"Game of Thrones" - is the series really possible?

Mikhail Shevchenko, candidate of physics and mathematics. Sciences, lecturer at the Moscow Planetarium:

“To begin with, it’s worth remembering what causes the change of seasons in general and what picture we can observe on the planets of our solar system.

The Earth's rotation axis is inclined to the orbital plane along which it moves around the Sun. We, for example, live in the temperate zone, at the latitude of Moscow - this is approximately 56 degrees - and we see the change of seasons, since our part of the planet is either turned towards the Sun or away from it.

If we move to the equator, there will be almost no change in seasons. The temperature there is almost the same all year round, only weather changes occur - rains and so on. But the daylight hours hardly change, the Sun rises and sets at almost the same time, and the amount of solar radiation is the same in winter and summer.

In our country, as you know, the picture is different: in winter there are very long nights, in summer there are long days, and if you move further north, then in winter the Sun may not rise above the horizon at all, and in summer it may not set. The amount of radiation coming here varies greatly depending on the time of year.

A very similar picture exists on Mars, whose axis of rotation is deviated from the plane of its orbit by approximately the same angle. But Jupiter’s axis is almost strictly perpendicular to its orbit, and therefore all parts of the planet always have their own season, the same. It is always summer at the equator, but the closer to the pole, the colder it becomes.

Another factor that can influence the amount of radiation coming from a star is the eccentricity of the planet’s orbit, its “elongation.” But all the planets in the solar system have very close circular orbits, and eccentricity plays a very minor role in the change of seasons.

If you go beyond the solar system and imagine another planet with a highly elongated orbit, it is difficult to imagine where it could come from: the distant planets known to us also have orbits that are quite close to circular. Their seasons may be longer or shorter, they may be unequal, they may not exist at all (as on Jupiter), but it is impossible to imagine that, due to the inclination of the rotation axis or the eccentricity of the orbit, they would be longer than a year."