Alternate Planets, Suns, Stars, and Solar Systems Thread
- Thread starter Pragmatic Progressive
- Start date
Working on Corona now.
Ratios: 23:10 (North/South Corona Maps : Ours), 8:5 (Full Corona Map (big) : Ours), 10:7 (Ours : Full Corona Map (small))
Notes: Micro-Worlda to-scale would be 602 * 2.3 = 1385, and so you'd do best scaling up a Worlda.
Micro-Worlda:602, Worlda:1204, Micro-Lyr:1385, WorldM:2008, Lyr-Worlda:2770, Lyr-WorldM:4620, Q-BAM:4974, Lyr-BAM:11440. Feasibility range is probably about up to the Lyr-WorldM.
The Lyr-WorldM is just a little bit smaller than the high-detail maps.
That 230px to 100 px ratio may seem small, but it means Corona will be 300 px "tall"- if pasted into the Worlda, it'd be as "tall" as North America from the topmost bit of Canada down to not just Mexico, not just Panama, but to the equator, or as tall as South America from its topmost bit down to the Antarctican side of that Э-shaped island chain from Tierra Del Fuego to the Antarctican Peninsula. Or, for you Eurasians, from Siberia to the middle of Sumatra or from Galicia (The one in España) to past Balkash.
Carheddin isn't with the rest of the Rolands but that's okay because they're with Sherrin and Olga now, all of the Diomedes but three+ tiny islands and the Borans are on the same side, the Rorvans are on the same side closing off the Dahia, 3 tiny islands of Ak'hai'i are off the group and also Ya'kela is separate from Prasiyo, and a tiny island group off the Averorns is on the other side. Not too bad. Also Antarctica is closer to the centre. Those are major differences.
Approximate area (Left): Centauri Gulf, Cape Lythran, Wharr Strait, Blawsa Hills, Falkayn Sound
Approximate area (Right): Mt Farview, northern Sea of Fire, Antarctica
EDIT 1: Finished Cape Lythran and Antarctica.
Ratios: 23:10 (North/South Corona Maps : Ours), 8:5 (Full Corona Map (big) : Ours), 10:7 (Ours : Full Corona Map (small))
Notes: Micro-Worlda to-scale would be 602 * 2.3 = 1385, and so you'd do best scaling up a Worlda.
Micro-Worlda:602, Worlda:1204, Micro-Lyr:1385, WorldM:2008, Lyr-Worlda:2770, Lyr-WorldM:4620, Q-BAM:4974, Lyr-BAM:11440. Feasibility range is probably about up to the Lyr-WorldM.
The Lyr-WorldM is just a little bit smaller than the high-detail maps.
That 230px to 100 px ratio may seem small, but it means Corona will be 300 px "tall"- if pasted into the Worlda, it'd be as "tall" as North America from the topmost bit of Canada down to not just Mexico, not just Panama, but to the equator, or as tall as South America from its topmost bit down to the Antarctican side of that Э-shaped island chain from Tierra Del Fuego to the Antarctican Peninsula. Or, for you Eurasians, from Siberia to the middle of Sumatra or from Galicia (The one in España) to past Balkash.
Carheddin isn't with the rest of the Rolands but that's okay because they're with Sherrin and Olga now, all of the Diomedes but three+ tiny islands and the Borans are on the same side, the Rorvans are on the same side closing off the Dahia, 3 tiny islands of Ak'hai'i are off the group and also Ya'kela is separate from Prasiyo, and a tiny island group off the Averorns is on the other side. Not too bad. Also Antarctica is closer to the centre. Those are major differences.
Approximate area (Right): Mt Farview, northern Sea of Fire, Antarctica
EDIT 1: Finished Cape Lythran and Antarctica.
Last edited:
I started out by making several transparent layers above the background (ocean with grid). On the top layer, I simply filled it with a black-and-white cloud pattern. For all of the others, I filled them with black and then used the paintbrush and bucket to make random organic shapes in white. Afterward, I merged all of the layers containing shapes before merging the final product with the layer containing the clouds.
You might ask why I didn't just use a single cloud pattern, or multiple cloud patterns merged together. I had already tried this; because the pattern is uniform, the whiter areas were always the same distance apart, the prime meridian is different on both sides of the map, and the poles contain both "sea" and "land" (if you understand map projections, you should know that that is impossible). By making those organic shapes on my own, I was able to "control" which areas would be more likely to produce land, and keep those areas away from the edges of the map (notice how, in my map, there is no land near the prime meridian or the north pole).
After merging them together, what I had was a dark gray background with blurry areas of light gray in different parts of the map. To make the edges more crisp, I posterized the layer into about 12 steps (you may want to duplicate the layer for this, I'll explain why later). Then, after setting the tolerance to zero, I used the magic wand tool (+Shift+Ctrl) to select the lightest few shades in the layer until I had around 30% of the image selected; this was my "land". I colored it light green, but kept the differences in brightness to signify the "altitude" (i.e. lighter areas were higher, darker areas were lower).
The hardest part was transfering it all over to the background layer. For this, I used a black pencil tool and traced the coastlines of the transparent layer onto the opaque background layer. When this was all done, I used the paint bucket (with the tolerance around 50%) to fill in the continents/islands light green, and the basic map was finished. If you want to add rivers and mountain ranges, that is where the un-posterized version is useful, because it helps you figure out where rivers would pop up and how they would flow downhill into the ocean (the posterized version is still okay for altitude, but the lack of detail makes it hard to tell how the rivers will behave; I found this out too late). I know it's really complicated, but I hope this helps.
Isaac Beach
Banned
WIP of something a bit different from my usual map. (I really am spinning a lot of plates right now) Lines represent proposed mountain ranges; I'll admit I'm not very familiar with tectonics and whatnot so criticism and advice as to that would be lovely.
Bijel is a frontier colony orbiting a faint star -I cannot for the life of me recall what sort I had in mind, but I did have one- which is at current not particularly popular for settlement. Home of frigid deserts, veldt and brush, low-riding cordillera and stagnant though beautiful salt seas, Bijel whilst only requiring a mild adjustment of the atmosphere -oxygen was particularly thin and had to be supplanted from farmed gas giants in exterior systems, as a side effect local wildlife has become rather manic from the comparative overdose administered to them- is not all that welcoming to Human habitation.
Those that did settle there tended to be of a poorer disposition; runaways, loners, frontiersmen and refugees, criminals, pirates and a large proportion of Mestri; a refugee species after over-farming their planet that has been taken in to the Confederation of Sol but face a great deal of discrimination and general negativity. Ethnic backgrounds tend to be of the Balkans(especially Bosnians and Serbs), Caucasus (Especially Azerbaijani) and Iranic-Turkic nations, with a healthy dosage of southern Bantus, Indians and Australians. (The latter by now a distinct ethnic group)
There are four major cities as outlined on the map, with the biggest -New Baku- possessing the planet's only space elevator. Alabo has many Middle Easterners while Ugleden Vidik is a proudly Bosnian settlement through and through. Cyoljod, named after a Mestri explorer by the name of Cyolep, houses a large population of Mestri, though they can be found throughout the rest of the planet. There are hundreds of other small settlements -some of which will be added to the map-, some of an industrial nature and others a piratical nature, and thousands of small homesteads, farms and pastures, as well as research stations and corporate premises.
