The Astronomy Behind the Legends of Planetos

[WeaselPie]

I've edited that post to add more births, but this is exactly how Rhaegar would think :laugh:

So not to detract from main convo, but perhaps after the return of dragons has something to do with the birth of people born in comet years (every 16-17 years) although we have no proof of the comet so perhaps it is only red when dragons return idk. Just a thought. Nothing much to do with this theory, so ignore.

Not personal, just a mention. Aegon's conception was important during a comet, not his birth. For anyone working on math or timeline projects.

[Kingmonkey]

By the way, LmL, what do you think about the fact that the moon is always spotted in nighttime in the whole saga ? This goes as far as having moonrise mentioned as an hour in the night. It doesn't make much sense astronomically, so could it be linked to the magical event ?

Woah, interesting.

It could simply be a metaphorical name. If the moon has a relatively low albedo and doesn't show up in daylight, it might simply be the hour the moon becomes visible. On the other hand, the moon could be in a geosynchronous orbit.

[LmL]

Eclipse?

Eclipses only last a short time, less than an hour. The Lion of Night was supposedly roaming free during the long night, that sounds like an extended stay. I really think the darkened sun fits, but who knows.

I am thinking the LN either lasted 6 or 12 years. It really can't have been any longer, because everyone would starve. That was a problem as it is. Any longer and everyone dies, I think. Also, any longer and the meteor impact would have had to have been so large, everyone would again be dead. It has to ride the line between mass devastation and total extinction. The section of TWOIAF on Yi Ti says the earth was a broken thing after the LN, and the Great Empire did not reform. Everyone scattered. It was an genetic bottleneck, and the old races didn't do well.

[LmL]

Woah, interesting.It could simply be a metaphorical name. If the moon has a relatively low albedo and doesn't show up in daylight, it might simply be the hour the moon becomes visible. On the other hand, the moon could be in a geosynchronous orbit.

Such a thing is possible? I shall have to look this up.

[Mychel_Redfort]

I never noticed that. That doesn't make any sense, does it? Probably just an oversight, although I'm very hesitant to use that to explain inconsistencies. For the moon to only appear at night, that would mean it somehow isn't orbiting earth, but just locked in one place on the opposite side of the sun... And that makes no sense whatsoever, right? I'll have to ponder that.

At first when I realized that, I also thought it was an oversight, or that I had missed a spotting in daylight. But I still haven't found one, and it's the repetition of moonrise as an hour in the night, a bit after sunset, that puzzles me.

From Clash 17 :

He went up to his bedchamber to await Varys, who would soon be making an appearance. Evenfall, he guessed. Perhaps as late as moonrise, though he hoped not. He wanted to visit Shae tonight.

From Storm 12 :

"There is." Tyrion grinned. "Here. It's time to put that rock-hard bed of yours to better use, I think."

The eunuch's mouth opened. Then he giggled. "Lollys tires easily these days. She is great with child. I imagine she will be safely asleep by moonrise."

Tyrion hopped down from the chair. "Moonrise, then. See that you lay in some wine. And two clean cups."

From Storm 66 :

Tyrion put down the quill. "Find Bronn and bring him at once. Tell him there's gold in it, more gold than he's ever dreamt of, and see that you don't return without him."

"Yes, my lord. I mean, no. I won't. Return." He went.

He had not returned by sunset, nor by moonrise. Tyrion fell asleep in the window seat to wake stiff and sore at dawn. A serving man brought porridge and apples to break his fast, with a horn of ale. He ate at the table, the blank parchment before him. An hour later, the serving man returned for the bowl. "Have you seen my squire?" Tyrion asked him. The man shook his head.

From Feast 02 :

Death had come to Dorne on raven wings, writ small and sealed with a blob of hard red wax. Caleotte must have sensed what was in that letter, for he'd given it to Hotah to deliver. The prince thanked him, but for the longest time he would not break the seal. All afternoon he'd sat with the parchment in his lap, watching the children at their play. He watched until the sun went down and the evening air grew cool enough to drive them inside; then he watched the starlight on the water. It was moonrise before he sent Hotah to fetch a candle, so he might read his letter beneath the orange trees in the dark of night.

