copyright 2000 by Linda "Sweetwind" Tam
Yet another foray into astronomy! This time allow me to discuss some of the other things that inhabitants of the World of Two Moons, also known as Abode, would see when they look up into the sky at night, besides those remarkable two moons. The main reference for this essay is the diagram of Abode's planetary system, which appears as Plate 14 in The Wolfrider's Guide to the World of Elfquest and lists the known planets orbiting the Daystar. Most of these bodies would be well known to any skywatching inhabitant of Abode, not only because several of them are brighter than the stars, but also because they move night by night against the background of the fixed stars.
Let's discuss them one by one, starting with the one closest to the Daystar and working our way outwards. Cauldron is the only planet closer to the Daystar than Abode. It would appear in the sky as a morning star or an evening star, just like Venus and Mercury do from Earth. Venus is the brightest object in Earth's sky after the Moon, and it's likely that Cauldron is the brightest object in Abode's sky after the moons. Its movement would be a cyclic motion, each day rising a little earlier than the Daystar, until it reaches its maximum separation at somewhere between halfway and a quarter of the way up the sky at sunrise. (Venus' maximum separation is halfway up the sky; Mercury's is about a quarter.) Then it will reverse and begin rising a little later each day, until it is lost in the Daystar's glare and disappears. Some days later, it would reappear at dusk, setting shortly after the sun, each day setting later and later, until it again reaches maximum separation, at a half to a quarter up the sky at sunset. It then reverses the trend by setting earlier and earlier each day until it is again lost in the glare of the sunset and is ready to be reborn as a morning star once more. Interestingly enough, early astronomers on Earth didn't realize that the morning and evening stars were manifestations of the same object. (Asimov, p. 8) Although careful observation is needed to predict when the morning star will begin to rise each morning after the evening star ceases to set in the evenings, it seems to me to be pretty simple to notice that the two are never both present on the same day. (I also wonder why no one ever figured out that Clark Kent was Superman, because you never see them both at the same time! I guess it's just that no one ever thought about it.) I don't know whether a Skywise-type elf would have made the connection, but I'm sure Sun-Toucher knows the nature of the morningstar/eveningstar.
Next is Homestead, orbiting the Daystar beyond Abode's orbit just as Mars circles beyond Earth's orbit. It would appear as a very bright star, although not as bright as Cauldron. Homestead will make much more of an impression on the stargazers, though, because it is not confined to the few hours of the night immediately after sunset or before sunrise. Its motions will take it on a path all the way across the sky, following the same path the sun and moons do but not as quickly. It will also exhibit retrograde motion from time to time, reversing itself temporarily rather than always travelling in the same direction.
The asteroid belt lays beyond Homestead's orbit, but it offers nothing for the naked-eye observer. The asteroid belt in our solar system was not discovered until long after the invention of the telescope on Earth.
The next planet out is Threshold. A large planet that would seem to correspond to our Jupiter, this would also appear as a very bright star. Jupiter is the next brightest object in the Earth's night sky after Venus, and I expect that Threshold, like Jupiter, would be the next brightest object in Abode's night sky after Cauldron. (Although Homestead is closer to Abode, Threshold is probably brighter because it is so much bigger, as is the case with Mars and Jupiter on Earth.) Its motion across the sky is similar to Homestead's, but it travels more slowly. Threshold has several moons, just as Jupiter does. Jupiter's moons were not discovered until the invention of the telescope (they were discovered immediately after the invention of the telescope!), but the obstacle to seeing them is not that they are dim, but that they are so close to bright Jupiter. Seen alone, Threshold's moons would appear to be average to dim stars. An elf with exceptional vision (such as Scouter) might be able to discern one or more of the four major moons of Threshold, and observe it swinging back and forth around Threshold as the nights wore on.
