Kakuloa
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Kakuloa
Habitable planet orbiting Alpha Centauri B, (Alpha Centauri B II, designated "Baker" prior to the first landing)
First extra-solar planet landed upon by humans (but the first settlement was on Sawyers World).
- Largest city: Krechets Landing, Kakuloa City (? see Renee)
- Rotation: ~23 hr ?
- Diameter: slightly smaller than Earth (0.986 e, 12,680 km, 7880 mi)
- Density: slightly higher than Earth (5.76 gm/cm3, vs 5.52 for Earth)
- Gravity: slightly higher than Earth per Alpha Centauri: First Landing (1.028g)
Escape velocity is lower than Sawyers World, thus less than 11.42 km/sec (or net less than 11 km/sec)
- 11.35 km/sec, with a 0.48 km/sec equatorial rotation boost. The sidereal day is 23:03:10.08 long, about 05:40 less than the solar day.
Two moons, one about Luna sized, Mahina Nui (3300 km), and one about 460km (285mi) diameter, Mahina’uku.
Habitable zone is ~0.56 to ~1.10 AU, orbital period ~0.43 to ~1.20 Earth years. Kakuloa's distance and year about two-thirds of Earth's, but it's not at the inner edge of the HZ. Orbital period is 0.667 Earth years.
- Year is 5626.9 hours, = 234.45 Earth (24h) days, = 243.09 Kakula 'solar' days (244.09 sidereal days).
- Rounding to 243 gives alternate a leap year every 11 years.
- Calendar is 8 months of alternating 30 and 31 days (with one short month except in a leap year) -- although this doesn't match up with either moon (close to large moon).
- Orbital distance is ~0.7262 AU, so together with the star's luminosity of 0.5002 sol, it gets about 94.9% as much sunshine (per square meter) as Earth. The planet would thus be on average a tiny bit cooler, but this is offset by a higher humidity atmosphere (more surface water) which traps more heat.
- The solar day is 23:08:50.28 long. The time between 23:08:50.28 and 00:00:00 the next day is skipped.
Notes
- Tree squids
- Former thriving squidberry industry (see Stone Age, Reticuli)
- Orbiting shipyards (see Renee, Chara Talisman)
- Great surf beaches
- Hotel InterPlanetary, Parry's Restaurant