Nightfall

We're finding more and more weird planets as we look deeper into the universe with better and better instruments. Here's one that in essence orbits not one but four separate suns.

The planet, a gas giant the size of Neptune, orbits a binary star system, which is already a little unusual. Then another pair of stars orbits the original binary system, giving the world named PH1 four different suns in the sky.

Since it's a gas giant, any life that might exist in PS1 is nothing like life as we know it (speculation suggests that blimp-like creatures might live in the extremely dense atmospheres of these giants, but a  lot closer examination will be needed to find them if they exist). It would probably not be able to see these suns as we do, living deep in the atmosphere where the pressure and heat could sustain life.

In 1941, science fiction writer Isaac Asimov published a short story called "Nightfall," about a world which had light from six stars. Because of their interlocking orbits, the inhabitants never see the night sky. They believe themselves to be the only beings in the universe, having no knowledge of any other stellar or planetary body -- even their own moon.

Asimov sets his story on the eve of a once-in-millenia occurrence. The six suns are going to reach a point in their complicated orbits in which only one shines in the sky, and the moon will obscure that one. The inhabitants steel themselves for darkness, having learned that when this event happened before, the people went mad and their civilization collapsed. They practice by spending time in caves and underground.

They prepared for nothingness -- they didn't prepare for the stars. They're driven mad not by the absence of light, but by the awareness they're not alone.

Asimov, a committed humanist who disbelieved in anything beyond what rational thought and experiment could show, would probably not approve of how I think that story connects with our awakening to our fallen nature, but I'll take the liberty and ask his forgiveness.