From Dance 08 :

Just after sunset, they left the road to rest in an overgrown yard beside an old stone well. Tyrion hopped down to work the cramps out of his calves whilst Duck and Haldon were watering the horses.

(...)

Come moonrise, they were back in their saddles, trotting eastward under a mantle of stars. The old Valyrian road glimmered ahead of them like a long silver ribbon winding through wood and dale. For a little while Tyrion Lannister felt almost at peace. "Lomas Longstrider told it true. The road's a wonder."

From Dance 52 :

The next day the king's scouts chanced upon an abandoned crofters' village between two lakes_a mean and meagre place, no more than a few hunts, a longhall, and a watchtower. Richard Horpe commanded a halt, though the army had advanced no more than a half-mile that day and they were hours shy of dark. It was well past moonrise before the baggage train and rear guard straggled in. Asha was amongst them.

But the weirdest quote is this one, from Dance 54 :

Wake and sleep and wake again, every night was broken into pieces by the rough hands of her tormentors, and every night was colder and crueler than the night before. The hour of the owl, the hour of the wolf, the hour of the nightingale, moonrise and moonset, dusk and dawn, they staggered past like drunkards. What hour was it? What day was it? Where was she? Was this a dream, or had she woken? The little shards of sleep that they allowed her turned into razors, slicing at her wits. Each day found her duller than the day before, exhausted and feverish. She had lost all sense of how long she had been imprisoned in this cell, high up in one of the seven towers of the Great Sept of Baelor. I will grow old and die here, she thought, despairing.

Cersei lists several moments in the night, including moonrise AND moonset ! That would mean that every night, whatever the phase, the moon rises and sets during the night, at least during autumn and likely spring. And so at the antipodes of Westeros, the moon rises at the end of day, stays over the horizon all night, and sets in the beginning of the morning. I can't think how this could work without magic involved.

[Kingmonkey]

Since we are beating around this bush, let me drop a little something something from the next section.

The Lion of Night may actually be a representation of how the sun would look through the cloud cover of a nuclear winter-type scenario. Following a tremendous volcanic eruption, or a comet impact of sufficient size, enough debris is thrown into the atmosphere that the skies can remain dark purplish-grey for many years. You can still see the sun at times, but barely - it would appear as a darkened sun, or a black sun. The "Lion of Night."

That's why the Lion of night is a lion - the sun is always the lion, never the moon. The lion of night means the sun of night - the night sun. The moon isn't a night sun, and is never associated with lions anywhere that I have seen. "Moon is wife of son, it is known." The Lion of night statue is a black stone statue of a man with a lion's head... Sounds creepy.

The Lion of Night impregnated the Maiden of Light. The Maiden of Night turned her back on the world, and the Lion of Night returned in anger to punish mankind.

If we assume the same astronomical events are being observed around Planetos and giving rise to different but related myths, I think the Lion of Night has to be the comet. The word 'comet' derives from Greek meaning a long-haired star, it's easy to see that "long hair" being regarded as a lion's mane. The Maiden of Night being impregnated by the Lion of the Night is our collision, the Maiden turning her back is the moon vanishing (possibly a shade of that secret dark moon idea?) and the Lion's vengeful return is the rain of meteors.

[Kingmonkey]

Such a thing is possible? I shall have to look this up.

Communication satellites are frequently parked in geosynchronous orbits -- that's why satellite TV dishes get pointed in a particular direction.

Possible in this case? I doubt it. A moon can be in a geosynchronous orbit, indeed it's believed that Pluto's largest moon, Charon, is in one. However being in a geosynchronous orbit requires the satellite to be at a pretty specific distance from the primary. In the case of Earth, that's 42,164km. This figure will depend on the mass of the parent body. Planetos is BIG, but I don't get the impression GRRM thinks of it as having more gravity, so assume about the same. That would be very low for a moon -- ours is ten times further away -- but not impossible. The Roche limit(distance below which tidal effects would destroy an orbiting body) for our moon is around 10,000km.

