Posts: 2,224
Threads: 168
Joined: Sep 2002
Reputation:
1
[RFC] Alpha Centauri A, general environs
03-14-2010, 10:11 PM
Okay, here's my first draft on the Centauri A system. Despite the names, there are no giant blue catpeople wandering around. At least, not at the moment... you know fen, after all. Comment @ will. --Mal
{{Starbox
|name=Rigel Kentaurus A
|image=
|image_size=
|caption=
|constellation=Centaurus
|right ascension=14h 39m 36.4951s
|declination=-60° 50' 02.308"
|spectral type=G2V
|distance=4.365 ± 0.007 ly
|other designations=Alpha Centauri A, a Cen A, a¹ Centauri, GJ 559 A, HR 5459, HD 128620, GCTP 3309.00, LHS 50, SAO 252838, HIP 71683
}}
''Alpha Centauri A'' or Rigil Kentaurus ("Foot of the Centaur" in Arabic) is the fourth brightest star in the night sky as well as the brightest star in Constellation Centaurus. Like Sol, it is a yellow-orange main sequence dwarf star of spectral and luminosity type G2 V.
''(Boilerplate from [ http://www.solstation.com/ SolStation.com])''
Together with [[Rigel_Kentaurus_B|Alpha Centauri B] and [[Proxima Centauri] Alpha Centauri A forms a loose trinary systemThere is some debate about wether or not [[Proxima Centauri] is actually part of a trinary system with the others, see [ http://www.solstation.com/stars/alp-cent3.htm SolStation.com] for more details., and is one of the closest stars to Sol at a distance of about 4.40 light-years. Alpha Centauri A and B orbit a common point at an average distance of about 23.7 AUs.
===Rigel Kentaurus A System===
The Kentaurus A system was first surveyed by the [[Trekkie] ''Phoenix'' expedition in early 2009. The system consists of six planets:
* '''Klymene''' (Kentaurus A I)
* '''Epimetheus''' (Kentaurus A II)
* '''Anchiale''' (Kentaurus A III)
* '''Perses''' (Kentaurus A IV)
* '''Leto''' (Kentaurus A V)
* '''Cronus''' (Kentaurus A VI)
(It should be noted here that, once the Rigel Kentaurus system was named, a general moritorium was declared on using Greco-Roman mythology for planet names; all the good ones are already in use back home.)
Epimetheus, the largest gas giant in the system, holds special interest because of its habitable moon '''Pandora'''. Pandora is the first life-bearing world discovered away from Sol, containing a viable ecosystem similar to that of Earth's Devonian period. Unfortunately, Pandora's atmosphere is not breathable by humans, meaning the moon is relegated to wildlife studies and other scientific endeavoursThe Federation Colonial Service has entertained studies on colonizing Pandora (see da Quirm, L., "City-Scale Filtration Tents and Their Appllications." Prometheus Forge, 2015) though it has not yet put any plan into action.. '''[[Starbase 2]''' was placed in Pandora orbit as a permanent research facility.
Anchiale, the next planet out from Epimetheus, is notable as a slightly-denser and marginally more habitable [[Mars] analogue.
==Notes==
{{interstellar}}
Mr. Fnord interdimensional man of mystery
FenWiki - Your One-Stop Shop for Fenspace Information
"I. Drink. Your. NERDRAGE!"
Posts: 8,933
Threads: 386
Joined: May 2006
Reputation:
3
Heh. Cool. Was wondering when someone would get around to this.
Now, being a trinary system, wouldn't there be a helluva lot more planets than the ones listed? (I know that you've only got A listed here, but I still can't help but think that this has the potential become one heck of a happening neighborhood with a three-for-one system.)
Posts: 27,595
Threads: 2,269
Joined: Sep 2002
Reputation:
21
Pandora, eh? Devonian-style life, non-breathable atmosphere? Better not be any blue folks with braids there...
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.
Posts: 2,224
Threads: 168
Joined: Sep 2002
Reputation:
1
Quote:Now, being a trinary system, wouldn't there be a helluva lot more planets than the ones listed?
Well, when you count the full Trisystem there's a fair number of planets yeah, but the way A and B orbit each other limits the number of planets either one can have. Gravity issues, y'understand.
Anyway, Centauri B (according to my notes) has three worlds (Nessus, Eurynomus and Chiron) along with an extensive asteroid belt. Chiron is a much more hospitable place for humans; though cooler and drier than Pandora or Earth, the atmosphere is close to Earth-normal. Proxima I haven't really developed yet, but that'll be a few dead rockballs of little note most likely.
