Le 10/11/2012 14:32, Ed Sweet nous fit lire :
> Toroidal planet -- spins so fast it's not a sphere or an ellipsoid, but a torus,
> like "J.P. Boyd's "Moonbow" story in Analog.
> 
> Yes, I know that toroidal planets have been shown to be only "meta stable" in
> numerical simulations, and that any perturbation would cause the torus to clump
> up and collapse into a ring of debris or something...so you would need some kind
> of dynamic stabilization to keep it stable...probably not worth the trouble...
> 
> but it looks cool...
> 
> Modeled entirely in POVRAY.
> 

I wonder about the gravity field on the planet itself, just disregarding
the speed of rotation. Seems to me that on the outer radius, the gravity
is strong. On the inner radius, to avoid getting attracted to the sky,
it is weaker and push some constraints between the major & minor radius
(so that the ground is stronger than the sky part).
But on the upper/bottom side(circle) of the torus, it seems that, if the
ground is just along the torus, the direction of a free water surface
would not be parallel to the ground. Wouldn't there be a kind of
desert/cliff making the transition on the small circle between both
region ? would it be some desert or waterfall ?

What about the clouds ? Isn't the atmosphere somehow more extended
inside than outside of the torus ?
What about the difference on the wildlife & flora due to the various
strength of gravity ? (and the cubic/square rule)
Is the daily rotation around the main axis (which might means a 6-month
day if the rotation axis is not aligned with the plane of revolution, or
an ever dim inside-band if they are (well, maybe the shadow cast by the
other side is not large enough to hide the sun, so: umbra, penumbra or
just a bit less light, according to the relative apparent radius of the
sun/minor radius of the planet)

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