[Lost Melnibonean]

By the way, LmL, what do you think about the fact that the moon is always spotted in nighttime in the whole saga ? This goes as far as having moonrise mentioned as an hour in the night. It doesn't make much sense astronomically, so could it be linked to the magical event ?

Cause it's a story not an alternate reality. Most readers associate the moon with night. So he uses it that way to set the mood for a particular scene. What would describing a moon during daylight hours accomplish?

[LmL]

Communication satellites are frequently parked in geosynchronous orbits -- that's why satellite TV dishes get pointed in a particular direction.Possible in this case? I doubt it. A moon can be in a geosynchronous orbit, indeed it's believed that Pluto's largest moon, Charon, is in one. However being in a geosynchronous orbit requires the satellite to be at a pretty specific distance from the primary. In the case of Earth, that's 42,164km. This figure will depend on the mass of the parent body. Planetos is BIG, but I don't get the impression GRRM thinks of it as having more gravity, so assume about the same. That would be very low for a moon -- ours is ten times further away -- but not impossible. The Roche limit(distance below which tidal effects would destroy an orbiting body) for our moon is around 10,000km.

I believe George has said something about Planetos being like a slightly larger earth, so that would give it a bit more gravity, although I'm not sure how much that alters the equation. The fact that Pluto has a geosynchronous moon means Martin may well have heard about it and imagined this as part of his scenario, even if it's a tiny stretch in plausibility.

How does a geosynchronous orbit affect the phases of the moon?

If the remaining moon is in such an orbit, what does that say about the first one? If it was between sun and Planetos, it would be harder to see, wouldn't it? Maybe impossible? The could open the window for a remaining corpse of a moon. It might also explain why Planetos wasn't running into a large debris field - the debris field, such as it was, would have an orbit just inside Planetos' orbit, like a black band around the sun. There's a bit of evidence for something like this, actually... *cough*

Was it possible the moons used to move, and now the remaining one doesn't? That seems a stretch.

If both moons were in a geosynchronous orbit, we would never have eclipses, am I right? I do think there is talk about keeping record of eclipses, although if will now go do a woes search of every book for "eclipse" to find out.

One last thought: if the elf moon was smaller, and possibly black or dark, when it was in a solar eclipse formation, it probably wouldn't cover the entire sun - but it might appear as a black iris in the middle of the solar eye. Is that the origin of the term "God's Eye?" I have a feeling it might.

[LmL]

Cause it's a story not an alternate reality. Most readers associate the moon with night. So he uses it that way to set the mood for a particular scene. What would describing a moon during daylight hours accomplish?

This is distinctly possible. It's ambiguous if the characters in those quotes are referring to moonrise whenever it happens - like, let's meet whenever the moon rises, which on earth gradually changes every day (right?) They could be referring to it as a specific, unchanging time, like an hour after sunset. BUT, if this were so, they would surely name that hour after the moon.

Or did they? What are the names of the hours right after sunset?

[LmL]

A general question for anyone with a clue:

Who the bleepity bleep is this woman with the monkey's tail that we are told in TWOIAF had something to do with ending the Long Night? This is something that is said in Yi Ti. This has me stumped. The daughter of the Bloodstone Emperor and the Tiger Woman? That would be fitting, but somehow don't think so.

Any clues?

[LmL]

I just had a thought, in regards to potential geosynchronous smaller moon, locked in between the sun and earth, which, I'm still skeptical on. If the smaller dark moon was locked in an eclipse position, this "God's Eye" image that I was talking about... Is that what it means by saying the maiden made of light and the lion of night were in union at the beginning? Their disharmony brought on the LN, when the black moon exploded. Then the Sun appeared dark, so it would have seemed like the old Lion of Night, formerly contained in the heart of the sun, had grown larger and totally dominant. The maiden made of light "turned her back" because no could see the "maiden made of light" - a bright sun. All they saw was the black sun, and they imagined it as an empowered lion of night.

