Planet around Proxima centauri

[lunatio_gordin]

The idea of life at a Red dwarf doesn't seem that off the wall to me. After all, Nation Geopgraphic's Extraterrestrial show had life coping with the flares. Is it possible that the planet's soil coulde be used to shield organisms from the solar radiation, like they wanted to do for Lunar bases? Could you also use a very deep sea to block the radiation? In the Mars direct plan, doesn't it call for the water to be stored outside and used to protect the passengers from flare radiation?<br />It would not be too difficult for me to chang ethe layout of the creatures on this world, or erase their existence entirely from the storyline. The character was getting on my nerves anyway, because he's causing me so many headaches like this <img src="/images/icons/tongue.gif" />

 

[serak_the_preparer]

<i>The idea of life at a Red dwarf doesn't seem that off the wall to me.</i><br /><br />Me neither. Other worlds similar to our Earth are surely out there, however large or small their number may be. But will only twins of Earth support life? There's no way of knowing the answer to this question yet, but the supposition that life will be found exclusively on worlds very much like ours seems rather provincial. Especially when one considers the wide variety of environments in which life is found just on this planet.<br /><br />A water-world devoid of continental land-masses, for instance, should work as a potential haven for extraterrestrial life. Since we know of communities able to sustain themselves without the benefit of sunlight, there is also the possibility of biospheres which rely mainly on geothermal and chemical sources of energy. Perhaps not every living world resembles Earth?<br /><br /><i>Is it possible that the planet's soil coulde be used to shield organisms from the solar radiation, like they wanted to do for Lunar bases? Could you also use a very deep sea to block the radiation?</i><br /><br />Why not? We've found extremophiles living very deep beneath the surface. Why not a world where most of the biomass is underground?<br /><br />The water-shielding idea also has merit. Here's a scenario for you: Not only have your jovian Proxima I tidally locked with respect to the star, but have Proxima I's living moon in a geostationary orbit above the planet and also tidally locked. The darkside of the moon is therefore always shielded by the ice sheet covering the world's dark half, and also by the bulk of the world itself. Beyond that, especially in the frozen hemisphere, a great deal of the microbial life actually dwells below the seafloor, drawing energy from geothermal sources.<br /><br />On such a world, life would circulate with the ocean-currents running from the darkside to the dayside. During any solar flare, some life will always be shielded while t

 

[lunatio_gordin]

just when i thought my threads had died <img src="/images/icons/smile.gif" /><br />i just downloaded Celestia earlier today. It's helping wonders for plotting courses. why do all the nebulas have to be so far away...<br />What you've said is a lot like what i was thinking. I'm going to try to implement this now, and still have a viable human colony and alien intelligence.<br />I've made my aliens amphibious and resembling manta rays... i guess i'll have them come from a sea that was near the pole. however, they've mostly wiped themselves out in war, and i removed the character who was in that race becuase he really served little purpose storywise....

 

[serak_the_preparer]

Lunatio,<br /><br />Let's say there's an Arctica. To one side of Arctica, everything stretches away into a chilly realm of ice and darkness under cloudy skies. In the other direction: Glaciers and tundra, then forests, then coasts, islands, and seas tossed by frequent storms - all under the ruddy gaze of Proxima. Much of this world's life dwells in the oceans, where it derives direct benefits from the flow of water back and forth between the dark and day hemispheres. Some of the world's life, however, makes its home on the surface.<br /><br />The advantage of having your Proximans living on the surface of a world, of course, is that their technological progress is easier to envision. Or, at least, it will more closely resemble the course we humans have charted. <br /><br />On the other hand, your amphibious rays return to the ocean to breed and bear young, but otherwise spend their adult lives on the coasts? A great deal of the power for their civilization could be derived from wind and ocean-thermal sources (though, since they may be older than us, if you wish for them to be very advanced you may choose to give them fusion). A sentient species living in the oceans would obviously present a tougher challenge than surface-dwellers; done properly, however, they could be very interesting. Amphibious rays might also be inclined to pay a bit more heed to environmental concerns than we humans have, relying as they do so much upon the oceans for their life-cycle. This is one reason why wind and ocean-thermal energy-sources (not to mention geothermal) might be natural choices for such a species living on such a world. Your amphibious rays already sound to me like a better choice than either mammals like ourselves or extraterrestrials bound to the oceans.<br /><br />However you go about it, though, best of luck with your story. It already sounds pretty interesting.

 

[lunatio_gordin]

I envision them at being near our current technology level, and we're about 150 years advanced over them.<br />maybe i should spin them off on their own story, cause i'm having trouble constructing a real plot right now...

