamically stable. Five other nearby stars may be gravitationally bound to the system as well.

    Castor (Alpha Geminorum) is a sextuple system.

    But, of course:

    "It's simply not possible for a system like this to exist. If you point out that systems like this do exist, it doesn't mean that my statement is wrong, it means that you're a wack job, so just shut up."

    Bravo, good AC. Bravo.