Most of that still holds even if there weren't in a geosynchronous orbit. The 'union' of the Lion of Night and Maiden made of Light could simply refer to the harmonious orbits, regular seasons, etc, before the destruction of the elf moon.

Alternate interpretation: the maiden made of light is one moon, which appears bright, like our moon (the moon being a maiden makes sense). The Lion of Night, to the ancient YiTish or Great Empire of the Dawn people, would be the darker moon. This will make sense when I explain why I think the destroyed moon was fire aspected, but dark, and the remaining one is an ice moon that appears bright (beta use ice reflects light pretty well). Even though the Lion of Night moon was the one destroyed, the darkened sun would appear like a bigger version of the dark LoN moon. The Maiden turned her back, again, because the sun was mostly blotted out.

[Mychel_Redfort]

Cause it's a story not an alternate reality. Most readers associate the moon with night. So he uses it that way to set the mood for a particular scene. What would describing a moon during daylight hours accomplish?

If there was only the lack of moon's spotting in daylight, I would completely agree with you. But the repetition of moonrise always happening some time after sunset is more than a way of writing. It tells that something not natural is at work here.

[LmL]

Ok, so i word searched every book except ASOS (don't have that one) for "eclipse."

I got ONE result, in ADWD, and it's not even referring to the moon. BUT, there may be some hidden clues, so here's the passage:

Melisandre took that as a sign and dismissed her own guard as well. They crossed the yard together, just the two of them. The snow fell all around them. She walked as close to Jon Snow as she dared, close enough to feel the mistrust pouring off him like a black fog. He does not love me, will never love me, but he will make use of me. Well and good . Melisandre had danced the same dance with Stannis Baratheon, back in the beginning. In truth, the young lord commander and her king had more in common than either one would ever be willing to admit. Stannis had been a younger son living in the shadow of his elder brother, just as Jon Snow, bastard- born, had always been eclipsed by his trueborn sibling, the fallen hero men had called the Young Wolf. Both men were unbelievers by nature, mistrustful, suspicious. The only gods they truly worshiped were honor and duty.

Since we know Jon is a secret Targ, and similar to Stannis, who was equated with AA, that could put Jon in the position of AA, at least here. If he (the sun) had always been eclipsed by his sibling (who was shorter than Jon), who is now fallen... that sounds like the smaller dark fire moon was always in an eclipse position until it died. The God’s Eye.

“You have not asked about your sister,” Melisandre said, as they climbed the spiral steps of the King’s Tower.

“I told you. I have no sister. We put aside our kin when we say our words. I cannot help Arya, much as I— ”

He broke off as they stepped inside her chambers. The wildling was within, seated at her board, spreading butter on a ragged chunk of warm brown bread with his dagger. He had donned the bone armor, she was pleased to see. The broken giant’s skull that was his helm rested on the window seat behind him.

Jon Snow tensed. “You.”

“Lord Snow.” The wildling grinned at them through a mouth of brown and broken teeth. The ruby on his wrist glimmered in the morning light like a dim red star. “What are you doing here?”

“Breaking my fast. You’re welcome to share.”

“I’ll not break bread with you.”

“Your loss. The loaf’s still warm. Hobb can do that much, at least.” The wildling ripped off a bite. “I could visit you as easily, my lord. Those guards at your door are a bad jape. A man who has climbed the Wall half a hundred times can climb in a window easy enough. But what good would come of killing you? The crows would only choose someone worse.” He chewed, swallowed. “I heard about your rangers. You should have sent me with them.”

“So you could betray them to the Weeper?”

“Are we talking about betrayals? What was the name of that wildling wife of yours, Snow? Ygritte, wasn’t it?” The wildling turned to Melisandre. “I will need horses. Half a dozen good ones. And this is nothing I can do alone. Some of the spearwives penned up at Mole’s Town should serve. Women would be best for this. The girl’s more like to trust them, and they will help me carry off a certain ploy I have in mind.”

