Difference between revisions of "Places"
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* New Toronto | * New Toronto | ||
* Verdigris City | * Verdigris City | ||
+ | * Louisbourg | ||
+ | * Fayetteville | ||
'''Epsilon Eridani II''' | '''Epsilon Eridani II''' |
Revision as of 22:31, 19 March 2020
Places in T-Space
T-Space, Terraform(ed) Space, can have several meanings depending on context. In general it refers to the roughly 50 lightyear diameter sphere of explored (for various values of explored) space centered on the Solar System. It could also refer to the set of stars with terraformed planets, a set of as-yet undetermined extent, which the above spheroid is included in. At its most restricted it refers just to the dozen or so settled systems between which regular travel occurs (thus including e.g. DeltaPavonis but excluding Chara ).
As far as possible, the astronomy or stellar cartography of the T-Space stories is accurate. If I write that Verdigris, a planet around Delta Pavonis, is 19.9 light years from here and 16.5 light years from Alpha Centauri, you can trust those numbers (for the stars, anyway). I spend a fair bit of time working out 3-D relationships between stars using the best data we have (as well as some great tools like Celestia for visualizing same). Of course, I have no way of knowing if there’s actually a planet matching Verdigris’ description orbiting Delta Pavonis, (I'd be as surprised as anybody if there was) and indeed the rate at which we’re discovering exoplanets — planets around other stars — is a little scary in that any time now we could discover planets around Delta Pavonis, or any of the other stars mentioned in my stories, that would make that aspect obsolete. That’s an occupational hazard of writing “hard” science fiction; look at how much what we know about the Solar System has changed since the early days of Heinlein and Clarke. For that matter, Larry Niven’s first sold story was rendered obsolete by astronomical observation before it saw print (but they went ahead and printed it anyway, it’s still a good story, titled “The Coldest Place”). To say nothing of canals on Mars or rainy swamps on Venus.
Naming/numbering Conventions
All stars mentioned in the T-space series are real and as described (although their planets may be fictional). There may be one or two exceptions further from Earth for story reasons. If so, these will be located in areas not visible from Earth (e.g. occluded by a nearer star.) Many stars have multiple names: some have a common name (like Sirius or Chara), most have a constellation name (such as Alpha Centauri or Epsilon Eridani) and all will have one or more catalog numbers (Wolf 359, BD +5 3189, etc).
Planets, other than a proper name (Mars, Kakuloa, Sawyers World) are labelled in traditional science fiction notation, a roman numeral indicating its position from the primary. Thus, Earth is Sol III, Mars is Sol IV, etc. This differs from the current astronomical naming convention where exoplanets are labelled with a lower-case letter indicating the order of discovery. The primary star is always "a", the first planet discovered is "b", the second "c", and so on (thus, Proxima Centauri b is the first planet discovered around Proxima Centauri). Given the current state of the art, we can't be sure we've discovered all the planets in a star system, or even be completely certain of their distance order, so this makes more sense than the science fictional roman numeral system. When we can visit the star system and photograph it from multiple different angles, picking out all the planets and determining their sequence is much easier.
Star Systems
This lists the more significant stars in T-Space, although less than half of them have been mentioned in stories so far. Distance is given in light years from our sun (Sol). Listed in no particular order, click on a column header to sort.
Name (or Designation) | Distance | Spectral Type | Mass (Sol = 1) | Notes, Planets |
---|---|---|---|---|
Sol | 0 | G2V | 1 | Earth |
Proxima Centauri | 4.2 | M5.5 Ve | 0.1 | planet b, Alpha Centauri C |
Alpha Centauri A & B | 4.3 | G2, K1 | 1.1, 0.9 | Sawyers World, Kakuloa |
Tau Ceti | 11.9 | G8 | 0.81 | Skead |
Epsilon Eridani | 10.5 | K2 | 0.85 | Spitzer |
Epsilon Indi | 11.8 | K4 | 0.77 | Taprobane |
Delta Pavonis | 19.9 | G6 | 1.1 | Verdigris |
Zeta Tucanae | 28 | G0 | 0.98 | Ransom's Planet |
Chara | 27.3 | G0 | 1.08 | St Jacobs (was unnamed) |
Alpha Mensae | 33.1 | G5 | 0.87 | Hallelujah |
Zeta 1 & 2 Reticuli | 39.45 | G2, G2 | 1.0, 1.05 | Wide binary, 0.1 ly apart |
Wolf 359 | 7.8 | M6 Ve | 0.1 | |
Procyon | 11.4 | F5 | 1.5 | |
Lalande 21185 | 8.3 | M2 Vne | 0.46 | Dirty Snowball, gas giants |