The name Bijel is a Bosnian term; it means white, and refers to the wispy star that hangs over the myriad peoples there.
Bijel is a frontier colony orbiting a faint star -I cannot for the life of me recall what sort I had in mind, but I did have one- which is at current not particularly popular for settlement. Home of frigid deserts, veldt and brush, low-riding cordillera and stagnant though beautiful salt seas, Bijel whilst only requiring a mild adjustment of the atmosphere -oxygen was particularly thin and had to be supplanted from farmed gas giants in exterior systems, as a side effect local wildlife has become rather manic from the comparative overdose administered to them- is not all that welcoming to Human habitation.
Those that did settle there tended to be of a poorer disposition; runaways, loners, frontiersmen and refugees, criminals, pirates and a large proportion of Mestri; a refugee species after over-farming their planet that has been taken in to the Confederation of Sol but face a great deal of discrimination and general negativity. Ethnic backgrounds tend to be of the Balkans(especially Bosnians and Serbs), Caucasus (Especially Azerbaijani) and Iranic-Turkic nations, with a healthy dosage of southern Bantus, Indians and Australians. (The latter by now a distinct ethnic group)
There are four major cities as outlined on the map, with the biggest -New Baku- possessing the planet's only space elevator. Alabo has many Middle Easterners while Ugleden Vidik is a proudly Bosnian settlement through and through. Cyoljod, named after a Mestri explorer by the name of Cyolep, houses a large population of Mestri, though they can be found throughout the rest of the planet. There are hundreds of other small settlements -some of which will be added to the map-, some of an industrial nature and others a piratical nature, and thousands of small homesteads, farms and pastures, as well as research stations and corporate premises.
The name Bijel is a Bosnian term; it means white, and refers to the wispy star that hangs over the myriad peoples there.
Hapsburg
Banned
Can't recall if I've posted it before, but this is a map of the planet Keystone, a world of some great import in my setting (though way down the timeline).
First colonised in the early 2800s, Keystone grew to become a "prosperous backwater". Despite being almost a "twin" of Earth and a vibrant garden world with a rich native ecology, its placement in the frontier of the Outer Colonies lent to its sparse initial settlement. Over time, its population bloomed to around 1.1 billion, but this population was spread fairly thinly across its wide continents. The largest settlement and its capital, Lakeside City, contained around a million people and another million lived in its greater metropolitan area--half of them in nearby Cove City. In the 32nd and 33rd centuries, its economy diversified due to a strong development in local higher education and foreign land investment, with increased interstellar tourism and the growth of its high technology industries. The backbone remained agriculture and light industry, however, and much of the planet is covered in lightly-developed prairie and forest. As a whole, Keystone is cooler and more arid than Earth, but not to the point of being inhospitable; it is likened to being a "space Colorado".
A reflexive conservatism and localism on the part of its population led to an entrenched mistrust of Imperial control; local figures flourished through endemic corruption, and the arrival of particular foreign companies bolstered the influence of organised crime. Banditry and lawlessness became significant concerns in the vast northern prairie and the southern hill country. This all came to a head in 3280, when the planet convulsed in a violent civil war kicked off by the assassination of a local prefect and then the planet's governor within a month of each other. A vicious gang war in the capital and the death of a major Irish mob chieftain resulted in the collapse of the organised criminal world, and a consequent police crackdown to capitalise on the power vacuum. But many criminals aligned with the brutal Bandit King, Constantine Bronstein, who orchestrated the nuclear terror bombing of several major cities, especially of Lakeside City, in August that year and later the hijacking and de-orbiting of the planet's defence and communication satellite network. Bronstein was killed in a government raid on his headquarters, but it took State Security forces under the command of General Brian Kessar to suppress the revolt of the bandit "princes" and the warlordism of local governors. The Keystone Incident, all told, saw ten million people killed and many thousands displaced. The recovery effort was difficult, and required significant federal assistance and guidance from the Central Galactic Government.
In an effort to reduce corruption and placate rebellious colonies, the Galactic government passed the Organic Government Act, which allowed colony worlds to elect their own governors under the supervision of the Colonial Affairs bureau. The federal military government handed power back to Keystone civil authorities in March 3281 and the planet held its first democratic gubernatorial election in over three centuries on 5 January 3282. Local university professor, businessman, scientist, and war veteran Dr. Artem Yuryevich Meshcheryakov won the election in a 36% plurality; his first term saw an "economic miracle" that empowered local agriculture, homesteaders, and manufacturing as well as newly-booming tourism and shipping industries. The reconstruction of the satellite network was coupled with development in the planet's orbital launch infrastructure, allowing increased agricultural exports. And he pursued legal action against corrupt politicians and crime lords, "cleaning up" the streets and rural badlands alike. His first term did see tragedy, however, in the pirate attack of the Seraphim Grand Orbital Resort, which kicked off the infamous Pirate War. Despite this, his first term saw a remarkable recovery and the engendered a great confidence in the future of Keystone; he was re-elected in 3288 in a 78% landslide and continued his anti-corruption and pro-local business policies. He was re-elected again in 3294, though at a lower 54% majority; weariness among the colonial population towards the conscription of many young Keystoners for the Magellanic War, and Governor Meshcheryakov's perceived inaction against the conscription policy, was cited as a major reason. The Governor met with personal tragedy, however, when his wife died in a vehicle accident just two years later; he did not resign, but it is a matter of intense speculation as to whether he will run again in 3300.
Today, Keystone is seen as the "jewel of the Outer Colonies." Its new tropical capital of Port Glimmer in the Oka Islands, as well as the rebuilt roulette wheel-shaped Seraphim Grand Orbital Resort, are iconic images of its economic and social recovery from the violence of the 3280s.
Keystone is roughly Earth-sized, with Earth-normal gravity, atmosphere, and pressure and orbits at around 1.09 AU perigee from its star, Camos. It has more landmass than Earth does, however, contributing to its drier environment; it is also older than Earth, with milder volcanism and generally more hilly than mountainous terrain. It has one natural satellite, Voussoir, though it is theorised that at one time in its distant past, Keystone possessed another satellite formed from the impact that produced Voussoir as well as the Oka Ocean impact crater. However, this satellite was unstable in its orbit and collided with Keystone, forming the Oka Islands. This long-disappeared moon has been tentatively referred to by astronomers as "Fallstone".
First colonised in the early 2800s, Keystone grew to become a "prosperous backwater". Despite being almost a "twin" of Earth and a vibrant garden world with a rich native ecology, its placement in the frontier of the Outer Colonies lent to its sparse initial settlement. Over time, its population bloomed to around 1.1 billion, but this population was spread fairly thinly across its wide continents. The largest settlement and its capital, Lakeside City, contained around a million people and another million lived in its greater metropolitan area--half of them in nearby Cove City. In the 32nd and 33rd centuries, its economy diversified due to a strong development in local higher education and foreign land investment, with increased interstellar tourism and the growth of its high technology industries. The backbone remained agriculture and light industry, however, and much of the planet is covered in lightly-developed prairie and forest. As a whole, Keystone is cooler and more arid than Earth, but not to the point of being inhospitable; it is likened to being a "space Colorado".