The planet Gateway seems to correspond to our own Saturn. It would also appear as a bright star in Abode's sky, moving like Homestead or Threshold but much more slowly. Less noticeably different than Homestead or Threshold, Skywise might have had to study the sky for a while before realizing that this star wanders, too. The next planet out, Outerreach, is similar to our Uranus or Neptune. Uranus is visible to the naked eye as a dim star, while Neptune is never visible without a telescope. If Outerreach is visible, Skywise probably won't notice it as a planet - with the thousands of dim stars cluttering the sky, the molasses-slow movement of Outerreach would not attract attention. After all, Uranus was not discovered to be a planet until 1781, over a hundred years after the telescope had come into use.
So there you have it: one morningstar/eveningstar and three nighttime planets in the Abodean sky. Interestingly enough, the early human cultures on Abode might have spoken of the "seven celestial bodies" in the heavens, just as ancient astronomers on Earth did. However, while the earthly list is Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, Sun, Venus, Mercury, and Moon, the Abodean roll call would be Gateway, Threshold, Homestead, Daystar, Cauldron, Mother Moon, and Daughter Moon. (Both lists are ordered by increasing speed of motion against the fixed stars.)
Finally, a strange thing I noticed about the planets of the Abodean system: their names sound like they were thought up by colonists or space travellers, rather than by stargazers. The exception is Cauldron, a name that an astronomer might have appropriately coined by noting that it was the planet most closely associated with the Daystar. (Similarly, on Earth, the name Vulcan, in honor of the Roman god of fire and metalworking, was proposed in 1859 for a planet that orbited our Sun closer than Mercury. Unfortunately, the planet turned out not to exist!) But the rest - Homestead, Threshold, Gateway, Outerreach - sound as though they were named for their usefulness, which would be meaningless to beings confined to Abode's surface. I speculate that, during the time of the original Quest, the wandering stars up in the sky had quite different names. This is sheer fancy on my part, but in the original Quest, when Skywise tells Cutter about the Human Hunter and the Great Wolf, I like to think that he means the bright planets of Homestead and Threshold, eternally chasing and overtaking each other. "See, Cutter...? The Great Wolf chases the Human Hunter across the sky! He's clumsy, that Hunter! One day he'll trip, and the Wolf will get him!" (Pini, p. 11)
References:
Linda, Regarding your article "The Wandering Stars" in Sendings, issue 11: I must respectfully disagree with your assertion that Outerreach, the most distant planet planet in the Abodean solar system, is "similar to our Uranus or Neptune". Those two planets are "gas giants" structurally like the larger Jupiter and Saturn. Outerreach, on the other hand, is not a body of gases but rather a terrestrial world; I believe that its nearest equivalent in our solar system is Pluto, a similarly small and rocky/icy body. The fact that Neverending aliens have colonized the surface of Outerreach (for instance, in Jink 3-4) argues against that planet being a gas-giant in the manner of Uranus and Neptune - or, for that matter, Threshold and Gateway. Sincerely, Howard Yune (online name: "Kir") 10/20/2000 Friday, 2.59pm EDTTo which I replied:
You are absolutely correct, and very well stated. All I can say is, "Oops!" I think I can see how I made the error. I was using Plate 14 in the Wolfrider's Guide to the World of Elfquest as my primary source. The disclaimer on the plate, "sizes and distances are not to scale," should be heeded! Outerreach was the first planet past the Jupiter and Saturn analogs, like Uranus is, but more importantly it looked to me like it was smaller than Threshold and Gateway by the same amount that Uranus is smaller than Jupiter and Saturn. However, I should have noticed that Outerreach is shown the same size as the three inner (rocky) planets. And, of course, if I'd glanced over the description in the text of the Guide, I'd have read that the Neverending "crash landed" on the planet, and that "humans need to wear space suits on the surface of Outerreach." Neither of which jives with a gas giant!
Fortunately, since I was concentrating on the appearance of the planets from the surface of Abode, the mistake has no impact on the main thrust of the article. Whether gas giant or tiny rock, at Uranus-scale distances the planet is inconspicuous or invisible to a naked-eye observer on Abode. For my drawing I followed the proportions of Plate 14, so the illustration accompanying the article is no worse than Plate 14 in scale (which is not saying much ;-).
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linda_tam@alumni.hmc.edu
Last updated on January 5, 2003
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