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Message: <blockquote data-quote="ninthcouncil" data-source="post: 456415" data-attributes="member: 2566">I'm with you on this one - Earth is very unusual in the size of its satellite. The dramatic gravitational interactions between multiple satellites of such large size and close orbit would rip such a system up in no time flat. Looking at the rest of the solar system, we see planets with multiple tiny satellites (relative to the parent - some of the gas giant moons are big, but they're in wide orbits and are miniscule in relation to the primary, and Mars' satellites are pinpricks), or none. Pluto and Charon are... well, the subject of some debate, with a lot of people not regarding Pluto as a proper planet at all. Best left out of the reckoning.Are you sure? I'm prepared to be wrong (my knowledge on these things is 20 years out of date), but is that true? Mercury, after all, though it has a very long "day"(58 Earth days vs. a year of 88 Earth days), is not tidally locked to the Sun, and it's a lot closer than Earth. Venus is damn close to being locked (224 day year, 243 day "day"), and was believed to be so around the turn of the last century, since some of its atmospheric features ARE tidally locked - even so it's not quite there. So it doesn't even appear to be true of other candidates for tidal locking in our own system.A "ribbon" world makes a potentially interesting setting, though....</blockquote>