A reflexive conservatism and localism on the part of its population led to an entrenched mistrust of Imperial control; local figures flourished through endemic corruption, and the arrival of particular foreign companies bolstered the influence of organised crime. Banditry and lawlessness became significant concerns in the vast northern prairie and the southern hill country. This all came to a head in 3280, when the planet convulsed in a violent civil war kicked off by the assassination of a local prefect and then the planet's governor within a month of each other. A vicious gang war in the capital and the death of a major Irish mob chieftain resulted in the collapse of the organised criminal world, and a consequent police crackdown to capitalise on the power vacuum. But many criminals aligned with the brutal Bandit King, Constantine Bronstein, who orchestrated the nuclear terror bombing of several major cities, especially of Lakeside City, in August that year and later the hijacking and de-orbiting of the planet's defence and communication satellite network. Bronstein was killed in a government raid on his headquarters, but it took State Security forces under the command of General Brian Kessar to suppress the revolt of the bandit "princes" and the warlordism of local governors. The Keystone Incident, all told, saw ten million people killed and many thousands displaced. The recovery effort was difficult, and required significant federal assistance and guidance from the Central Galactic Government.
In an effort to reduce corruption and placate rebellious colonies, the Galactic government passed the Organic Government Act, which allowed colony worlds to elect their own governors under the supervision of the Colonial Affairs bureau. The federal military government handed power back to Keystone civil authorities in March 3281 and the planet held its first democratic gubernatorial election in over three centuries on 5 January 3282. Local university professor, businessman, scientist, and war veteran Dr. Artem Yuryevich Meshcheryakov won the election in a 36% plurality; his first term saw an "economic miracle" that empowered local agriculture, homesteaders, and manufacturing as well as newly-booming tourism and shipping industries. The reconstruction of the satellite network was coupled with development in the planet's orbital launch infrastructure, allowing increased agricultural exports. And he pursued legal action against corrupt politicians and crime lords, "cleaning up" the streets and rural badlands alike. His first term did see tragedy, however, in the pirate attack of the Seraphim Grand Orbital Resort, which kicked off the infamous Pirate War. Despite this, his first term saw a remarkable recovery and the engendered a great confidence in the future of Keystone; he was re-elected in 3288 in a 78% landslide and continued his anti-corruption and pro-local business policies. He was re-elected again in 3294, though at a lower 54% majority; weariness among the colonial population towards the conscription of many young Keystoners for the Magellanic War, and Governor Meshcheryakov's perceived inaction against the conscription policy, was cited as a major reason. The Governor met with personal tragedy, however, when his wife died in a vehicle accident just two years later; he did not resign, but it is a matter of intense speculation as to whether he will run again in 3300.
Today, Keystone is seen as the "jewel of the Outer Colonies." Its new tropical capital of Port Glimmer in the Oka Islands, as well as the rebuilt roulette wheel-shaped Seraphim Grand Orbital Resort, are iconic images of its economic and social recovery from the violence of the 3280s.
Keystone is roughly Earth-sized, with Earth-normal gravity, atmosphere, and pressure and orbits at around 1.09 AU perigee from its star, Camos. It has more landmass than Earth does, however, contributing to its drier environment; it is also older than Earth, with milder volcanism and generally more hilly than mountainous terrain. It has one natural satellite, Voussoir, though it is theorised that at one time in its distant past, Keystone possessed another satellite formed from the impact that produced Voussoir as well as the Oka Ocean impact crater. However, this satellite was unstable in its orbit and collided with Keystone, forming the Oka Islands. This long-disappeared moon has been tentatively referred to by astronomers as "Fallstone".
Hapsburg
Banned
And this is a map of Keystone prior to its civil war, with continents, major bodies of water, cities, and prefectures indicated--with prefecture borders. Prefectures are the first level of sub planetary governance on most federal colonies; each Prefecture has their own legislative assemblies and an elected Prefect. Prefectures are usually subdivided into Provinces, and then into Counties.
The cities of Lakeside City, Grady Bay East, Grady Bay West, and Fort Hill were levelled by nuclear bombings, though the latter three recovered to its pre-crisis population levels by 3291. Hauberk, Port Graymoor, and MacArthur Point saw some significant damage, but were not devastated to the same degree and managed to recover within a few years. Lakeside City, formerly the planet's most populous metropolis, was abandoned entirely and its demolished site remains under quarantine by the Central Galactic Union Army.
The cities of Lakeside City, Grady Bay East, Grady Bay West, and Fort Hill were levelled by nuclear bombings, though the latter three recovered to its pre-crisis population levels by 3291. Hauberk, Port Graymoor, and MacArthur Point saw some significant damage, but were not devastated to the same degree and managed to recover within a few years. Lakeside City, formerly the planet's most populous metropolis, was abandoned entirely and its demolished site remains under quarantine by the Central Galactic Union Army.
Presuming this is equirectangular, it doesn't look like the North and South Poles would look very good...
Avalon contracts to a point. It needs to be fully across the map to be likeffective Antarctica.
CannedTech
Banned
Made some more small moon worlds, maybe I'll try and make a Worlda sized one some day... So have some more UNSEDA discoveries! (warning: ASB ahead)
New Minnesota - New Minnesota is a small moon orbiting the gas giant Ox (a blue gas giant, orbiting the star Bunyan of course) in the American Sphere of space colonization regions, and is named so for reasons that should be fairly obvious: the abundance of lakes. Due to frequent exposure to comets in events similar to those that Jupiter often absorbed in our own Solar System, the eventual stabilization of the comet situation, as well as frequent light from Bunyan due to the moon's fast orbit around Ox, allowed the formation of a stable ecology. The ecology of the planet can be best described as "Maine" for most of the planet, with Summers being temperate and somewhat dry, while the Winters are wet, windy, and cold, mainly during the moon's orbit behind Ox. The northern and southern ice at the poles expands towards the equator of the moon during the Winter, leaving a thin habitable zone for half of the year, though this hasn't stopped colonization, with many of the hardier folks from places like Minnesota (duh), Maine, Montana, Alaska, and Canada, coming to settle here.
Ruaumoko - A moon orbiting a sun, formerly a gas giant (think the events of Arthur C. Clarke's 2010), colonized by the cooperative ANZAC sphere, is named so for its frequent upheavals and geologic activity. Similarly to New Minnesota, the planet was bombarded by comets headed towards Punga (the gas giant), but unlike New Minnesota, an ecology failed to form until Punga's transformation into a small sun. Before, and after, the giant's transformation, the moon was often torn up by gravity induced volcanic and fault activity, resulting in constant shifting only somewhat stopped by the large amount of ice covering the moon's many faults and volcanoes. Post-change, the layer of ice melted, allowing an ecology to form, albeit an often threatened and dry ecology, what with the large amounts of ash and lava. What few large complex life forms on the planet thrive tend to thrive on the metals and materials coming out of the ash, and many tend to be unpleasant to interlopers (i.e. humans). Most of the planet that is not cold or desert at the equator (or ash-swept wasteland) is dry steppe, and attracts few people. The result is the ANZAC sphere offering cash bonuses to various people to settle this world, resulting in an influx of Mongolians, Ukrainians, Tatars, people from the Stans', Russians, etc. to this world.