Among other interstellar notes I've got, Tau Ceti has Gallifrey, which is a beautiful world just hitting the Permian desert phase, New Alaska in the Barnard's Star system, a cryogenic biosphere on a snowball Super-Earth, and Ragnarok in Delta Pavonis, which was a very nice world until something twice the mass of Phobos hit it around 5,000 years back.
Quote:Pandora, eh? Devonian-style life, non-breathable atmosphere? Better not be any blue folks with braids there...
Nope, no blue cat-people or giant dragons. Yet, anyway: you know fen.
The Hallelujah Mountains exist though, and are quite beautiful, though firmly anchored to the crust this time. Sorry.
Mr. Fnord interdimensional man of mystery
FenWiki - Your One-Stop Shop for Fenspace Information
"I. Drink. Your. NERDRAGE!"
Posts: 8,933
Threads: 386
Joined: May 2006
Reputation:
3
Quote:M Fnord wrote:
Proxima I haven't really developed yet, but that'll be a few dead rockballs of little note most likely.
Mining Ops! Shipyards! Industrial Centers! Military Training! The possibilities are endless in uninhabited space! Wooo-hoooooo! (^_^)
Posts: 25,543
Threads: 2,060
Joined: Feb 2005
Reputation:
12
Quote:Together with [[Rigel_Kentaurus_B|Alpha Centauri B] and [[Proxima Centauri] Alpha Centauri A forms a loose trinary systemThere is some debate about wether or not [[Proxima Centauri] is actually part of a trinary system with the others, see [%[link=http://www.solstation.com/stars/alp-cent3.htm]http://www.solstation.com/stars/alp-cent3.htm] SolStation.com] for more details., and is one of the closest stars to Sol at a distance of about 4.40 light-years. Alpha Centauri A and B orbit a common point at an average distance of about 23.7 AUs.
Formatting nits: Needs "ref" tags around "There is some debate about wether or not [[Proxima Centauri] is actually part of a trinary system with the others, see [%[link=http://www.solstation.com/stars/alp-cent3.htm]http://www.solstation.com/stars/alp-cent3.htm] SolStation.com] for more details." Also needs a spelling-check to fix "whether".
Quote:(It should be noted here that, once the Rigel Kentaurus system was named, a general moritorium was declared on using Greco-Roman mythology for planet names; all the good ones are already in use back home.)
Yeah, yeah - the real reason for the moratorium on Greco-Roman names is that they didn't want anyone thinking a planet had been named after Ms. Swansen-Scott.
Quote:Among other interstellar notes I've got, Tau Ceti has Gallifrey, which is a beautiful world just hitting the Permian desert phase, New Alaska in the Barnard's Star system, a cryogenic biosphere on a snowball Super-Earth, and Ragnarok in Delta Pavonis, which was a very nice world until something twice the mass of Phobos hit it around 5,000 years back.
This and the Miranda mission tell me that we're going with large values for f[size=smaller]p[/size], n[size=smaller]e[/size] and f[size=smaller]l[/size], but small values for f[size=smaller]i[/size] and f[size=smaller]c[/size] in the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drake_equation]Drake Equation. That might be worth mentioning on the "Interstellar exploration in Fenspace" page.
Quote:Nope, no blue cat-people or giant dragons. Yet, anyway: you know fen.
There has to have been at least one blue victim of the Catgirling Machine by now (in colouration; there are plenty that are blue in personality).
As for giant dragons, maybe somebody connected with the Vesta Institute of Biochemistry's "Jurassic Rock" theme park could create some, if offered enough cash and enough room for the results to live in. Heck, the Potterites and the McCaffrey Fen might chip in for that project, although the dragons they'd want would be somewhat different...
--
Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."
- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012
Posts: 2,224
Threads: 168
Joined: Sep 2002
Reputation:
1
The ref tags are there in the file, it's just the wonky Yuku HTML parsing at work. So yeah.
Quote:This and the Miranda mission tell me that we're going with large values for fp, ne and fl, but small values for fi and fc in the Drake Equation. That might be worth mentioning on the "Interstellar exploration in Fenspace" page.
Hm, it's a point to consider. Now I'll have to run the Equation and see what comes out. Dammit.
Mr. Fnord interdimensional man of mystery
FenWiki - Your One-Stop Shop for Fenspace Information
"I. Drink. Your. NERDRAGE!"
