#day cycle

The I’sola live on one of a set of rotating twin planets (a binary planet system). These planets have opposite and interlocking magnetic poles, which allow them to stay as close as they are without incident - gravity pulling them together, magnetism repelling them, and inertia helping to keep them apart. Hoset and Ma’al, or Hephaestus and Pan, share both an atmosphere composed of oxygen and carbon dioxide (percentages varying throughout the year) and a glass ring made of shattered meteors that orbits the twin system. The planets themselves are vastly different from one another.

Hoset/Hephaestus

Hoset is the planet that is unable to support life. Throughout the year (623 days), carbon and other material falls to Hoset in the way of meteors. These materials build up until the system gets close enough to the sun on its elliptical orbit and Hoset lights on fire for a fairly short burning season (44 days), burning out all of the oxygen in the atmosphere and replenishing the carbon dioxide necessary for the I’sola that live on Ma’al. Hoset constantly faces the sun and rotates at about the same speed as Ma’al.

Ma’al/Pan

Ma’al is a black planet with large, fast-moving rivers running to the poles. As the ash from Hoset floats over and coalesces into these rivers and fertilizes much of the planet, it ends up at the poles where enormous geysers shoot it up into space, sometimes temporarily creating dark clouds in the sky. There are two times of Ma’al’s rotation cycle: the Ring and the Eclipse. The Ring lasts for three quarters of the rotation and  refers to what we would think of as nighttime, with a silver band of light standing out against the night sky, no moon to speak of. The Eclipse refers to Hoset standing out as a black circle in the sky, covering the sun but leaving a surrounding fiery afterimage, the ring fading into black as it draws away. During burning seasons, Hoset simply looks like a large sun. Each rotation lasts 31.5 Earth hours though the I’sola speak of time in terms of rotational degrees - 0°/360° being the center of the eclipse “Ban” (meaning halfway) and 180° being Midring. “Planetfall” is when many I’sola go to rest, looking like an inverted sunset/sunrise. 

Image 1 (Left): A diagram of the I’solan Solar System, with its binary planets: Hoset and Ma’al. The gray planet is Ma’al, consistently the furthest from the sun - the I’sola live here. Hoset is depicted as white, in its burning seasons, and black when it sits as a dreary, dead lump of rock. Hoset’s burning seasons occur when the planetary orbit is closest to the sun; it lights on fire and burns for two seasons throughout the year. The oval around the two planets depicts the glass ring that Hoset and Ma’al share. It is made of melted bits of meteors and it refracts sunlight around to the back of Ma’al even during its ‘night’.

Image 2 (Right): A diagram of the day cycle of Ma’al, as it relates to Hoset. Ma’al (in gray) rotates clockwise as depicted above. Between 45°-90°, Hoset is hazy and slightly more distant in the sky, the sun more blinding than eclipsed by the dead planet, and the ring slowly fades in or out with the darkness. At 0°/Ban, the center of the eclipse, there is a complete solar eclipse, a void backlit by the sun. During the burning seasons, Hoset looks fiery red.