Anasazi - A dry and cold world, with a good few high mountains with ice, and a surprising lack of ice at the poles (though there is a dense layer of permafrost). Anasazi's orbit closely resembles that of Mars in our own Solar System, and it orbits a the star Tsohanoai (named so by a coalition of Native American tribes who purchased the system at rock bottom prices). Interestingly enough, and this has been gathering attention across the human sphere of space, it has been discovered that the moon was at some point habitable, and in fact harbored some sort of civilization, but some sort of event (one that involved a lot of radioactivity) put an end to local civilization on the planet. Even more interesting is the fact that said society seems to have not even been from the planet, but a colonizer themselves, worrying the new inhabitants quite a bit, but intriguing scientists and anthropologists... The planet is currently only inhabited by some small habitation domes crewed by Cherokee, Navajo, and Apache, and two large UN research stations above the ruins of the civilization.
New Minnesota - New Minnesota is a small moon orbiting the gas giant Ox (a blue gas giant, orbiting the star Bunyan of course
) in the American Sphere of space colonization regions, and is named so for reasons that should be fairly obvious: the abundance of lakes. Due to frequent exposure to comets in events similar to those that Jupiter often absorbed in our own Solar System, the eventual stabilization of the comet situation, as well as frequent light from Bunyan due to the moon's fast orbit around Ox, allowed the formation of a stable ecology. The ecology of the planet can be best described as "Maine" for most of the planet, with Summers being temperate and somewhat dry, while the Winters are wet, windy, and cold, mainly during the moon's orbit behind Ox. The northern and southern ice at the poles expands towards the equator of the moon during the Winter, leaving a thin habitable zone for half of the year, though this hasn't stopped colonization, with many of the hardier folks from places like Minnesota (duh), Maine, Montana, Alaska, and Canada, coming to settle here.Ruaumoko - A moon orbiting a sun, formerly a gas giant (think the events of Arthur C. Clarke's 2010), colonized by the cooperative ANZAC sphere, is named so for its frequent upheavals and geologic activity. Similarly to New Minnesota, the planet was bombarded by comets headed towards Punga (the gas giant), but unlike New Minnesota, an ecology failed to form until Punga's transformation into a small sun. Before, and after, the giant's transformation, the moon was often torn up by gravity induced volcanic and fault activity, resulting in constant shifting only somewhat stopped by the large amount of ice covering the moon's many faults and volcanoes. Post-change, the layer of ice melted, allowing an ecology to form, albeit an often threatened and dry ecology, what with the large amounts of ash and lava. What few large complex life forms on the planet thrive tend to thrive on the metals and materials coming out of the ash, and many tend to be unpleasant to interlopers (i.e. humans). Most of the planet that is not cold or desert at the equator (or ash-swept wasteland) is dry steppe, and attracts few people. The result is the ANZAC sphere offering cash bonuses to various people to settle this world, resulting in an influx of Mongolians, Ukrainians, Tatars, people from the Stans', Russians, etc. to this world.
Anasazi - A dry and cold world, with a good few high mountains with ice, and a surprising lack of ice at the poles (though there is a dense layer of permafrost). Anasazi's orbit closely resembles that of Mars in our own Solar System, and it orbits a the star Tsohanoai (named so by a coalition of Native American tribes who purchased the system at rock bottom prices). Interestingly enough, and this has been gathering attention across the human sphere of space, it has been discovered that the moon was at some point habitable, and in fact harbored some sort of civilization, but some sort of event (one that involved a lot of radioactivity) put an end to local civilization on the planet. Even more interesting is the fact that said society seems to have not even been from the planet, but a colonizer themselves, worrying the new inhabitants quite a bit, but intriguing scientists and anthropologists... The planet is currently only inhabited by some small habitation domes crewed by Cherokee, Navajo, and Apache, and two large UN research stations above the ruins of the civilization.
Dorozhand
Banned
Dumping this here for now, crude WIP
The Republic of the Azure Sun consists of the 24 planets orbiting the massive Type O blue giant star Kokuzo, and its orange dwarf companion, Miroku, near the center of the Small Magellanic Cloud. Nine of the twelve terrestrial planets of the system are terraformed to some degree or another for humanid life, including two, Idaten and Daiseishi, of the three orbiting Miroku. The star has existed for the past 400,000 years and is expected to have a maximum lifetime of 2 to 3 million years, while the orange dwarf will continue to exist for many billions of years. The system possessed no world with native life upon discovery, due to its extremely short geological existence, and were in various states of formation, most semi-molten. The Erden State Terraforming Authority negotiated the purchase of the system from the Shoggothid Cooperative in 2525, beginning Lava Dam mining operations on the inner planets and constructing tentative settler colonies on the cooler outer worlds and gas giant moons, with a base and civil government on Idaten. Planet Cooling commenced on a planned four of the semi-molten terrestrial worlds, while the innermost planets to Kokuzo, uncoolable lava-balls, remained available for strip-mining. Once the surfaces and crusts of the inner worlds had solidified, terraforming began in earnest and was completed by 2640, utilizing mostly engineered variants of Terran-Cytherian biotropes, with some necessary addition of Ishtar-based life and gene stock due to the very high levels of ultraviolet radiation bathing the system, the Ishtarian Organohalogen XNA coding being much more resilient under such conditions. The exceptions were Idaten, which was colonized with the Terran-Hermean stock due to the world's very close tidally locked orbit around Miroku and hot, but infrared-bathed climate not dissimilar to post-terraforming Mercury, and Daiseishi, which was colonized with Terran-Callistonian stock for a hardily cold resistant biosphere.
The system, going out from the center, is as follows:
Kokuzo - Main star, type-O blue giant
Fugen - Extremely hot fully molten planet, surface is a sea of molten silicates and fluoride minerals with high concentrations of heavy and light transition metals in various specific regions and traceable currents. Heavy galactic producer of Osmium for Shoggothid design Schema-OL supercomputer microwebs in use across the galaxy in shipping, space-dock work and interstellar state planning.
Kongoshu - Extremely hot world similar to Fugen, possesses extremely strong magnetic field and a thick atmosphere of semi-ionized free chlorine. A center for the galactic study of Planetary Plasma Weather.
Lianhuasheng - Terraformed planet similar in size to Mars, numerous large cities dot a world of yellow sands and violet trees, cacti and giant fan-like fungi, which form the basis of local agriculture. The planet is shielded from heat and light by an array of orbital mirrors and a thick atmosphere of oxygen, carbon dioxide, and neon. Sections of the planet hollowed out by early mining, becoming gargantuan caverns and caves, are covered with ceiling cities which have further shielded the inabitants from the powerful ultraviolet radiation of Kokuzo.
