rafry@ozemail.com.au wrote:
>Just a note: I'm no physicist. However, I was told that the tidal effect (i.e. how big a change there is in the mean sea level) is inversely proportional to the third power of the distance. So if the second moon is both smaller and further than the first, it would have a relatively tiny effect on tides.
>
>
IMHO, that's exactly as it should be.
>That said, having two obvious, moving, celestial figures would (IMO) have a strong effect on the importance of mathematics and astronomy. As well as the perceived structure of any 'heavenly' pantheon. And thus elemental magics...
>
>
I kind of disagree. Celandra has "real" gods, so they don't need to
invent many new ones.
And early astronomy was based on detecting movements of planets - not
the moon.
I put the stuff below on the Website as "official" truth - if somebody
really wants to have
far developed astronomy (or astrology), I can live with that, too.
Astronomy is not a very well developed subject on Celandra. Astrology
does not exist. Astronomical / cosmological questions are not, in
general, considered important.
Celandra has a Sol-like G-type star and an Earth-like length of day and
year.
Unlike Earth, Celandra has 2 moons: the Greater Moon, with size and
other properties much like Earth's moon, and the Lesser Moon, which
is smaller, and further away. The Lesser Moon has
visible size approximately one tenth of the size of the Greater Moon.
There are other planets on the solar system, but their existence
is not common knowledge. The night sky is lighted by stars. By
common understanding, these are holes in the dome that envelops
Celandra. Other popular suggestions are that they are faraway worlds
in the Dreaming, or ancient gods.
The most common cosmological understanding is that Celandra is flat,
and the moons and the sun circulate it (geocentric). Some sea-going
people, and some highly-learned individuals, know that Celandra is actually
a sphere, and some sea-going people know how to navigate by stars. A few
mathematically oriented wizard-scientists have suggested that Celandra
actually circulates the sun, but generally this is considered an overly
complicated setup. A geocentric view is much more sensible.
juuso
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