Subject:
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Re: Local space -- here's a real map!
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.space
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Date:
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Sat, 20 Nov 1999 16:12:09 GMT
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Viewed:
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480 times
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Hi, Tim,
Tim Courtney wrote:
> At 04:14 AM 11/20/1999 , John J. Ladasky Jr. wrote:
> > Anything else in Zacktron is unexplored space? Well, the next three
> > (known) stars out from Earth are two more dim red dwarf stars, known as
> > Wolf 359 and Lalande 21185; and then, the brightest star in our sky, Sirius.
>
> Those were basically the stars that were being considered. The Alpha
> Centauri system is occupied by the Zacktron Alliance (Blacktron, M:Tron,
> Ice Planet, Futuron, Exploriens) and Spyrius (their enemy). Unitron forces
> (part of Earth dictatorship) have been pushed back to allow the existance
> of Zacktron. Barnard's Star is occupied by the Exploriens. The moon and
> Mars are free planets of Zacktron sympathizers, but Sol is a shaky area
> politically. Wolf 359 and Lalande 21185 were being considered by me as
> possible exploration sites, but it turns out from the map below they're far
> from Alpha Centauri and Barnard's Star.
Take a look at the distance chart again. Wolf 359 and Lalande 21185 may appear
to be a lot farther from alpha Centauri and Barnard's Star than they are from
Sol, but in fact they're less than 1.5 times farther off. Wolf 359 and Lalande
21185 are also closer to each other than any other pair of systems on the list,
making travel between them easy.
> Then again, the UFO aliens could
> come from Wolf 359 or Lalande 21185 in a surprise attack sometime.... :,
>
> > Hey, look what I happened to find in my archive of downloads -- a 3D map
> > of exactly these stars!
> >
> > http://cmgm.stanford.edu/~jladasky/nearest_stars.jpg
>
> WOW!! Heh this is just awesome :) I'm glad that Alpha Centauri and
> Barnard's Star turned out to be so close to each other. That helps the
> Zacktron storyline tremendously. Thanks tons for the map!
Happy to help.
> > There is actually one double star system, UV Ceti, that MIGHT be closer
> > than Sirius, which is not pictured on this map. Various studies
> > disagree. RECONS places it a hair more distant from Sol than Sirius, and
> > other sources places it modestly closer. The stars of the UV Ceti system
> > were too dim to be measured by Hipparcos.
>
> What is Hipparcos, and also, does UV Ceti look promising to support
> planetary bodies?
Follow back up this thread, and you'll read me spouting volumes about
Hipparcos. It's a small space telescope that the European Space Agency launched
a few years back. Its primary mission was to measure the distances to thousands
of nearby stars, at a level of accuracy that could never be obtained from
underneath Earth's atmosphere. (Twinkle, twinkle, little star... how I wonder
WHERE you are...) Hipparcos data is thus the first reference of choice for
stellar distances. Unfortunately, Hipparcos was not designed to measure the
dimmest stars -- including, for example, UV Ceti. Both NASA and ESA have bigger
and better satellites than Hipparcos on the drawing boards, so presumably we'll
eventually get the dimmer stars measured from space, too.
The UV Ceti system might have planets, but they would probably not be very
hospitable. Both of the stars are among the smallest known. Their masses are
on the order of one tenth that of Sol, and they're only about one ten-thousandth
as bright. Planets that would receive an Earth-like level of light and heat
would have to orbit extremely close to the stars. To make matters worse, one of
the two stars is a flare star. It behaves even more badly than Proxima
Centauri, which I mentioned in an earlier post. A couple of times a day, for
ten minutes or so, the star increases in intensity by ten to one hundred fold,
then drops back to its normal level. That close-in planet would get torched!
A good summary page for stars in the constellation Ceti is found at...
http://www.dibonsmith.com/cet_con.htm
> > Every road atlas needs a mileage chart, right? 8^) I converted the right
> > ascensions, declinations, and parallaxes into XYZ coordinates, and
> > computed the following distance table...
> >
> > http://cmgm.stanford.edu/~jladasky/distance_table.txt
>
> Ahhhh you're amazing! (wanna be written in as a Zacktron admiral?)
Does the job come with tenure? 8^) 8^)
> > Multiply all the figures by 3.26 to obtain distances in light-years.
> >
> > Keep in mind that all of these stars are moving relative to each other --
> > so these positions and distances are accurate for the year 2000
> > only. Over the next 20,000 years or so, positions may change by up to a
> > full parsec. Please drive carefully.
> > 8^)
>
> Of course, in 20,000 years, propulsion technology will have grown in leaps
> and bounds :)
--
John J. Ladasky Jr., Ph.D.
Department of Structural Biology
Stanford University Medical Center
Stanford, CA 94305
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Message is in Reply To:
 | | Re: Local space -- here's a real map!
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| (...) Those were basically the stars that were being considered. The Alpha Centauri system is occupied by the Zacktron Alliance (Blacktron, M:Tron, Ice Planet, Futuron, Exploriens) and Spyrius (their enemy). Unitron forces (part of Earth (...) (25 years ago, 20-Nov-99, to lugnet.space)
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