Horsehead Nebula Expedition Day 3
11 Aug 2020FiveStringJeff
27 jumps.I have 27 jumps to reach my halfway mark. Making economic jumps may be saving fuel, but it's taking forever. On the flip side, I'm getting a lot of system scans. And the scenery is beautiful. As I get closer to my destination, which is as close to the Horsehead Nebula as I can get without an "unknown" permit, my reason for this trip becomes more and more dominant in the sky. Most of the stars are Class T dwarf stars, all of them a beautiful reddish-purple. The icy planets that orbits so many of these dying stars are varying shades of blue and purple - so different than the planets around the main sequence stars in the Bubble.
The occasional Class G and K stars along the way provide fuel, not that I'm ever in danger of running low. But as I fly further into the heart of the Synuefe scetor, main sequence stars become the rule instead of the exception, and high metal worlds begin to show up alongside the ice worlds. Finally, about 20 jumps into my route, I find my first terraformable HMC world - and it hasn't been mapped yet! I know there's no credit bonus, but it will be nice to have First Mapped By credit on this planet, along with a couple of dozen other non-terraformable HMC worlds I've already mapped.
My patience in reaching my 1/2 mark was rewarded with some interesting mapping. The system, Synuefe FT-O D7-68, had a brown dwarf star as its third "planet." I guess the computer couldn't classify it correctly, or it was just on the cusp of nuclear fusion... anyway, it had rings with painite hotspots. Too bad I'm in by DBX and not my multipurpose Python. Anyway, this star/planet had a binary system of rocky planets with some geological features. The planets were less than 8 Mm's apart - the closest I've ever encountered. The terrain was rough. On the second planet, the magma spouts I discovered were right next to a gigantic crater, easily 10 km across. In the middle of the crater was a mountain about 700 m tall. It was gorgeous.
Having done all I came to do in this system, I scan the galaxy map to see how close I can get. Unfortunately, it looks like I an only get about 500 Ly closer, and I'll still be over 700 Ly away. I've got to figure out why so many sectors of space are closed. Oh well. Only another 71 jumps to go...