JOURNEY OF A COMMANDER PART 20
11 Sep 2022Ni6h70wl
01.11.3307 - Novara Expedition Day 39
On this day we reached the binary system Hypi Aoscs HR-D d12-9, a blue-white star of class A7 and an orange star of class K 5, 67 astronomical units away.
Only Hypi Aoscs HR-D d12-9 B has a planetary system and therefore set course for star B.
"One moon each of the two gas giants looks promising, B 4 c and B 5 b both have atmospheres of carbon dioxide. According to initial measurements, exobiological life is present on these moons."
After this initial report from my first officer and after the first landing, I prepared everything in the SRV hangar for the exit. The fuel was almost empty, which meant I had to synthesise it outside. The small fusion reactor needs phosphorus sulphide as fuel, and for synthesis one unit of sulphur and phosphorus is synthesised and consumed.
When the SRV touched down on the surface of the moon, I activated the synthesis and set off in search of life.
Once again, I discovered very interesting life forms and was able to fill our database with more samples. So far, it is unclear to what extent the main star has an effect on the variety and colour.
"So, the data is promising, if we continue like this, it will definitely help future researchers to classify the corresponding subtype based on the system constellation at hand."
"Very good, I have another question, what do we do after Sagittarius A*?"
"Well I was thinking that we travel to the cardinal points of our galaxy, to be able to say that you visited the furthest point of each "cardinal direction", that's quite something. Besides, the things we might discover along the way, that alone is worth the trip."
"And the Bubble, Her Royal Highness Princess Aisling Duval, what if all hell breaks loose there?"
"Yes, I've had that thought too, planned for the trip would be 551 days, if something happens we can always decide what to do."
"Good, let's keep it that way then."
05.11.3307 - Novara Expedition Day 43
Today's destination is a planetary nebula in the system Cloomeia FG-Y e95 or Child of Time.
A black hole of nearly 3 solar masses is the central object of this planetary nebula, located halfway between Hawking's Nebula and the Shade of Anubis in the southwestern corner of Eurus. It is accompanied by a Class F star orbited by a total of 24 partially landable objects, including a terraformable water world, three terraformable metal worlds and a gas giant with water-based life.
The nebula was named after the piece of music played during its discovery: "Child in Time" by "Deep Purple".
This system is the home of a Fleet Carrier of the Deep Space Support Array.
Cmdr FlyDanderous o7's DSSA Heart of Gold (Q9G-9TL) resides at a safe distance near the black hole since 16.08.3306 and serves as a focal point and rest stop for deep space explorers.
The DSSA is a project to establish a network of support carriers throughout the galaxy to assist explorers in their journeys in space. These carriers, offered by individuals, groups, factions or squadrons, would remain in a fixed and public location for at least a full year, open to all, with at least repair services at a fair price. As beacons in the deep night, they would form a network of safe havens for anyone in need of a break.
And it was exactly this break that we needed, plus some data had to be handed in to Universal Cartographics and the ship's integrity had to be brought back up to scratch. Besides, such carriers are handy to plan the further route in peace and quiet without fear of a collision or accident.
After the further route had been created, my team of astronomers began to explore the nebula.
2:30 pm
Astronomical investigations revealed that the system originally housed a spectral class B star of about 8 M☉, this exploded in a supernova 268 million years ago and collapsed into a stellar black hole with a residual mass of 2.7 M☉.
The remnants remained in the form of a planetary nebula. At a distance of 365 AU, a new star formed out of the nebula and entered the main sequence as an F star with 1.1 M☉.
This also explains why no other celestial bodies are to be found in the area of the black hole, as the supernova must have destroyed everything just by the energy released.
Planetary nebula
NASAA planetary nebula is an astronomical object in the category of nebulae, consisting of a shell of gas and plasma ejected from an old star at the end of its evolution, a planetary nebula can also form after a supernova.
The name is historical and misleading, because these nebulae have nothing to do with planets. The name comes from the fact that they usually appear spherical in the telescope and look like distant gas planets.
The lifetime of planetary nebulae is usually no longer than a few tens of thousands of years. This is short compared to a "stellar life" of many millions to several billion years.
After several billion years, the hydrogen reserves in the core of a star are gone. The radiation pressure decreases, the core is compressed by the gravitational forces and heats up. During this phase, the temperature in the core rises from 15 million to 100 million Kelvin. Helium now fuses into carbon and oxygen in the core, and hydrogen fuses into helium in the "shell" around the core. As a result, the shell of the star expands greatly, it enters the stage of a red giant on the asymptotic giant branch.
The aforementioned helium fusion is very temperature-sensitive: the reaction rate is proportional to the 30th power of the temperature and therefore doubles with a temperature increase of only 2.3%. This makes the star very unstable - a small increase in temperature immediately leads to a significant increase in the reaction rate, which releases considerable energies, causing the temperature to rise further. The layers in which helium fusion is currently taking place expand at high speed and thus cool down again, lowering the reaction rate again. The result is a strong pulsation (periodic oscillation) that is sometimes strong enough to hurl the entire stellar atmosphere into space.
The gas of the stellar shell initially expands at a speed of 20 to 40 km/s and has a temperature of about 10,000 K. This comparatively slow stellar wind forms the main mass of the nebula. As the star gradually loses its outer shells and exposes its increasingly hot core, its colour changes from orange to yellow to white and finally blue - a visible sign that its surface temperature is rising above 25,000 K. When the exposed surface is around 30,000 K hot, enough high-energy ultraviolet photons are emitted to ionise the previously ejected gas. The gas envelope thus becomes visible as a planetary nebula. The star at the centre has reached the stage of a white dwarf.
In the case of a supernova, the ejected material forms an emission nebula, the so-called "supernova remnant", in contrast to the possibly formed remnant of the core collapse, which is called a "compact object" in astrophysics.
The shape of the remnant left behind by the star depends on its mass. Not all of the outer layers are thrown away in the supernova explosion. The gas left behind accretes onto the collapsed core in the centre, which consists almost entirely of neutrons. The falling gas is also broken down into neutrons by the processes described above, so that a neutron star is formed.
If the star becomes even heavier by at least 2.5 M☉ due to the falling material, the gravitational force can also overcome the counterpressure caused by the Pauli principle. The stellar remnant finally collapses and then forms a stellar black hole.
06.11.3307 - Novara Expedition Day 44
After leaving the DSSA carrier, we landed this morning in a system with an unfortunately already discovered Earth-like world orbiting a class K star. Since the whole system had already been discovered, we carried out our scans uncharitably and quickly.
The moon of the planet Hypio Prau KP-A c3-62 A2 nevertheless attracted our attention, the data revealed that it has an atmosphere consisting of 100% ammonia. In general, this chemical compound is anything but healthy for us humans; ammonia is recognisable by its pungent, acrid odour. Nevertheless, the full-spectrum system scanner was able to detect a biological signature. Since the system didn't have much else to offer, I decided to land.
The environment on planets with ammonia atmospheres appears in a yellow-greenish to orange light. After only a few metres, a bacterium species could be found, Bacterium Alcyoneum.
This species seems to occur exclusively in atmospheres containing ammonia and requires starlight. The appearance of a colony resembles an intricate labyrinth. The different colour variations are likely to depend on the star class. In this case, we were able to find the colour variation "green".
We then continued our journey towards Sagittarius A*. For the rest of the journey, only events worth mentioning will be noted in my travel report.