axial tilt?

[parmasson]

I am making up a new star system and I would like to bounce an idea off our experienced world builders . . .
The Planet Gedash
It is this nice size 7-8 world with a standard atmosphere, good hydrographics, good rotational period (24 +/- hours) and right in the middle of the habitable zone of a nice cozy G type star.
The only hitch is that the axial tilt of the planet is 90 degrees.
There are no ice caps since there is to time for them to form. From the ground the sun would appear to travel in a circle around the "north" pole during the northern summer, rise and set in the autumn/spring and never come up in the northern winter. Would the constant lack or excess of sunshine make the place uninhabitable?

 

[Malenfant]

Most likely, yes, for the reasons you state. Ice caps might still form (during the winter in the unlit hemisphere), but they'd be seasonal - the ice would 'migrate' from one hemsiphere to the other as it entered darkness.

 

[Spinward Scout]

I would think that the temperatures would be in the extreme to uninhabitable ranges at the poles. Less so as you move towards the equator. The rotational period wouldn't make a difference since the primary star wouldn't be pointing towards the equator except for a few months out of the year. Neat idea - I'd like to see your results.

Dameon

 

[parmasson]

If anyone is interested I am starting to work it up on a website.

A draft of the survey report and a diagram of the orbit are up.

www.geocities.com/danlatch_1

 

[Fritz_Brown]

So, you would get 3 months of daylight, followed by 3 months of sunset, followed by 3 months of darkness, followed by 3 months of sunrise at the poles. The space where our temperate regions lie would be &lt3 months of the sun circling above the northern/southern horizon, moving to a 24 hour day/night cycle, to &lt3 months of darkness, to something approximating day/night again. At the equator, you would get total darkness if there were even tall trees to your north/south, moving to a regular day, to darkness, and back.

Does that sound right?

 

[parmasson]

That sounds about right but I think the seasons would move very quickly. The "orbital diagram" shows the planet's northern pole going from always day to always dark in six months (1/2 an orbit).

I think you are dead on with the trees or even mountains could prevent the sun from ever showing its face. Because of the very low angle of the sun for most of the year even the equator would be quite chilly. I imagined a climate something like Alaska/Northern Canada although I am not sure permafrost would prevail.
Of course the closer you got to the poles the more radical the environment would become. I don't know much about meteorology but I can imagine that on the sun side huge amounts of heat and moisture would be infused into the air only to interface with the cooler drier air at the lower latitudes and result in massive storms like we get here in the (U.S.) Midwest during the summer but much worse. In the same way in the polar winter dry very cold air interfacing with moisture laden relatively warm air. I hope to start a log where my fictional colonists detail some of the problems that such an environment might produce as a way to flesh out the world for fun.

 

[Fritz_Brown]

Actually, for a goodly chunk of the year, the equator would get a "normal" day. It's just the 1-2 months in the extreme times that it would start to get like Alaska.

Weather would be somewhat extreme on occassion, yes. I would think you would get a very stormy/rainy few months when one pole or the other became primarily oriented to the sun.

BTW, in the summer, Alaska has the largest skeeters in the world. Short-lived, but they can carry off small moose....

 

[parmasson]

Hmmmm . . . .

Gedashan Needle Bugs

Mottled brown, 2.6cm long 1.1cm in diameter with an 8mm long nose stinger, speed 20kph
Although the Needle Bug does not normally feed on human blood but will attack in a swarm if their underground nests are stepped on by characters.

1D wounds for every round you are under attack by a swarm. They will continue to attack for 1D rounds if you run.