Planet & Moons Map

[MindOfTheo]

Hey guys, hows it going? First off, thank you for taking the time to read this thread and possibly helping me and giving advice on what it is that I am doing, which is attempting to figure out my planet and its five moons. That in turn brings me to the second thing which is sorry. Sorry if this turns out to be one big sloppy mess, but honestly, I am not sure about what it is that I am doing. I know what I want the end result to be, but in terms of accuracy in how it gets that way based on these factors, I'm not so sure. Anyways, here is the map of my planet and its moons, or a rough idea of it:

Star Map.jpg

Planet Size-
Equator: 31,253 miles circumference
Poles: 31,102 miles circumference

Moon 1- 330,000 miles from planet
Equator: 2,503 miles circumference
Poles: 2,511 miles circumference

Moon 2- 780,000 miles from planet
Equator: 3,192 miles circumference
Poles: 3,155 miles circumference

Moon 3- 990,000 miles from planet
Equator: 1,274 miles circumference
Poles: 1,209 miles circumference

Moon 4- 1,410,000 miles from planet
Equator: 4,487 miles circumference
Poles: 4,506 miles circumference

Moon 5- 1,930,000 miles from planet
Equator: 7,821 miles circumference
Poles: 7,883 miles circumference

I have a lot of questions on this, so please bare with me if possible. I have been doing some independent research, but honestly, I am borderline pulling at my hair trying to figure this all out.

What I am going for:
1) The planet has 4 season.
2) Planet has 5 moons that are in stable orbit

What I am trying to figure out:
1) What distance do the moons need to be in order to have a stable orbit?
2) How does the size of each moon in relation to the planet effect the moons orbit?
3) Does the gravitational pull of each moon effect each other?
4) Does the type of star the planet and its moons orbit have an effect on the rotation of the planet, and if so, would earth be a good distance to base all planets capable of supporting life?
5) How does the size of the planet effect its environment as well as the moon since there are 5 of them? I kind of figured out the relation between Earth and the moon, but now I just threw in 4 more, so now I'm frazzled

If you guys have ANY questions for me, please feel free to ask. I have figured out what I can, but I am honestly stuck now, and don't know how to proceed

[Gidde]

Those moons are Huge. Which isn't necessarily bad, but it will have pretty serious consequences.

First, the disclaimer: i am not an astrophysicist. But the multiple big moons topic has fascinated me for some time and I've done a bit of research.

First you want to make sure they're all outside the roche limit for the planet. The wikipedia article
for roche limit has a formula.

Then you'll want to check for or create resonances. Check out the galilean moons (first four of jupiter); they actually have a resonance that keeps them stable. most resonances make a system unstable though. While checking this out figure out the orbital periods

Once you have distances and periods, you can start worrying about tides, which are going to really mess with your surface. you'll have very large tides because of your moons's sizes, and they'll compete and join up in crazy ways because there's five of them. if they ever all end up together, it'll probably pop volcanoes.

To make a really long story short, multiple moons is an insanely complex scenario. You may just want to do some handwaving and make it up Or if you like the challenge you may want to grab celestia and model the thing!



Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[ravells]

Maybe this might help?

http://www.transhuman.talktalk.net/iw/Geosync.htm

[MindOfTheo]

Actually... that kind of did! Thanks!