82 Eridani | 19.8 | G5 | 0.97 | Tanith |
Gliese 68 (107 Piscium) | 24.4 | K1 | 0.89 | |
Wolf 25 (HR 222, BD+04 123) | 24.3 | K1 | 0.83 | |
Kapteyn's Star | 12.6 | sdM1.5 | 0.39 | |
Delta Trianguli A & B | 35~ | G0, K4 | 1, 0.6 | Very close binary (0.1 AU), Habzone (1.04 AU) stable. Tatooine? |
Xi Boötis A & B | 21.8 | G8, K4 | 0.94, 0.67 | |
HR 7722 | 28.8 | K0-3 | 0.87 | in Capricorn, aka CD-27 14659, Gl 785 |
Eta Cassiopeiae A & B | 19.4 | G3, K7 | ~1.0, ~0.58 | aka Achird |
HR 511 | 32.5 | K0 | 0.92 | aka Gl 75, BD +63 238 |
HR 4523 A & B | 30.1 | G3-5, M | ~0.7, 0.07 | aka Gl 442 |
Beta Coma Berenices | 29.9 | F9.5-G0 | 1.05 | aka HR 4983, Gl 502 |
61 Cygni A & B | 11.4 | K3.5-50, K4.7-7.0 | 0.7, 0.7 | known dust |
Sigma Draconis | 18.8 | G9 | 0.89 | aka Alsafi |
p Eridani A & B | 26.6 | K0-3, K2-5 | 0.88, 0.88 | "small outpost" (TEC) |
Beta Hydri | 24.4 | G2 IV | 1.1 | Moving off main sequence, 6.7 Gy old, good location |
70 Ophiuchi A & B | 16.6 | K0-1, K5-6 | 0.92, 0.92 | |
36 Ophiuchi ABC | 19.5 | K0-1,K1-5,K5-6 | 0.85, 0.85, 0.7 | Wide separation. B superJupiter ruled out. |
12 Ophiuchi | 31.9 | K0-2 | 0.9 | |
Chi 1 Orionis A & B | 28.3 | G0,M | 1.0, 0.15 | HR 2047. Barium enriched, possibly disrupted by HR 6094 B explosion 30 mya. |
HR 7703 A & B | 19.7 | K3, M3-5 | 0.82, 0.2 | Dole gives dist as 18.5ly. HJ 5173 |
HR 6426 A & B | 22.7 | K3-4, K5 | 0.75, 0.65 | aka Gl 667, MLO 4. Star B has 6 or 7 planets. |
61 Ursa Majoris | 31.1 | G8 | 0.81 | HR 4496, Gl 434 |
61 Virginis | 27.8 | G5-6 | 0.96 | HR 5019, Gl 506, known planets |
Altair | 16.7 | A7 V-VI | 1.7 | Alpha Aquilae, young, fast rotation, large habzone |
Gliese 832 | 16.1 | M1.5-3 | 0.45 | CD-49 13515, superEarth in habzone, cold Jupiter-class |
Planets, moons, etc
Planet Name | Designation | Moons | Natives? | Pyramids? | Notes |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Kakuloa | Alpha Centauri B II | 2 | tree squids* | ruins? | *probably not sentient |
Sawyers World | (Alpha Centauri A II | 1 | extinct | unclear | |
Taprobane | Epsilon Indi III | 1 | timoans | no | |
Verdigris | Delta Pavonis III | 1 | yes (ext?) | yes | |
Ransom's Planet | Zeta Tucanae III | 1 | yes | yes | (several mentions in The Chara Talisman) |
Spitzer | Epsilon Eridani II | 1 | no | no | (small, barely habitable outpost planet) |
Tanith | 82 Eridani IV | 1 | no | no | Harp City |
Skead | Tau Ceti III-1 | 1* | tbd, probably not | tbd | Heavy planet with a *supermoon. |
St Jacobs | Chara III | 2 | yes, possibly extinct | yes | edge of T-Space |
Zirth (u) | Zeta 1 Reticuli III | 1 | see notes | Former(?) Kesh world. Modern city ruins |
Table of planet moons
Note: This table is provisional, and needs considerable work. In general, any Terraformed planet will have at least one large moon to help stabilize the rotation and help keep tectonic forces working. Additional smaller moons may also be possible.
It may not be good to have two large similar-sized moons because of gravitational interactions (this may also cause smaller moons to collide or be ejected). It works for the gas giants because their gravity dominates. We don't know how long Pluto/Charon has had its moons.
Star | Planet | Moon # | Name | R (km) | Dens | Grav (m/s2) | Orbit (km) | Period | Notes |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Sol | Earth | 1 | Luna | 1737 | 3.346 | 1.62 | 384,400 | 27.3d | Earth's Moon |
α Cen B | Kakuloa | 1 | Mahina Nui | 1650 | 3.470 | 1.60 | 25? | ||
α Cen B | Kakuloa | 2 | Mahina'uku | 231 | 3.230 | 0.21 | 37? | Resonant with moon 1? | |
α Cen A | Sawyers World | 1 | Selene | 1438 | 3.287 | 1.322 | 31.4? | ||
δ Pav | Verdigris | 1 | Gex | ||||||
ε Indi | Taprobane | 1 | |||||||
τ Cet | Skead | 1 | III-2 | 2865 | 4.47 | 5.71 | Could be considered a double planet | ||
ζ Tucanae | Ransom's Planet | 1 | |||||||
ε Eridani | Spitzer | ? | |||||||
82 Eridani | Tanith | 1 | Anaid | ||||||
Chara | St Jacobs | 1 | |||||||
Chara | St Jacobs | 2 |
Countries, cities, settlements, etc.
Kakuloa
- Kreschet Spaceport (Note, original landing vehicle was Krechet (Кречет), the extra 's' spelling is closer to how it is actually pronounced.)
- Chandrasekhar Valley - the first landing site, later a historical preserve
- Kakuloa City - mentioned in the Jason Curtis story "Renee (and the Space Raiders)"
Sawyers World
- Sawyer City
- Camp Anderson - original settlement of the USS Anderson crew. Later a historical preserve.
Skead (Tau Ceti)
- Skead
Verdigris (Delta Pavonis)
- New Toronto
- Verdigris City
- Louisbourg
- Fayetteville
Epsilon Eridani II
- Spitzer Spaceport
Tanith (82 Eridani)
- Harp City
Taprobane (Epsilon Indi)
- Clarkeville
more TBD