I agree with all of the points made by the poster and the commenters. All of you are correct because conceivably in this time they knew how to terraform planets without them losing their atmospheres.

It is made clear in the show that all of the inner planets are green and full of life and that the outer planets have no such luxury. This implies that they can control the climate on these planets and moons if they so desire.

They may do this through a combination of affecting/activating the core and a carefully calculated and presently monitored greenhouse effect. I say presently monitored because the Alliance used the excuse that Miranda lost its atmosphere in Serenity the movie to explain the loss of the whole population and the planet itself.

Plants, animals, and humans essentially only need sunlight for certain nutrients but these can be made and ingested instead of absorbed through the skin. That means that you don't need sunlight(white light) to survive, just to be healthy. Brown dwarfs and red dwarfs give off light much weaker than our sun and since they give off a different hue as well the outer-rim folks probably NEED Alliance food for the built-in essential Vitamins in them, which are probably made that way for rich inner rim people that don't like tanning their skin because it's unfashionable.

What do you think of my hypotheses?

BlueEyedBrigadier, check out Castor, a 6-star system... http://www.solstation.com/stars2/castor6.htm

Or some examples for other 4- or 5-star systems on Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_system#Multiple_star_systems

Ah, but BlueEyedBrigadier, you forget one single, all consuming important fact; Joss, as great as he is, is not a God (In the conventional sense, mind; hes' got my vote for God of Literature!). So, he may have taken some SLIGHT poetic licensing when creating the 'Verse we know and love so much.

Also, although one has yet to be found, the Universe is-arguably- infinite (or, baring that, pretty ruttin' big). There is a fair to good chance that we simply ain't found one yet- we got single, binary, trinary, why quadrary(?) or Quinary systems? Not much ain't all that impossible when you think about it.

-Danny (Late but still relevant!)

Yeah, that map is in the RPG book as well. I thumbed through the Visual Companion book at Borders one day, but I didn't see that map - unless there is more than one Serenity guide.

But then some astrophysically-minded people would argue you can't have more than probably 3 (trinary) stars in a solar system...or at least I haven't heard of any discoveries about mult-stellar systems recently;)

And I would tend to agree with the idea that the map CGIed in behind Tamara Taylor's character shows the planets and moons under direct and officially supported Alliance control;)

BEB

My mind, she is blown.
Excellent observation, here!