 

[lunatio_gordin]

man. Oh well, perhaps i can tamper with the planet's mass a bit to correct that. would that help any?

 

[serak_the_preparer]

Eburacum45,<br /><br />Does it have to coincide with the L-point?<br /><br />Imagine this, for instance:<br /><br />Proxima I is a gas giant tipped on its axis so that its north pole points at its parent star. The gas giant continues to spin, while the north pole of the world remains locked with respect to Proxima. Likewise, our Earth-sized (or slightly larger than Earth-sized) moon, orbiting Proxima I's waist, also keeps the north pole pointed toward the red dwarf. The south pole is perpetually shrouded in icy darkness, while the north revolves around the red sun always standing in (or at least near) the zenith of its sky.<br /><br />If this disposes of the L-point problem, does it create new ones?

 

[serak_the_preparer]

<i>Oh and a red giant without flares- they do exist.</i><br /><br />But Proxima, unfortunately, is not one of these.<br /><br /><i>Yes, it does; if the gas giant is tipped (not very likely that close to the star) then its pole will always point in the same direction- that is to say, only pointing at the star at the solstice; twice a year.</i><br /><br />You're saying tidal locking is not possible if the planet is tipped on its side? That the world will swing around and around, like Uranus? If this is the case, however, then why didn't someone point this out decades ago when one of the primary objections raised against life on red dwarf worlds was tidal locking? Put a sideways-spinning world around Proxima and your tidal locking problem is solved?<br /><br />Come on, you're giving up too easily. Go ahead. Try to find a way to make this work! <img src="/images/icons/smile.gif" /><br /><br /><i>No; the best scenario is the simplest; a nice quiet gas giant, an Earth-sized moon orbiting the gas giant about every two days, giving it a 48 hour day or there abouts.</i><br /><br />Perhaps so. A semi-Earthlike set-up. But it still leaves us with the problem of Proxima's flares. Any ideas for how to get around this? A way, perhaps, for our moon to always keep one face toward its star? Or some other solution?

 

[lunatio_gordin]

I like the moon better. you also have the "night" cycle when the moon is on the opposite side from the star to at least give a hand in protecting against flares.<br />and the creatures on this planet will dive down deep in the water when they detect a flare coming, to help reduce the radiation, somewhat similar to the Extraterrestrial show's creatures.

 

[serak_the_preparer]

Lunatio,<br /><br />One of the leading objections raised by astronomers in the past against life around red dwarf stars was: such worlds will be tidally locked. It now appears, however, that these astronomers were wrong. Tip a red dwarf world on its side, with its axis more or less aligned with the plane of its orbit, and the tidal locking problem is solved.<br /><br />This gives you new options. You may want to consider transfer of life from world to world in your system, as set out by the panspermia theory. Just as life may have reached Earth from Mars eons ago, life might first emerge on the moon of Proxima I - which we will now rename Proxima II. Whether we should do so or not, we will posit that Proxima was much more stable in earlier times, not yet a true flare star, and therefore proved amenable to the rise of life on the atmosphered moon. This moon turns quite normally on its axis, as does the gas giant it orbits (i.e., the world massing about 80% Jupiter's mass, is not an extrasolar Uranus). Give it an orbit around Proxima II with a duration as long or short as you like.<br /><br />This brings us to our new Proxima I, a Venus-sized planet which orbits a little closer to the red dwarf. The rocky world Proxima I <i>is</i> tipped over on its side. And is, therefore, not tidally locked, rotating with respect to its dim red sun.<br /><br />Or let rocky Proxima I enjoy a more or less perpendicular axis along with tidal locking. And go from there.<br /><br />Could be an interesting scenario, where the world which develops tool-users - either Proxima I or the moon of Proxima II - eventually colonizes the other world where life has also taken root. After the sister world is successfully colonized, they will naturally set their sights on any habitable world which may orbit Alpha Centauri A or B. While interstellar warfare may not be very practical in most situations, it might be possible here in an apparently trinary system.<br /><br />At some point in all this, I a

 

[lunatio_gordin]

That's pretty good. And i wanted these guys to be less advanced... <img src="/images/icons/tongue.gif" /> well, looks like their technology gets a kick in the pants. only problem is the story's mostly written, im'm just clearing up technical details. (for instance, i had accidentally added another row of zeroes, so instead of 180,000 miles an hour they were going 180,000,000 miles an hour. obviously, without cheating alien technology, that's not happening <img src="/images/icons/tongue.gif" />