07-10-2015, 01:24 PM
I don't think I get this neighborhood being a stable situation for a planetary orbit - at least not on a long enough scale for a full ecosystem to evolve.
The thing about contact binaries and multi-star systems is you get massive stellar tidal forces. Wouldn't a contact binary be transferring its own angular momentum to the orbital radii of (more distant) orbiting bodies, including the other stars, at a fairly rapid clip?
As best I can figure it, by the time you're located far enough away from the star for your orbit to be stable for ~3M years, you're located outside the habitable zone.
The thing about contact binaries and multi-star systems is you get massive stellar tidal forces. Wouldn't a contact binary be transferring its own angular momentum to the orbital radii of (more distant) orbiting bodies, including the other stars, at a fairly rapid clip?
As best I can figure it, by the time you're located far enough away from the star for your orbit to be stable for ~3M years, you're located outside the habitable zone.