Binary stars in fiction

Much science fiction has explored the possibilities of binary star or multiple star systems.

In film, one of the most well-known examples is the planet Tatooine in the "Star Wars" movies, which orbits the two stars. At the start of the film "Starship Troopers", a FedNet news graphic describes the Arachnid home world as orbiting "a twin star system whose brutal gravitational forces produce an unlimited supply of Bug meteorites." The movie "Pitch Black" takes place on a planet in a ternary system. Perhaps most notable of all is Jim Henson's "The Dark Crystal", in which the entire plotline centers around an upcoming conjuction of an alien planet's three suns.

In televised science fiction series, binary systems are also common. The "Battlestar Galactica" episode "The Captain's Hand" is set in a binary star system. In the episode " Night Terrors" the Enterprise-D becomes trapped within an unusual binary star system, and in "" episode "Singularity," the "Enterprise" visits a ternary star system. The home star system of the planet Vulcan in "Star Trek" is likely to be 40 Eridani, a triple star system, 16 light-years from Earth. In the Stargate fictional universe, the planet Chulak is located in a binary star system. In "Futurama", the crew of the Planet Express ship visit a planet in a ternary system in the episode "My Three Suns".

In literature, David Weber's Honorverse features the Manticore system, a binary star with three habitable planets, two of them (Sphinx and the capital world Manticore) orbiting Manticore A and one (Gryphon) orbiting Manticore B. In Douglas Adams' The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Magrathea is a planet in orbit around a binary system. Isaac Asimov's renowned short story "Nightfall" is set in a six-sun system. Helliconia is a planet orbiting the smaller star of a binary system in the trilogy written by Brian Aldiss, where life on the planet is defined by the "great year" as the secondary star orbits the primary every 2500 Earth years. Stanislaw Lem's Solaris is also found in a binary star system.

The fictional planet Darwin IV, created by Wayne Barlowe and recently featured in the Discovery Channel sci-fi special "Alien Planet", is also supposed to be located in a binary star system approximately 6.5 light years away from the solar system.

Less well known but notable for its complexity is the Marune system, Number 993 in Jack Vance's "Alastor Cluster", in which the planet is lit by a combination of four suns whose combination of lighting patterns controls local culture: Marune orbits one star of a central binary pair and the second binary pair orbits the first, further out; nor are any of the orbits co-planar. Another anime with a good example of a binary system is the series Trigun, which takes place on a desert planet orbited by twin suns. [cite book | first = J. | last = Vance | title = Marune, Alastor 993 | publisher = Coronet Books | year = 1978]

The 2008 video game "Spore" contains numerous binary stars in the Space stage, many of which have planets orbiting them.

Other instances include the anime series "Simoun" and the 1994 computer game "Little Big Adventure," the latter set on a planet stabilised between two stars and the Solar System that includes the planet of Gallifrey in British TV si-fi show Dr. Who.

See also

*Binary star

References