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Message: <blockquote data-quote="AbdulAlhazred" data-source="post: 5338909" data-attributes="member: 82106">True in general. What about a world with a fairly good sized satellite? Maybe one in a fairly tight orbit. That would tend to allow for a greater tilt. It could also create a bit of darkness on the light side. Imagine it was large enough and close enough to eclipse the sun on each orbit. The dark would be pretty brief but it could have some fun implications.There would also certainly be some degree of libration. If the orbit is a bit eccentric the terminator could move a substantial distance over the course of a year. That could be fun too.So an area near the terminator could go from having a low sun angle to having the sun a bit below the horizon over the course of the year. All of these factors could combine to create some degree of variation in weather as well. It would almost certainly be less unstable than our weather is but in any case even unchanging conditions don't necessarily imply perfectly consistent weather all the time, just some sort of fairly steady state.I doubt much would live on the dark side outside of some areas like deep sea vents, maybe hotsprings, or some area that received a fairly steady supply of nutrients from the light side. Any land area would most likely resemble the interior of Antarctica. With little in the way of flowing water on the surface the dark side would also probably be a rugged landscape. Mountains would erode very slowly. Without soil or much temperature variation to promote weathering the terrain would be somewhat different from what we're used to.I could definitely imagine some creatures migrating out a ways onto the dark side to reproduce in an area where there would be few predators. It is hard to imagine any (mundane) larger organisms really making a living there on a full time basis though. Again think of Antarctica, but remember it is only in darkness half the year, yet there are virtually no higher land organisms at all. Penguins may haul out there and nest on the edges but they have an ocean to feed them too. Beyond that there are a couple other bird and seal species and a small number of arthropods (the largest land animal in Antarctica being 6mm).Of course that's just the mundane backdrop...</blockquote>

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