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Luyten 726-8 AB
Jul. 18th, 2010 10:40 amThis double star is around the same distance away as Lalande 21185, but in another direction, naturally. At http://www.atlasoftheuniverse.com/12lys.html, there is a good visualization of where the nearest stars are in relation to each other. Depending on how many of these systems we colonized and how fast we could travel between them, I could see certain cliques, provinces, or even nations forming.) Even though it’s one of the closest systems to Sol, it was not discovered until 1948.
A is a moderately flare-y M6V star, while B (better known as UV Ceti) is an M5V with powerful flares indeed -- such that a planet would have to have a pretty impressive magnetic field, or dense atmosphere, or both, for our kind of life to survive on it. We likely wouldn’t want to make such a planet into a permanent home anyway, as UV Ceti’s flares are so massive (up to 75 times normal output!) and unpredictable.
The two stars approach each other as closely as 2 AUs, but a habitable planet would have to be much, much closer than 0.4 AU to get sufficient warmth, so the binary-star factor is not a problem.
My betting is that A might possibly have a usable world, but anything around B in the life zone is likely to be a scorched ember. Either that, or its compensating magnetic field and/or atmosphere would make it inimical to life in other ways.
Hey, Wikipedia tells me that in another 31,500 years, this system will be less than one light year from Epsilon Eridani. If you’re going to do an interstellar-empire novel that takes place tens of thousands of years in the future, you’ll have to calculate where these local stars are going to be, not just where they are!
A is a moderately flare-y M6V star, while B (better known as UV Ceti) is an M5V with powerful flares indeed -- such that a planet would have to have a pretty impressive magnetic field, or dense atmosphere, or both, for our kind of life to survive on it. We likely wouldn’t want to make such a planet into a permanent home anyway, as UV Ceti’s flares are so massive (up to 75 times normal output!) and unpredictable.
The two stars approach each other as closely as 2 AUs, but a habitable planet would have to be much, much closer than 0.4 AU to get sufficient warmth, so the binary-star factor is not a problem.
My betting is that A might possibly have a usable world, but anything around B in the life zone is likely to be a scorched ember. Either that, or its compensating magnetic field and/or atmosphere would make it inimical to life in other ways.
Hey, Wikipedia tells me that in another 31,500 years, this system will be less than one light year from Epsilon Eridani. If you’re going to do an interstellar-empire novel that takes place tens of thousands of years in the future, you’ll have to calculate where these local stars are going to be, not just where they are!