Nov 11 2008
BD +5 1668 (Jason’s Jeopardy)
BD +5 1668, also known in various catalogues as Luyten’s Star, Gl 273, Hip 36208 and others, is a red dwarf star about 12.4 light-years from Earth, near the bright star Procyon in the sky. It’s the star that Jason Curtis finds himself at instead of Procyon in the first of the Jason Curtis stories, “Into the Fire” (hence Jason’s Jeopardy, although it is not referred to as that until later). When I was first researching this story, looking for an appropriate star pair, I found it as BD +5 1668 rather than what seems now to be the more common name Luyten’s Star. I kept the former, it sounds more obscure.
It is about 1.1 light years from Procyon, unusually close as stars go in this region. In T-Space, this star has no planets but does have asteroids (and possibly comets). In real life it is probably unlikely for a large number of asteroids to not start joining into a larger planet by mutual gravitation, unless the system is still very young or there is some other large body whose gravitational influence prevents this accumulation. However, we also know that large planets can spiral in towards their parent star (we’ve discovered several that are doing this), so perhaps BD +5 1668’s planet has already done this, and the remaining asteroids haven’t had time to accrete.
There has been some speculation and hints that Luyten’s Star may yet have an unseen companion; fortunately for my story, this hasn’t yet been proved.