Posts: 27,595
Threads: 2,269
Joined: Sep 2002
Reputation:
21
Things don't have to be equally distributed, you know -- the local stellar neighborhood may have its values skewed in some way off from the galactic/universal average.
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.
Posts: 3,314
Threads: 306
Joined: Feb 2004
Reputation:
0
And didn't we say the "Squidleighs" whose probe was encountered by Miranda in 2012 were the first non-Solar Intelligent life we'd encountered?
I hate to say it, but "Swede" or 'Dane scientists may dismiss the simple life in the Centauri trinary as "Genesis Device" Handwave results.
''We don't just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat
them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary.''
-- James Nicoll
Posts: 25,543
Threads: 2,060
Joined: Feb 2005
Reputation:
12
Quote:And didn't we say the "Squidleighs" whose probe was encountered by Miranda in 2012 were the first non-Solar Intelligent life we'd encountered?
Yep - which is why I said we're using small values for f[size=smaller]i[/size] and f[size=smaller]c[/size] in the Drake Equation. They're the (important) terms that address intelligent life.
--
Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."
- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012
Posts: 2,224
Threads: 168
Joined: Sep 2002
Reputation:
1
Hokay, since nobody had any further input, I've added the Centauri A writeup to the wiki. In a fit of inspiration, I also added my notes on Centauri B, Tau Ceti and Barnard's Star.
Also, muhahahaha. > 
Mr. Fnord interdimensional man of mystery
FenWiki - Your One-Stop Shop for Fenspace Information
"I. Drink. Your. NERDRAGE!"
Posts: 25,543
Threads: 2,060
Joined: Feb 2005
Reputation:
12
Quote:Also, muhahahaha. >
Somebody's going to be jealous...
--
Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."
- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012
Posts: 8,933
Threads: 386
Joined: May 2006
Reputation:
3
Quote:robkelk wrote:
Quote:Also, muhahahaha. >
Somebody's going to be jealous...
Meh. I can think of worse things. New Texas has potential for awesome. I know it's on the outskirts, but where there is SCIENCE the is a way!
I am thinking of a series of giant reflectors to bounce the light of Bernard's Star into the lunar system of New Texas ( and perhaps New Oklahoma as well - it's the neighborly thing to do). The reflectors would be large enough the they don't even need to orbit. How's that, you ask? You make them large enough that the oncoming solar winds from the star counterbalances the gravitational pull. (Big Grin)
To help maintain that profile, each reflector would not be a continuous surface, but instead an array of smaller mirrors that can be shifted to beam the light anywhere within... oh, say a forty-five degree angle. Is that too generous or not enough? This also gives us a bonus in the departments of survivability and maintenance. In the event we get a few random pieces of space rock charging through the system, any damage done will be highly localized, and individual reflector segments should be easy to replace. That could even become the ongoing local industry.
Posts: 2,224
Threads: 168
Joined: Sep 2002
Reputation:
1
I'm not sure why you'd want to illuminate New Texas, to be honest. If anything, you'd want to illuminate New Alaska, that's where the biosphere is.
Mr. Fnord interdimensional man of mystery
FenWiki - Your One-Stop Shop for Fenspace Information
"I. Drink. Your. NERDRAGE!"
Posts: 8,933
Threads: 386
Joined: May 2006
Reputation:
3
Cryogenic Biosphere. I kinda have a thing about leaving biospheres as they are as intact as possible - don't wanna spoil some other critter's shot at life later on down the road. And let's not argue the point - I hate dealing with Heisenburg, as much as it applies to that case. I'd much rather agree to disagree.
Besides, New Alaska sounds like a high-grav world - IIRC, three times the mass of Earth means three-times Earth's gravity - that's not gonna be very comfortable for 'normal' folks, Fen or 'Dane, no matter what the mean temperature is.
Besides, if I felt like warming up the planet, I'd either look at rekindling that red dwarf or nudging New Alaska in a bit closer (much easier to do with a world that has a 'solid' mass rather than a gaseous one).
Posts: 2,224
Threads: 168
Joined: Sep 2002
Reputation:
1
~1.8 G if my calculators are right, actually.
Anyway, I still don't get why you'd want more light on New Texas.
Mr. Fnord interdimensional man of mystery
FenWiki - Your One-Stop Shop for Fenspace Information
"I. Drink. Your. NERDRAGE!"
Posts: 8,933
Threads: 386
Joined: May 2006
Reputation:
3
Terraforming. Gotta have a suitable amount of radiant energy to make it work.
|