Monju - Terraformed planet larger than Mars, smaller than Venus. Like Lianhuasheng, fluoride and chloride mineral sands make for a strikingly yellow-to-green landscape, while Ishtarite plant life, which uses Iodophyll as a catalyst, ensures a decidedly purple biosphere. Moderate levels of chlorine in the atmosphere necessitate pre-settlement genetic modifications in any human colonist or visitor, which are provided with great expediency by genealogical practitioners at the checkpoint base on the planet's small, 75 km diameter asteroid moon, Dumu. Unlike small Lianhuasheng, Monju possesses plate tectonics, though geology is at this point only just beginning.
Nio (A and B)- A binary terrestrial planet. Two worlds, one slightly larger than Mars, and one slightly smaller, orbit one another with a common barycenter about nine Terra-radii apart. The planets possess dense, metal rich cores and very strong magnetic fields, requiring much less shading than Lianhuasheng or Monju and much less investment in heat-sinking and cooling to begin the terraforming process. Being primarily Terran-Cytherian, the plant life is yellow to green, with various shades of orange and red, as well as some purple with Ishtarian genes near the equator, giving the planets a feeling of perpetual autumn, for which they are often nicknamed. Two small asteroid moons, Kongque and Daiitoku, orbit the binary system in an ellipse far outside it. The binary orbit is in a state of slow decay, which will result, without intervention, in collision or separation in about 100,000 years. Preliminary preparations and preventions for this event are currently being planned by private-collective Deeptime Agencies and the local branch of the Chikyu State Long-Term Engineering Corps, the Azurese People's LTEC, which was nationalized and localized following the system's independence. Both worlds consist mostly of land, dotted with small, shallow inland salt-seas and smaller shallower, fresh-water lakes. On the larger Nio A is the capital of the Republic, the city of Raiun, a great metropolis of over 60 million people sprawling across the northern hemisphere with a coast on the largest and northernmost sea, with many floating cities, stilt cities, and underwater cities out into the sea.
Qielan - Terrestrial planet slightly larger than earth. Discovered upon arrival possessing already primordial seas of highly basic, cobalt-rich liquid water beneath a thick carbon dioxide and methane atmosphere, the planet may have undergone abiogenesis had it orbited a less ephemeral star. As it stands, the liquid water oceans were neutralized and the small pre-continents terraformed and settled after atmospheric conversion. Water covers approximately 85 percent of the surface. Rare metal and compound mining has yielded great wealth via the early oceans and thermal vents, and the planet's oceanic crust contains a high concentration of Scandium and Rhodium. Undersea cities have been built around these mines.
Jizo - Gas giant planet about the size of Saturn but with the composition of Neptune. Orbiting are two moons which have been totally terraformed, as well as several which have undergone paraterraforming on sections of their surfaces. The two worlds, [name pending] and Acala, possess outer crusts of solid rock, beneath which are subsurface oceans of liquid water, once ice warmed to melting when Jizo migrated inwards, leaving vast cavities where the water contracted, the crust held up primarily via gargantuan pillars of rock extending downwards through, on [name pending], the sub-water layer of hexane-octane and chlorine pressure ices (which are a major source of wealth and fuel), and reconnecting with a deeper layer of solid silicate rock. The two moons are smaller than Mercury, but denser than the Jovian moons of the Sol system.
Nikko - Terrestrial planet slightly larger than Earth, but much less dense. Believed to have been ejected outwards from its old orbit thousands of years before discovery by Jizo, stabilization was necessary for the safety of the other planets and for terraforming of Nikko. A world of white rock and pearlescent, mineral-rich soapy seas beneath a green-blue chlorinated sky, the planet is a center of heavy industry and mining. Oxygen is primarily provided via Horanian biota integrated with Ishtar genes, using xenon trioxide to liberate oxygen from water as per the xeno-biosphere of the planet Hora. This type of plant life used in this way is referred to as the Miramon Method of planetary alteration, and is extremely risky due to the hostility of Horanian biota, which use xenon trioxide, to Terran life without the powerful C-F chains of Ishtar biota supplemented, due to xenon trioxide's explosive reaction to normal organic compounds. The Horanian biota is restricted to the north and south polar regions and is cordoned off via artificial canals dug around and through these regions for the purpose of water supply to the white-blue mangrove-like swamps which the biota manifest. Outside these regions the world is one of wide, rolling, windswept crags across a flat landscape of white, grey, blue, and green, from which isolated orange-red mountain ranges can be seen for hundreds of miles around, elements of the deeper iron-rich bedrock thrust above the white outer soils. Cities are dug into the ground to avoid the strong coastal gales and thunderstorms which blow off the shallow, somewhat basic, seas.
Gozanze - One of the cooler "outer terrestrials" likely disrupted by the inwards migration of Jizo, Gozanze is slightly larger than Mars, but rather denser, and seems to have orginally come from deeper in the system, having been ejected twice, as it would seem, due to evidence of the condensation, and following freezing of liquid water seas on its surface. With greenhouse gas introduction, warmth was returned to the frozen landscape and the rugged, mountainous terrain bearing evidence of great stress and many impacts was seeded with life, plants of yellow, red and black on snowcapped peaks, ridgelines and crater walls beneath a sky of grey and tawny orange illuminated by a harshly blue, yet small, disc of green-haloed light. The planet is still quite cold and is the outermost from Kokuzo to have been fully terraformed. Its winters are famously beautiful.
The Republic of the Azure Sun consists of the 24 planets orbiting the massive Type O blue giant star Kokuzo, and its orange dwarf companion, Miroku, near the center of the Small Magellanic Cloud. Nine of the twelve terrestrial planets of the system are terraformed to some degree or another for humanid life, including two, Idaten and Daiseishi, of the three orbiting Miroku. The star has existed for the past 400,000 years and is expected to have a maximum lifetime of 2 to 3 million years, while the orange dwarf will continue to exist for many billions of years. The system possessed no world with native life upon discovery, due to its extremely short geological existence, and were in various states of formation, most semi-molten. The Erden State Terraforming Authority negotiated the purchase of the system from the Shoggothid Cooperative in 2525, beginning Lava Dam mining operations on the inner planets and constructing tentative settler colonies on the cooler outer worlds and gas giant moons, with a base and civil government on Idaten. Planet Cooling commenced on a planned four of the semi-molten terrestrial worlds, while the innermost planets to Kokuzo, uncoolable lava-balls, remained available for strip-mining. Once the surfaces and crusts of the inner worlds had solidified, terraforming began in earnest and was completed by 2640, utilizing mostly engineered variants of Terran-Cytherian biotropes, with some necessary addition of Ishtar-based life and gene stock due to the very high levels of ultraviolet radiation bathing the system, the Ishtarian Organohalogen XNA coding being much more resilient under such conditions. The exceptions were Idaten, which was colonized with the Terran-Hermean stock due to the world's very close tidally locked orbit around Miroku and hot, but infrared-bathed climate not dissimilar to post-terraforming Mercury, and Daiseishi, which was colonized with Terran-Callistonian stock for a hardily cold resistant biosphere.