The Blood betrayal. Ygritte was “kissed by fire” - just like Nissa Nissa.

“What is he talking about?” Lord Snow asked her.

“Your sister.” Melisandre put her hand on his arm. “You cannot help her, but he can.”

Snow wrenched his arm away. “I think not. You do not know this creature. Rattleshirt could wash his hands a hundred times a day and he’d still have blood beneath his nails. He’d be more like to rape and murder Arya than to save her. No. If this was what you have seen in your fires, my lady, you must have ashes in your eyes. If he tries to leave Castle Black without my leave, I’ll take his head off myself.”

[Durran Durrandon]

By the way, LmL, what do you think about the fact that the moon is always spotted in nighttime in the whole saga ? This goes as far as having moonrise mentioned as an hour in the night. It doesn't make much sense astronomically, so could it be linked to the magical event ?

I never noticed that. That doesn't make any sense, does it? Probably just an oversight, although I'm very hesitant to use that to explain inconsistencies. For the moon to only appear at night, that would mean it somehow isn't orbiting earth, but just locked in one place on the opposite side of the sun... And that makes no sense whatsoever, right? I'll have to ponder that.

I have a three year old daughter and a three month old. I read a lot of bed time stories. Based on my reading, I have come to the conclusion that no children's author is aware that the moon is ever available during the day, and the majority think the moon actually rises right after sunset every night. I'm willing to call this a writing cliche that George has fallen into.

[LmL]

I have a three year old daughter and a three month old. I read a lot of bed time stories. Based on my reading, I have come to the conclusion that no children's author is aware that the moon is ever available during the day, and the majority think the moon actually rises right after sunset every night. I'm willing to call this a writing cliche that George has fallen into.

Durran, what do you think of the passage I quoted above?

[LmL]

I'm actually beggining to like a scenario where the dark elf moon was in permanent eclipse position, and the larger "ice moon" revolves normally. If the surviving "ice moon" was geosynchronous, there would be no phases of the moon.

[Voice]

I am thinking the LN either lasted 6 or 12 years. It really can't have been any longer, because everyone would starve. That was a problem as it is. Any longer and everyone dies, I think. Also, any longer and the meteor impact would have had to have been so large, everyone would again be dead. It has to ride the line between mass devastation and total extinction. The section of TWOIAF on Yi Ti says the earth was a broken thing after the LN, and the Great Empire did not reform. Everyone scattered. It was an genetic bottleneck, and the old races didn't do well.

Indeed. I think it was Old Nan that described it as lasting a generation...

In terms of Westerosi traditions, this would be the time it takes for a woman to reach adulthood ~13 years. That number tends to pop up a lot around the lore of the long night...13th lord commander...reigning for 13 years...etc.

[Voice]

At first when I realized that, I also thought it was an oversight, or that I had missed a spotting in daylight. But I still haven't found one, and it's the repetition of moonrise as an hour in the night, a bit after sunset, that puzzles me.

From Clash 17 :

From Storm 12 :

From Storm 66 :

From Feast 02 :

From Dance 08 :

From Dance 52 :

But the weirdest quote is this one, from Dance 54 :

Cersei lists several moments in the night, including moonrise AND moonset ! That would mean that every night, whatever the phase, the moon rises and sets during the night, at least during autumn and likely spring. And so at the antipodes of Westeros, the moon rises at the end of day, stays over the horizon all night, and sets in the beginning of the morning. I can't think how this could work without magic involved.

Seems quite compelling. In such a case, Planetos seems to be rotating in relation to the other two (sun and moon) in a very fixed way. GRRM has noted we cannot explain Westerosi seasons scientifically, but this does seem beyond the norm. Perhaps it is simply a mistake on his part. Westeros faces the sun during the day, and the moon at night. This would seem to rule out the possibility of there ever being an eclipse...

[Durran Durrandon]

Durran, what do you think of the passage I quoted above?

I can see Jon as the sun, but I don't see Rob, his cousin, as the moon eclipsing him. It doesn't work for me.