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Survey of the Pleiades
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| curiousepic | Date: Saturday, 07.01.2012, 20:47 | Message # 1 |
 Space Pilot
Group: SE team
United States
Messages: 141
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| It had been a while since I'd actually done some exploring in Space Engine, rather than crouching over the forums like a vulture offering gameplay suggestions at every opportunity  But recently, for some reason, I keep noticing the contellation/cluster Pleiades whenever I happen to see the real night sky. So yesterday I did a relatively shallow survey of the brightest stars in the cluster. I started with Pleione, and worked my way counterclockwise around this image, with a focus on human habitability:
To my surprise, Pleione offered a very Earthlike terra right off the bat, Pleione 8:
It's half the diameter of Earth, but it must be more dense, with almost 3/4s of Earth's gravity. It's pretty warm, but not unbearable, at 331 Kelvin, or 40C/103F. It also has just under 2 atmospheres of pressure. Not bad!
Unfortunately the thick atmosphere makes for low visibility, and the terrain isn't all that interesting. But like all the planets in the cluster, the rest of the Pleiades make for a gorgeous sky, often visible even during the day.
Unfortunately Atlas and Alcyone don't offer much. But here's a nice shot from Alcyone 1.3, a cold ice world:
Merope has some interesting terras, but nothing too Earthlike. Here's Merope 3 a temperate (but below freezing) terra:
It had some great snowy mountains - Here's another shot with the Pleiades above the horizon:
My ideal preferences for visual design of the mothership and technology in SE
Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality
Edited by curiousepic - Saturday, 07.01.2012, 21:46 |
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| curiousepic | Date: Saturday, 07.01.2012, 21:12 | Message # 2 |
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Space Pilot
Group: SE team
United States
Messages: 141
Status: Offline
| Electra has a bunch of terras, but again, each have their own issues that make them unsuitable for humans without a fair amount of terraforming. Electra 4 has some nice terrain, but all of it under 80 atmospheres of pressure:
Electra 5.1 looks fun to jump around on at .26Gs, if you brave the -33C/-28F cold and 2.6 atmos:
Electra 5.4:
Electra 5.5:
My ideal preferences for visual design of the mothership and technology in SE
Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality
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| curiousepic | Date: Saturday, 07.01.2012, 21:27 | Message # 3 |
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Space Pilot
Group: SE team
United States
Messages: 141
Status: Offline
| This happened as soon as I arrived at Taygeta 3!
What!? Two moons eclipsing at the same time? No, just one moon eclipsing Taygeta's two suns! A small, cold, but gorgeous terra:
Nothing promising in Sterope, and Maia hadd a couple warm terras and a temperate desert, but nothing special. And that wraps it up for the bright Plaeiades. A little disappointing, but it was fun.
But wait! The wiki article lists an unnamed star as one of the brightest: 18 Tauri... Let's see if it has anything up its sleeve...
My ideal preferences for visual design of the mothership and technology in SE
Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality
Edited by curiousepic - Saturday, 07.01.2012, 21:39 |
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| curiousepic | Date: Saturday, 07.01.2012, 21:45 | Message # 4 |
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Space Pilot
Group: SE team
United States
Messages: 141
Status: Offline
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Welcome to 18 Tauri BB3.1
Yes, this moon is orbiting an oceania, which orbits a brown dwarf, which orbits a star, which orbits it's binary companion. I've never seen a body so deeply nested!
Here you can see 18 Tauri BB3, lit by both of its stars, and the brown dwarf it orbits directly (and reflectance from its moon):
My ideal preferences for visual design of the mothership and technology in SE
Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality
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| Talisman | Date: Saturday, 07.01.2012, 22:25 | Message # 5 |
 Pioneer
Group: Users
United States
Messages: 409
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| Very nice! I really love the Pleiades, It's currently directly up in my night sky at home, even through moderate light pollution I can see a fuzzy haze of nebulosity around the stars.
Edited by Talisman - Saturday, 07.01.2012, 22:28 |
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