The system, going out from the center, is as follows:
Kokuzo - Main star, type-O blue giant
Fugen - Extremely hot fully molten planet, surface is a sea of molten silicates and fluoride minerals with high concentrations of heavy and light transition metals in various specific regions and traceable currents. Heavy galactic producer of Osmium for Shoggothid design Schema-OL supercomputer microwebs in use across the galaxy in shipping, space-dock work and interstellar state planning.
Kongoshu - Extremely hot world similar to Fugen, possesses extremely strong magnetic field and a thick atmosphere of semi-ionized free chlorine. A center for the galactic study of Planetary Plasma Weather.
Lianhuasheng - Terraformed planet similar in size to Mars, numerous large cities dot a world of yellow sands and violet trees, cacti and giant fan-like fungi, which form the basis of local agriculture. The planet is shielded from heat and light by an array of orbital mirrors and a thick atmosphere of oxygen, carbon dioxide, and neon. Sections of the planet hollowed out by early mining, becoming gargantuan caverns and caves, are covered with ceiling cities which have further shielded the inabitants from the powerful ultraviolet radiation of Kokuzo.
Monju - Terraformed planet larger than Mars, smaller than Venus. Like Lianhuasheng, fluoride and chloride mineral sands make for a strikingly yellow-to-green landscape, while Ishtarite plant life, which uses Iodophyll as a catalyst, ensures a decidedly purple biosphere. Moderate levels of chlorine in the atmosphere necessitate pre-settlement genetic modifications in any human colonist or visitor, which are provided with great expediency by genealogical practitioners at the checkpoint base on the planet's small, 75 km diameter asteroid moon, Dumu. Unlike small Lianhuasheng, Monju possesses plate tectonics, though geology is at this point only just beginning.
Nio (A and B)- A binary terrestrial planet. Two worlds, one slightly larger than Mars, and one slightly smaller, orbit one another with a common barycenter about nine Terra-radii apart. The planets possess dense, metal rich cores and very strong magnetic fields, requiring much less shading than Lianhuasheng or Monju and much less investment in heat-sinking and cooling to begin the terraforming process. Being primarily Terran-Cytherian, the plant life is yellow to green, with various shades of orange and red, as well as some purple with Ishtarian genes near the equator, giving the planets a feeling of perpetual autumn, for which they are often nicknamed. Two small asteroid moons, Kongque and Daiitoku, orbit the binary system in an ellipse far outside it. The binary orbit is in a state of slow decay, which will result, without intervention, in collision or separation in about 100,000 years. Preliminary preparations and preventions for this event are currently being planned by private-collective Deeptime Agencies and the local branch of the Chikyu State Long-Term Engineering Corps, the Azurese People's LTEC, which was nationalized and localized following the system's independence. Both worlds consist mostly of land, dotted with small, shallow inland salt-seas and smaller shallower, fresh-water lakes. On the larger Nio A is the capital of the Republic, the city of Raiun, a great metropolis of over 60 million people sprawling across the northern hemisphere with a coast on the largest and northernmost sea, with many floating cities, stilt cities, and underwater cities out into the sea.
Qielan - Terrestrial planet slightly larger than earth. Discovered upon arrival possessing already primordial seas of highly basic, cobalt-rich liquid water beneath a thick carbon dioxide and methane atmosphere, the planet may have undergone abiogenesis had it orbited a less ephemeral star. As it stands, the liquid water oceans were neutralized and the small pre-continents terraformed and settled after atmospheric conversion. Water covers approximately 85 percent of the surface. Rare metal and compound mining has yielded great wealth via the early oceans and thermal vents, and the planet's oceanic crust contains a high concentration of Scandium and Rhodium. Undersea cities have been built around these mines.
Jizo - Gas giant planet about the size of Saturn but with the composition of Neptune. Orbiting are two moons which have been totally terraformed, as well as several which have undergone paraterraforming on sections of their surfaces. The two worlds, [name pending] and Acala, possess outer crusts of solid rock, beneath which are subsurface oceans of liquid water, once ice warmed to melting when Jizo migrated inwards, leaving vast cavities where the water contracted, the crust held up primarily via gargantuan pillars of rock extending downwards through, on [name pending], the sub-water layer of hexane-octane and chlorine pressure ices (which are a major source of wealth and fuel), and reconnecting with a deeper layer of solid silicate rock. The two moons are smaller than Mercury, but denser than the Jovian moons of the Sol system.
Nikko - Terrestrial planet slightly larger than Earth, but much less dense. Believed to have been ejected outwards from its old orbit thousands of years before discovery by Jizo, stabilization was necessary for the safety of the other planets and for terraforming of Nikko. A world of white rock and pearlescent, mineral-rich soapy seas beneath a green-blue chlorinated sky, the planet is a center of heavy industry and mining. Oxygen is primarily provided via Horanian biota integrated with Ishtar genes, using xenon trioxide to liberate oxygen from water as per the xeno-biosphere of the planet Hora. This type of plant life used in this way is referred to as the Miramon Method of planetary alteration, and is extremely risky due to the hostility of Horanian biota, which use xenon trioxide, to Terran life without the powerful C-F chains of Ishtar biota supplemented, due to xenon trioxide's explosive reaction to normal organic compounds. The Horanian biota is restricted to the north and south polar regions and is cordoned off via artificial canals dug around and through these regions for the purpose of water supply to the white-blue mangrove-like swamps which the biota manifest. Outside these regions the world is one of wide, rolling, windswept crags across a flat landscape of white, grey, blue, and green, from which isolated orange-red mountain ranges can be seen for hundreds of miles around, elements of the deeper iron-rich bedrock thrust above the white outer soils. Cities are dug into the ground to avoid the strong coastal gales and thunderstorms which blow off the shallow, somewhat basic, seas.
Gozanze - One of the cooler "outer terrestrials" likely disrupted by the inwards migration of Jizo, Gozanze is slightly larger than Mars, but rather denser, and seems to have orginally come from deeper in the system, having been ejected twice, as it would seem, due to evidence of the condensation, and following freezing of liquid water seas on its surface. With greenhouse gas introduction, warmth was returned to the frozen landscape and the rugged, mountainous terrain bearing evidence of great stress and many impacts was seeded with life, plants of yellow, red and black on snowcapped peaks, ridgelines and crater walls beneath a sky of grey and tawny orange illuminated by a harshly blue, yet small, disc of green-haloed light. The planet is still quite cold and is the outermost from Kokuzo to have been fully terraformed. Its winters are famously beautiful.
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Loving this already! Another good solar system, with even more planets - just continue! The Huitzilopochtli system was, admittedly, more communist-oriented - what with all the orange and red plants! - but I do love this solar system, too!
Can you provide any more information on Hora, Ishtar, and the other palnets and systems mentioned here? At the end, I would like to have information on all 24 - or more -- planets!
And for the moon the name of which is "pending", after having looked up Acala and thought about the moon, I would suggest Mahakala
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Here's one that I've been thinking about for a while, but didn't know where to post it.
