
What If The Moon Were Replaced By Other Planets? - dhruvbhatia
http://www.boredpanda.com/moon-replaced-with-planets/
======
arscan
What if the earth had rings like Saturn:

[http://io9.com/if-earth-had-a-ring-like-saturn-508750253](http://io9.com/if-
earth-had-a-ring-like-saturn-508750253)

The author describes how bright they would be at night and what they would
look like at different locations on the planet.

~~~
morsch
Wow, now I will never be able to look the same way at our boring, ringless
sky.

~~~
arethuza
Or give up on those boring planet things and just live on the ring itself:

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orbital_%28The_Culture%29](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orbital_%28The_Culture%29)

[NB I prefer Culture Orbitals to Niven Rings - largely due to everything else
being in the Culture would imply.]

~~~
pavel_lishin
Plus, I think that if you strip away all the Culture magic-tech, their
orbitals are still more plausible than Niven's Unobtanium-Brand scrith.

------
51Cards
This video has been floating around for awhile and based on the same premise
Jupiter completely obliterates the sky. I don't know which version is correct
though, the video or this series of images. Just a point of comparison.

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DNlLnaJiGY8](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DNlLnaJiGY8)

Edit in reply to the below, I was just about to add that same comment... that
it may be a field of view thing. This additional video seems to support to
that.

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=fvwp&v=usYC_Z36rHw&NR=1](http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=fvwp&v=usYC_Z36rHw&NR=1)

~~~
adaml_623
From the notes in youtube: "I created this video in After Effects, and because
of certain technical considerations had to keep the field of view at 62
degrees"

I think you'll see that the choice of field of view makes all the difference.

Something to ponder as well. The center of the Moon is 300000km away and
Jupiter is 70000km in radius! So Jupiter would bridge almost one quarter of
the distance towards us.

~~~
blktiger
True, but is the distance he's using in these photos the distance from center
to center or edge to edge. That also poses the question of what exactly is the
edge...

------
millerm
We all die! :-) Okay, it's cool looking. But nothing will live up to the two
stars in Star Wars. :-) Though, I don't know the feasibility of the science on
that one.

~~~
ndonnellan
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5938999](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5938999)

Our neighborhood has a triple-star system!

~~~
aamar
That's a triple-planet system. Presumably millerm's asking about stable-orbit,
habitable-zone planets in a multiple-star system, like Kepler 47:
[http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2012/08/120829-new-p...](http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2012/08/120829-new-
planets-twin-stars-space-science-nasa/)

~~~
deletes
Nope, the system mentioned here [1] is a triple-star system. Read the first
line [2].

[1]:[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5938999](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5938999)
[2]:[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gliese_667](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gliese_667)

~~~
aamar
Thank you for the correction; apologies for my error.

------
digitalsushi
Someone should photoshop these up relative to the initial moon photo so that
the earth is illuminated to whichever amount is correct by the reflective
properties of the visiting planet. It would be cool if they accounted for hue
as well. The Jupiter one would be quite bright and reddish, et cetera.

------
lucaspiller
Possibly one of the most interesting things this shows is just how big space
is. Even though Saturn and it's rings are nearly 30x bigger than the earth, it
would still be over 200,000km from the surface of the earth in this case.

~~~
VLM
That's where the math gets fuzzy. If the earth is about 10000 kilometers in
diameter (yes I am well aware I'm rounding to one sig fig, and in this case
it's OK) then saturn + rings being 30 times bigger (in diameter I assume?)
would be 300,000km, so being a mere 200,000km away does that mean from the
center in which case we'd be part of the ring system (whoops) or a further 200
megameters past the biggest part of the rings in which case I'd call it
500,000 km away not 200,000 km.

------
colkassad
How fast would we have to orbit if Jupiter were that close?

EDIT: Is Io closer to Jupiter than the moon is to Earth (I believe I answered
this myself, I think the we would be closer in this picture by ~100,000km)?
What would be the tidal effects of the depicted picture? Would we be tidally
locked? I assume volcanic activity and earthquakes would at least increase and
I imagine be catastrophic (if it would hypothetically replace the moon with
all orbital mechanics updated to sustain a stable orbit).

~~~
pavel_lishin
I think the radiation Jupiter puts out would kill us before the Earthquakes
got a chance to.

~~~
colkassad
Perhaps, but I am more interested in the physical affects to the Earth.

------
utopkara
That Jupiter one scared the crap out of me. Having watched Melancholia just
recently might have helped as well:
[http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1527186/](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1527186/)

~~~
wikwocket
Glad I'm not the only one who found the images a little freaky, for some
reason I can't quite place!

------
duqee
When I see things like this, I always wonder how the gravitational force of
these planets being so close to Earth would effect life on Earth.

~~~
dombili
I'm completely talking out of my ass, but I think Jupiter would also block out
the sun. But even with that, Earth would still be a VERY hot place, right? All
that pressure from Jupiter must create some heat (along with the increased
volcanic activity), I'm guessing. Also, am I wrong to think that Jupiter has
got to look bigger than that?

Macabre as it is, it's really fun to think about this stuff.

~~~
finnw
Not to mention the radiation

[http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2001/03/010329075139.ht...](http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2001/03/010329075139.htm)

------
nhebb
Ripped off from:

[http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2345679/Photo...](http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2345679/Photographer-
Ron-Miller-creates-incredible-pictures-look-like-planets-
closer.html?ico=sciencetech)

------
olvar
I just need to point out that the moon is not a planet, so the title should
read "What If The Moon Were Replaced By Planets?", or something like that

------
Camillo
...but the Earth was somehow still lit by the regular old moon?

Seriously, how did they manage to take one look at their handiwork without
realizing this obvious flaw?

------
lcedp
I believe the distance is not taken into account on this visualization. The
same distance would simply make planets collide.

------
Roboprog
Who you callin' a moon, little rock ball!

------
vishal0123
I wonder how much the planets will look different when they are brought in
place of moon specially mercury and neptune.

