But I guess you already know that, because you saw it. You saw the nudity. Sorry bout dat. Won't let it happen again, I promise.
More nudity on the next page. And also, here's another science blurb. I'm not sure how much further I'll go with these “Know Your Neighborhood” blurbs; they tend to go overlong. But I did want to at least do an Alpha Centauri one. I might hold off on that for a bit though. At any rate, thanks for checking out the comic, and enjoy your Monday! And feel free to skip the blurby goodness below and go straight to the Comments section if you'd like. It's okay, we don't judge here. We just look at you scornfully and shake our heads, then walk away muttering to ourselves.
Epsilon Eridani is a K-type main sequence star currently about 10.5 light years away from our solar system. Being a K star (not a G, like our own sun), Epsilon Eridani is only 34 percent as luminous as our sun and burns with an orange color. Though the star itself is 26 percent smaller and less massive than the sun, its corona is actually larger and more active. It is the second closest K-type main sequence star to Earth (after Alpha Centauri B) and also the closest star *widely believed to have exoplanets. Because it's so close, and relatively similar to our own solar system, Epsilon Eridani is considered a prime candidate for future interstellar missions and the search for extraterrestrial life.
*NOTE: Some astronomers do believe they've found exoplanets in the Alpha Centauri system, but these have not been confirmed and are still generally considered “highly speculative.”
Believe it or not, our sun is about 90 percent through its life-supporting stage. As much as we like to think of our solar system as “fine-tuned” for supporting life, it's actually far from ideal. G-type main sequence stars like our sun only maintain a stable habitable zone for a few billion years, and then they start going all wonky. In the not-too-distant future (in cosmological terms), it won't be possible to maintain liquid water on the Earth's surface… possibly not Mars either. K stars like Epsilon Eridani, on the other hand, maintain a stable habitable zone for up to 30 billion years. This has led some to suggest we may be better off living around a star like Epsilon Eridani rather than good ol' Sol (not to mention a bigger planet that holds onto its atmosphere better and has a stronger magnetic field). Hmmm, if only Epsilon Eridani had planets…
Turns out it most likely does. In fact, we have a pretty good idea of what the Epsilon Eridani system looks like, and at first glance it looks a lot like our solar system. It has an inner asteroid belt about 3 astronomical units from the main star, which is pretty close to where our inner asteroid belt is located. There's a big gas giant planet right outside the asteroid belt, roughly the size of Jupiter, and very close to the same distance Jupiter is from the sun. In case you're curious, the planet was actually given a proper name by the IAU. It's called Ægir. Beyond Ægir, there's a big gap probably stalked by a few more gas giants (unnamed Saturn, Uranus, Neptune stand-ins), and then a second huge asteroid belt much like our own Kuiper Belt, only much bigger. It's starting to look like a place we could call home!
Probably not. Unfortunately the similarities to our solar system are only skin deep. First off, Epsilon Eridani is a very young star, probably only 440 million years old. The star's magnetic field is 40 times as powerful as the sun's and the stellar wind is thirty times as strong. It also emits dangerously high levels of X-rays and ultraviolet radiation, which can be hazardous to DNA-based life. Ominously, the Epsilon Eridani system appears to be high in silicates and deficient in volatiles. What does all that mean? Well, in planetary science terminology, volatiles are chemical compounds with low boiling points… stuff like carbon dioxide, ammonia, and also this stuff called water. Yeah. Epsilon Eridani is a “dry” system. You'll find a lot of dust there, and a lot of radiation, and not a lot of water.
Also, there may not be any Earthlike planets hiding within the habitable zone, or anywhere within the inner asteroid belt, for that matter. That's because the gas giant Ægir appears to have an elongated elliptical orbit which would cause it to eject any big planets trying to form closer in to the star. And even if somehow there were any rocky planets there (which there probably aren't), the star system's extensive debris disk suggests that, much like in our own early solar system, impact events would be very frequent.
Despite being gloomy and inhospitable, Epsilon Eridani has piqued the interest of some enterprising souls. It's a young system with a stable star, and numerous gas giants to be potentially mined for fusion fuel. Successfully colonized, it could support a spacefaring human civilization for tens of billions of years, as long or longer than the solar system.
Epsilon Eridani is currently the site of humankind's first attempt at interstellar colonization. The vampire commonwealth of Oberon has had an independent 'New Eden' project underway for several decades. They've sent nanoprobes to construct a base on one of Ægir's large, densely atmosphered moons. The first humans on New Oberon will be synthetics grown in the moon's laboratories and loaded with the personas of various Oberonite volunteers.
Though initially indifferent, the Inner System and Neptune have made up their minds that they're none too keen on having Epsilon Eridani consolidated under the control of Uranian vamps. There are now numerous plans underway for competing ventures to the Eridani system… possibly a precursor to the first human war in another star system.
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