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When I ask this I'm thinking of a system similar to ours, but the orbits are perfectly staggered and all planets involved have orbital periods such that when the planet (or small moon, whichever works better) is about to leave the umbra of one planet, another aligns in a way that the planet or moon is never exposed to direct light.

Thinking about this, perhaps a system would not be able to host enough planets in stable orbits to make this possible?

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The only obvious scenario involves placing a moon in the L2 point of a large enough planet. All the Lagrangian points except L4 and L5 are unstable.

That implies that no such arrangement can persist without active station-keeping.

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  • $\begingroup$ Obvious yes, but I was asking about planets moving. Just whether it's possible, and maybe an idea of how incredibly unlikely it'd be. $\endgroup$
    – CoilKid
    Oct 3, 2015 at 3:46

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