I'm trying to be somewhat realistic in my fantasy story, and wondered what kind of temperature there would be in a land of perpetual twilight. In other words, never fully day and never fully night. I imagine kind of cold, so I made the neighboring country the land of fire, with a lot of volcanoes that would warm the ground and air... would that work? What can grow in this kind of country? I've been picturing it with rice fields. Well, it's fantasy, so I can make it whatever I want, but it's fun to know.
Thing about fanatasy is that there aren't always real explinations for something. Maybe it's a curse, or maybe it's just always been that way because the gods were insane or drunk when they made that part of the world.
In my fantasy world, the sun don't reach the top of the planet. In the above Land of Snow there is never any sun.
Then not much will grow at all - lichens and stuff. Plants need sun to grow, and at best you're going to get some little rubbery-leaved things that live in cracks. Just scientifically. If it's fantasy by all means adapt some plants, but they're going to be different. Think the kind of stuff that lives in the dark by deep sea vents. So they might not have leaves - or they will use them in very different way.
how can the sun never reach the 'top' of the planet?... does it not rotate? [if it didn't, there wouldn't be any life on it, would there?]... even if the planet's axis was off the perpendicular, as earth's is, that would still make the 'top' be in sunlight for half of its orbit around the sun...
The temprature doesn't nessaserilly need to be cold. Our planet has the variable climate we know because of the air mixture thats here. If you were to take 20% of the nitrogen away from our air mixture and replace it with carbon dioxide, the atmosphere would retain more heat. In the UK, we have the gulf stream that supplies most of our warmth (and rain) but without it we get very cold weather. Volcano's on the other hand block out the sun when erupting and lower the temprature (when it's a big eruption). And volcano's themselves don't heat the ground, the magma does that. If you wanted to use this method, then the ground would be quite acidic and stunt plantlife. Plus the pockets of magma under your land would make it quite unstable and likely cause earthquakes and collapsed ground. There are plenty of floras that grow in dark places, mushrooms for one. There are also lots of plants that grow in the dense dark rainforests around the world. You'll even find flora in caves where light is non-existent. Our planet only spins on 2 axes, but if it spun on all 3 axes and at the right pace, then there would be an area of perpetual twilight as well as an area of perpetual daylight. Hopefully this will give an idea on where to go to fine out more.
In parts of Alaska and Antarctica, during certain times of the year, rather than have a normal night or day they will instead be stuck in a period of twilight. For example, they will have a normal day, and then instead of being totally dark at night they will have twilight, or vice versa, but never both.
I believe they are trying to say Earth spins on the Y axis (which gives us day and night) and around the sun (which gives us our seasons). I don't see how spinning around the sun is considered to be an axis though... A spherical body that spins on the both axises would spin from side to side (like Earth does when we get day and night) and top to bottom (think switching the poles) at the same time. Add to that spinning around the sun to give seasons and you've got a really dizzy mess.
Your right that I didn't explain myself clearly, but any 3 dimensional objects can spin on all 3 axes. y= is the initial (lateral) spin, x= is the secondary (top to bottom) spin and the z= is a spiral spin of the axes themselves. However what I was referring to was just the addition of the spiral spin of the axes and this would give the desired effects asked for. And again you were right about earth spinning on 2 axes. It only spins on it's lateral axis. :redface:
Earth also precesses a little, but let's not get into sticky details. A planet spinning around just one axis would be enough for there to be a zone of perpetual twilight, if the axis is aligned correctly with the rotation around the star.
All you need is for the axis of rotation to be perpendicular to the line joining the planet and its parent star. Though this would only produce perpetual twilight at the poles. A special case of this is a planet tidally locked to its star, so that it always presents one face to the sun. Astrobiologists have theorised that life would be possible on the fringe between the light and dark hemispheres, which are always in twilight.
That was what I was going to say. It throws off the body clock. The change of light tells the body when to sleep, eat, etc. When light doesn't change much, the body gets confused. If the world doesn't turn: But I believe the side with the sun all the time would die off, over heated and the side without sun would die off, no photo synthesis for plants and lack of heat. (no plants= no plant eaters=the meat eaters eat one another until there gone.)
