--- EvMick@aol.com wrote:
> A movie critic for the Emag "Salon" writes"
>
> >an unknown desert planet, where the combination of
> three suns means >that
> night never falls.
>
> and my bovine excretion monitor went off.
>
> THREE suns?
Please. That's most scientifically likely bit of the
movie. A trinary system is, at least theoretically
possible, but it wouldn't likely be stable enough to
develop a planet capable of sustaining life, or
capturing a rock tht might bear dormant, hibernating
life.
Given the right masses, a Lagrange like point of
stability may exist between two of the stars, and one
might well be a very large gas giant. What could be
really interesting is the orbit our theoretical
planetoid could take. It could full well wind up
transiting *between* the three stars.
No, the most glaring flight from science in this movie
is biological. These critters scour all the biomass
from the planet, then go dormant, cicadalike for 22
years, until it gets dark again (presumably they react
to the temperature), when they arise and scour all the
biomass from the planet once again. It might work if
they were cannibalistic: the critters arise once night
falls, the females find a suitable male in which to
inject their eggs, the male, now mated returns to
ground, while the female goes on to chow on however
many of the other critters she can find, probably
preferring other females, and hopefully preventing
them from reproducing. In the next 22 years, some of
the eggs hatch, and the young feast on each and their
host while they grow, and the females grow new
clutches of eggs. In such a cycle, they're not likely
to recognise humans as food unless there's a really
common basis for life.
A more likely environment would allow for the presence
of plant life: the young hatch, feast on grasses and
flowers and insects for 22 years, and the ones that
have the seismic hearing gene proceed to go to ground
and cocoon for the next 22 years when night falls,
while their deaf brethren get eaten by their parents.
22 years later, they come out of the cocoon when night
falls, to mate and feed. Of course, once you have
plant life, you have the possibility of a much more
complicated ecosystem.
bkd
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