Mesos solar system
Mesos
Mesos is an average middle-aged, G spectral class star. It’s very similar to our own Sun. It has seven planets:
Hermaphrodite
A small, hot, tide-locked world [1]. Hermaphrodite is a small, Mars-sized planet, with about one-quarter of our planet’s mass and is 7,685 km in diameter (due to a high density, its surface gravity is about 60% that of Earth’s). As the name suggests, Hermaphrodite has two distinct halves: its “light side” (which permanently faces Mesos) and the “dark side” which always faces away from Mesos. Its average surface temperature is around 600 K, about 1000 K on the light side and 100 K on the dark side. The planet’s surface is icy on the far side (high albedo) and dark, crater-pocked rock on the side facing Mesos (low albedo). The planet has a very thin atmosphere (roughly 0.1% that of Earth). It orbits Mesos in about 141 Earth days and has a slight eccentricity to its orbit (0.11). Hermaphrodite has virtually no axial tilt.
At a distance of 0.52 AU, the planet is too hot for advanced life. However, on the edges of the light side is an area known as the “Twilight Zone”, where Mesos sits on the planet’s horizon. The Twilight Zone is a band of moderate temperature that is only a few dozen kilometers wide, but encircles the planet from pole to pole. Primitive life may exist in this region.
Aphrogaia (ah-fro-guy-a)
An Earth-sized, steam-filled world. From space, it’s a tan-colored ball. It’s about the same size as Earth, with a mass 90% that of our own world and is 12,426 kilometers wide (only 300 km less than Earth). But at 0.85 AU, Aphrogaia just a little too close to Mesos to be habitable. The slight difference in gravity is imperceptible, or would be, if you could walk on the surface. The surface temperature averages about 460 K (187 C), but with an atmospheric pressure of about 10 times that of Earth at sea level, this is slightly above the boiling point of water [2]. Aphrogaia has a slight axial tilt (about 12 degrees). Its year is 286 days long and rotates very slowly, with a day lasting 15.6 Earth days.
The atmosphere of Aphrogaia is a mixture of nitrogen and carbon dioxide, with small quantities of water vapor and sulfuric acid. The higher elevations have a lower atmospheric pressure, with pressures as low as 3 atm. The basins have a much higher atmospheric pressure. While the air is unbreathable (due to the lack of oxygen and the presence of sulfuric acid), the air is thin enough at higher altitudes to permit humans to walk on the surface without being crushed to death.
Gaiares (guy-ah-rays)
A dry, cold, but marginally habitable world. Gaiares is a ruddy brown color, with some polar ice and a few wispy clouds. It orbits Mesos at an average distance of 1.23 AU (within the habitable zone) and has a modest orbital eccentricity (0.05). It’s small, with about one-third the mass of Earth, and is 9,308 km wide (which means it has 84% of the density of the Earth). Remarkably, Gaiares has an Earthlike axial tilt (about 24 degrees) and its solar day is only 20 minutes longer than Earth’s [3]. However, its atmosphere is thin (only 1/10 that of Earth at sea level, and only 1/3 that of the peak of Mt. Everest) and made up mostly of carbon dioxide and nitrogen. Gaiares has two small moons, named Lubos and Lumos (light).
With a mean planetary temperature of only 245 K (-28 C), the surface of Gaiares is mostly frozen rock (global tundra is how I would characterize it). Between the rocky surface and polar ice, it has an average albedo of 0.25. It has a few active volcanoes, many large craters, and a number of uplands and lowlands roughly analogous to continents and oceans. During summer in the low latitudes, small lakes can develop as the subsurface ice melts. This enables primitive life forms to come alive, eat and spawn for a brief period, and then hibernate until the next warm summer day. The planet has the potential to be terraformed to be more suitable for Earth-based life.
Arzeus (ar-zee-us)
A small gas giant. From space, Arzeus is a dull red-brown with white streaks. Arzeus is about 6 times the mass of Earth and is 31,163 km wide. Its atmosphere is very thick, taking up about half of its mass. Because of this, the planet’s density is low (about 40% that of Earth), but still relatively high for a gas giant. At 2.5 AU, it’s quite cold, with temperatures in the upper atmosphere of around 190 K (-83 C). Its year is 4.7 times longer than that of Earth and it rotates once every 15.6 hours. Arzeus has a modest axial tilt of about 14 degrees. Arzeus has many moons in orbit, including 3 Ceres-sized bodies.
Zeucronus (zoo-kroh-nus)
A large gas giant. Zeucronus is yellowish-tan, with streaks of white and brown, and a few faint (but visible rings). It is slightly smaller than Jupiter, with 174 times Earth’s mass and is 131,000 km wide. Its density is about 17% that of Earth, or about the same as water. Its atmospheric temperature at 1 bar is about 150 K (-123 C). Zeucronus orbits Mesos at about 7 AU. Zeucronus has a modest axial tilt of about 15 degrees. It rotates in about 10.3 hours and revolves around Mesos once every 19 Earth years. Zeucronus also has several (potentially habitable) large moons in orbit.
Cronuranus (kro-noo-rah-noos)
A medium-sized gas giant. Cronuranus is a sickly yellow-green color with small faint rings. Its most distinctive feature is its high axial tilt (62 degrees). It is 37 times more massive than Earth, and 85,000 km in diameter. It is only 16% as dense as Earth. It orbits Mesos once every 50 years and orbits at an average distance of 13.6 AU (coincidentally, its rotation period is 13.6 hours). Its atmospheric temperature at 1 bar is 110 K (-163 C). Cronuranus has several medium-sized moons.
Uraposeidon (oo-rah-poh-sigh-dun)
Another small gas giant. Uraposeidon is a relatively featureless bluish green planet (caused by the methane content of the upper atmosphere). It has a mass of about 16 Earth masses and is 50,000 km wide (its density is 27% that of Earth). Uraposeidon orbits Mesos at an average distance of about 24 AU. Its year is around 117 Earth years, but its day is only 16.6 hours long. Like Cronuranus, its most distinctive feature is its high axial tilt (63 degrees). Its atmospheric temperature at 1 bar is 75 K (-198 C). Uraposeidon has one large moon and several smaller moons in orbit.
NOTES
[1] At this distance, it probably would be. Interestingly, a geometric mean of Mercury and Venus’ sidereal rotation periods would be 119 days, close to the 141 needed for tide-locking.
[2] Water’s boiling point at 10 bar happens to be about 450 K. I’d imagine that the temperature could dip below the boiling point in the upper atmosphere. Aphrogaia’s water may be in liquid form if solutes like H2SO4, CO2, NaCl raise the boiling point.
[3] No big surprise considering Earth and Mars are similar in these regards.[/Spoiler][/Spoiler]
Mesos solar system
Each planet is based on the mean of two consecutive planets from our Solar System (e.g., Hermaphrodite is the “mean” of Mercury and Venus). The names are just portmanteaus of the Greek names of each planet.
The figures for mean distance, orbital period, rotation period, mass, radius, density, gravity, surface temperature, and atmospheric pressure are just the geometric mean of each pair of planets (that is, multiplying two numbers together and taking the square root). Eccentricity was calculated from the means of the two perihelia and aphelia. Albedo and axial tilt were calculated using the arithmetic mean.
