"Octa Ex" wrote in message
...
On Wed, 13 Jul 2005 19:24:28 -0500, "Mark Earnest"
etched in cyberspace:

Imagine, we now know that a planet can have three suns.

Maybe the center of mass of the three remains constant, and the planet
revolves around that. Seasons would be chaotic as hell. Winter could
come
after Summer, and then after Spring.

I guess the planet would have to circle hot stars to have a chance at
life,
otherwise it could not be far away enough to avoid the great temperature
changes.

But even red giants are hot if they are big enough.

So you could get up to a red, then a blue, and then a green star.

Literary artists will have to find their way there soon.

Sounds like that in this case that the planet does not orbit around
the three starts, but that the planet orbits one star, and the other
two stars orbit further out. The night would be seriously shortened
by having suns arranged around the sky. The temperature would be
dominated by the closest star.

Cool. What if the three stars share the planet in a strange little dance,
where one captures it gravitationally, and then another one does, followed
by the third star?
The seasons would be a roller coaster, with possibly a different colored
star for each season.