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Epsilon Eridani
Jul. 23rd, 2010 06:39 pmPossible runner-up to Alpha Centauri A in the “favourite nearby candidate among SF writers” category. No wonder, because it’s only 10.5 light years away, is a K2V orange dwarf, and has no stellar companions.
But we’ve learned a lot about old Epsi in the past few years, and not all of it is promising for the SF writer who wants to put a habitable world there.
First of all, the star appears to be only 500 million to 1 billion years old. So there hasn’t been a lot of time for life to evolve on any planets beyond the single-cell stage.
On the other hand, metallicity appears to be potentially as high as 75 percent of Sol’s, certainly enough for planets to form.
And the Hubble Space Telescope folks tell us that the star quite possibly has a Jupiter-like planet. And if so - where there’s a Jovian, there’s the possibility of a habitable moon! This particular one appears to go around the star in a highly eccentric orbit. but even so, there’s still the possibility of something around it being habitable.
But we’ve learned a lot about old Epsi in the past few years, and not all of it is promising for the SF writer who wants to put a habitable world there.
First of all, the star appears to be only 500 million to 1 billion years old. So there hasn’t been a lot of time for life to evolve on any planets beyond the single-cell stage.
On the other hand, metallicity appears to be potentially as high as 75 percent of Sol’s, certainly enough for planets to form.
And the Hubble Space Telescope folks tell us that the star quite possibly has a Jupiter-like planet. And if so - where there’s a Jovian, there’s the possibility of a habitable moon! This particular one appears to go around the star in a highly eccentric orbit. but even so, there’s still the possibility of something around it being habitable.