The figures for mean distance, orbital period, rotation period, mass, radius, density, gravity, surface temperature, and atmospheric pressure are just the geometric mean of each pair of planets (that is, multiplying two numbers together and taking the square root). Eccentricity was calculated from the means of the two perihelia and aphelia. Albedo and axial tilt were calculated using the arithmetic mean.
Mesos
Mesos is an average middle-aged, G spectral class star. It’s very similar to our own Sun. It has seven planets:
Hermaphrodite
A small, hot, tide-locked world [1]. Hermaphrodite is a small, Mars-sized planet, with about one-quarter of our planet’s mass and is 7,685 km in diameter (due to a high density, its surface gravity is about 60% that of Earth’s). As the name suggests, Hermaphrodite has two distinct halves: its “light side” (which permanently faces Mesos) and the “dark side” which always faces away from Mesos. Its average surface temperature is around 600 K, about 1000 K on the light side and 100 K on the dark side. The planet’s surface is icy on the far side (high albedo) and dark, crater-pocked rock on the side facing Mesos (low albedo). The planet has a very thin atmosphere (roughly 0.1% that of Earth). It orbits Mesos in about 141 Earth days and has a slight eccentricity to its orbit (0.11). Hermaphrodite has virtually no axial tilt.
At a distance of 0.52 AU, the planet is too hot for advanced life. However, on the edges of the light side is an area known as the “Twilight Zone”, where Mesos sits on the planet’s horizon. The Twilight Zone is a band of moderate temperature that is only a few dozen kilometers wide, but encircles the planet from pole to pole. Primitive life may exist in this region.
Aphrogaia (ah-fro-guy-a)
An Earth-sized, steam-filled world. From space, it’s a tan-colored ball. It’s about the same size as Earth, with a mass 90% that of our own world and is 12,426 kilometers wide (only 300 km less than Earth). But at 0.85 AU, Aphrogaia just a little too close to Mesos to be habitable. The slight difference in gravity is imperceptible, or would be, if you could walk on the surface. The surface temperature averages about 460 K (187 C), but with an atmospheric pressure of about 10 times that of Earth at sea level, this is slightly above the boiling point of water [2]. Aphrogaia has a slight axial tilt (about 12 degrees). Its year is 286 days long and rotates very slowly, with a day lasting 15.6 Earth days.
The atmosphere of Aphrogaia is a mixture of nitrogen and carbon dioxide, with small quantities of water vapor and sulfuric acid. The higher elevations have a lower atmospheric pressure, with pressures as low as 3 atm. The basins have a much higher atmospheric pressure. While the air is unbreathable (due to the lack of oxygen and the presence of sulfuric acid), the air is thin enough at higher altitudes to permit humans to walk on the surface without being crushed to death.
Gaiares (guy-ah-rays)
A dry, cold, but marginally habitable world. Gaiares is a ruddy brown color, with some polar ice and a few wispy clouds. It orbits Mesos at an average distance of 1.23 AU (within the habitable zone) and has a modest orbital eccentricity (0.05). It’s small, with about one-third the mass of Earth, and is 9,308 km wide (which means it has 84% of the density of the Earth). Remarkably, Gaiares has an Earthlike axial tilt (about 24 degrees) and its solar day is only 20 minutes longer than Earth’s [3]. However, its atmosphere is thin (only 1/10 that of Earth at sea level, and only 1/3 that of the peak of Mt. Everest) and made up mostly of carbon dioxide and nitrogen. Gaiares has two small moons, named Lubos and Lumos (light).
With a mean planetary temperature of only 245 K (-28 C), the surface of Gaiares is mostly frozen rock (global tundra is how I would characterize it). Between the rocky surface and polar ice, it has an average albedo of 0.25. It has a few active volcanoes, many large craters, and a number of uplands and lowlands roughly analogous to continents and oceans. During summer in the low latitudes, small lakes can develop as the subsurface ice melts. This enables primitive life forms to come alive, eat and spawn for a brief period, and then hibernate until the next warm summer day. The planet has the potential to be terraformed to be more suitable for Earth-based life.
Arzeus (ar-zee-us)
A small gas giant. From space, Arzeus is a dull red-brown with white streaks. Arzeus is about 6 times the mass of Earth and is 31,163 km wide. Its atmosphere is very thick, taking up about half of its mass. Because of this, the planet’s density is low (about 40% that of Earth), but still relatively high for a gas giant. At 2.5 AU, it’s quite cold, with temperatures in the upper atmosphere of around 190 K (-83 C). Its year is 4.7 times longer than that of Earth and it rotates once every 15.6 hours. Arzeus has a modest axial tilt of about 14 degrees. Arzeus has many moons in orbit, including 3 Ceres-sized bodies.
Zeucronus (zoo-kroh-nus)
A large gas giant. Zeucronus is yellowish-tan, with streaks of white and brown, and a few faint (but visible rings). It is slightly smaller than Jupiter, with 174 times Earth’s mass and is 131,000 km wide. Its density is about 17% that of Earth, or about the same as water. Its atmospheric temperature at 1 bar is about 150 K (-123 C). Zeucronus orbits Mesos at about 7 AU. Zeucronus has a modest axial tilt of about 15 degrees. It rotates in about 10.3 hours and revolves around Mesos once every 19 Earth years. Zeucronus also has several (potentially habitable) large moons in orbit.
Cronuranus (kro-noo-rah-noos)
A medium-sized gas giant. Cronuranus is a sickly yellow-green color with small faint rings. Its most distinctive feature is its high axial tilt (62 degrees). It is 37 times more massive than Earth, and 85,000 km in diameter. It is only 16% as dense as Earth. It orbits Mesos once every 50 years and orbits at an average distance of 13.6 AU (coincidentally, its rotation period is 13.6 hours). Its atmospheric temperature at 1 bar is 110 K (-163 C). Cronuranus has several medium-sized moons.
Uraposeidon (oo-rah-poh-sigh-dun)
Another small gas giant. Uraposeidon is a relatively featureless bluish green planet (caused by the methane content of the upper atmosphere). It has a mass of about 16 Earth masses and is 50,000 km wide (its density is 27% that of Earth). Uraposeidon orbits Mesos at an average distance of about 24 AU. Its year is around 117 Earth years, but its day is only 16.6 hours long. Like Cronuranus, its most distinctive feature is its high axial tilt (63 degrees). Its atmospheric temperature at 1 bar is 75 K (-198 C). Uraposeidon has one large moon and several smaller moons in orbit.
NOTES
[1] At this distance, it probably would be. Interestingly, a geometric mean of Mercury and Venus’ sidereal rotation periods would be 119 days, close to the 141 needed for tide-locking.
[2] Water’s boiling point at 10 bar happens to be about 450 K. I’d imagine that the temperature could dip below the boiling point in the upper atmosphere. Aphrogaia’s water may be in liquid form if solutes like H2SO4, CO2, NaCl raise the boiling point.
[3] No big surprise considering Earth and Mars are similar in these regards.[/Spoiler][/Spoiler]
