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Marcus Rowland
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Krypton's Moon(s)
Dec 7th, 2011 at 6:08pm
 
For a possible plot point in a future Supergirl story I need to know if Krypton's moon(s) were anything like as big as ours; did Krypton have tides etc.?

I don't seem to have anything that would shed much light on this - Wikipedia says two moons, one of which was destroyed by a Kryptonian supervillain, but doesn't give sizes etc. The Superman Wiki has a picture (from an animated episode) that shows two implausibly large moons, but they're so big that I have trouble imagining how they can possibly be in stable orbits. There isn't any data on orbital periods etc.

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Is there any source that gives sizes, orbital periods, etc., e.g. for one of the Superman RPGs?
  

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Re: Krypton's Moon(s)
Reply #1 - Dec 8th, 2011 at 3:42am
 
I came up with this a while back (You need to Login or Register to view media files and links) This is based on the comics. I figured the moons couldn't be all that big if they weren't noticeable in the movies.
  

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Re: Krypton's Moon(s)
Reply #2 - Dec 8th, 2011 at 6:17pm
 
Not very keen on that  - I'll have to check with an astronomer I know, but it feels like their gravitational pull on each other and tidal forces from the sun and Krypton would really mess things up if they were in orbits that similar.
  

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Re: Krypton's Moon(s)
Reply #3 - Dec 8th, 2011 at 6:42pm
 
You're probably right - but on the shots of Krypton just before it's destruction we don't see any moons at all - so I figured they had to be pretty small.
  

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Re: Krypton's Moon(s)
Reply #4 - Dec 8th, 2011 at 9:21pm
 
Actually they're pretty big - more than twice the diameter of Ceres (which is classed as a dwarf planet) and more than half the diameter of Earth's moon, which is ridiculously large compared to the size of the Earth by most astronomical standards. This isn't necessarily a problem if there was just one, but two so close together is hugely unlikely.

Someone has also pointed out an error in the mass - they should be less than 0.01 Earth masses, not 0.2 and 0.25. Mass compared to Earth's moon, perhaps?
  

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Re: Krypton's Moon(s)
Reply #5 - Dec 8th, 2011 at 11:19pm
 
I frankly don't remember any more - but you're probably correct. Let me double check it.
  

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Re: Krypton's Moon(s)
Reply #6 - Dec 8th, 2011 at 11:20pm
 
Sorry, the actual result is about 15% of the mass of Earth's moon, or about .002 earth masses.
  

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Re: Krypton's Moon(s)
Reply #7 - Dec 9th, 2011 at 12:47am
 
It's Moon = 1. I just managed to find my original notes in a box.

M(M)      Mass (gm) D(E) dia (km)
Koron 0.25 1.84E+22 0.34336783 1095.00
Mithen 0.2 1.47E+22 0.31806099 1017.00
Moon 1 7.35E+22 3476

I've corrected it on the page, and thanks for pointing it out. (How embarrassing  Embarrassed)
From my notes, I actually wanted the combined mass of the moons to be close to Earth's Moon so Krypton would have something resembling lunar tides. But making one moon larger and the other smaller would work even better and might be more stable.
  

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Re: Krypton's Moon(s)
Reply #8 - Dec 9th, 2011 at 7:31am
 
That's still too high, I think - I'm pretty sure I didn't help, for some reason I was mixing up the moon's radius and diameter,  they are about 1/3rd its size so should be 1/27th its mass. Some evenings I REALLY shouldn't think about technical stuff, my brain is too tired...
  

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Re: Krypton's Moon(s)
Reply #9 - Dec 9th, 2011 at 3:37pm
 
I'll check the math again. (Rummaging around for my physics and astronomy books.)
  

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