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Greetings From Vulcan? Planet Discovered Orbiting the Star of Spock's Homeworld in "Star Trek"
Popular Mechanics ^ | September 19, 2018 | Avery Thompson

Posted on 09/19/2018 10:57:05 AM PDT by C19fan

Star Trek’s Spock comes from the planet Vulcan, which of course doesn’t exist. But new research might give us the next best thing—an exoplanet orbiting the real-life star that Vulcan is said to be orbiting in the Star Trek universe.

In 1991, Gene Roddenberry wrote a letter to Sky & Telescope about what kind of star the planet Vulcan was likely to orbit. In that letter, he specifically picks out one such star, 40 Eridani. Later, 40 Eridani became the canon Vulcan star system featured in a handful of episodes of Star Trek: Enterprise.

(Excerpt) Read more at popularmechanics.com ...


TOPICS: Astronomy; Science; TV/Movies
KEYWORDS: 40eridani; 40eridania; eridanus; exoplanets; omicron2eridani; scifi; spock; star; startrek; vulcan; xplanets
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Now time to look at the Ceti Alpha system.
1 posted on 09/19/2018 10:57:05 AM PDT by C19fan
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To: C19fan

It’s hot as Vulcan...................


2 posted on 09/19/2018 11:00:41 AM PDT by Red Badger (Q..........................Future Proves Past..............WWG1WGA.....................)
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To: C19fan

Avoid the 5th planet...

You have been warned!


3 posted on 09/19/2018 11:08:02 AM PDT by rjsimmon (The Tree of Liberty Thirsts)
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To: C19fan

Visiting Vulcan's Star

Carolyn Collins Petersen
March 07, 2017

Image result for star  Vulcan constellation

In all the Star Trek series, the humanoid species called the Vulcans brought viewers some of the most memorable characters. The one everyone remembers is Mr. Spock (brought to life by the late Leonard Nimoy), the half-human, half-Vulcan son of Ambassador Sarek and his wife Amanda. In the rebooted Star Trek movie from 2009, we see Spock in his youth and see the home world of Vulcan destroyed. We know a lot about these humanoids and interspersed through all the shows are fascinating bits of future space technology, but also a fair amount of astronomy.

Let's look at one: the Vulcan homeworld. 

 

Spock's Home Planet

Vulcan supposedly orbits a star called 40 Eridani A,a star that really exists. It lies about 16 light-years from Earth in the constellation Eridanus. Its more formal name is Omicron 2 Eridani, and is informally also known as Keid (from the Arabic word for "egg shells"). In reality, this star is a triple star system, but the primary (which is the brightest one) is what we call 40 Eridani A. It's about 5.6 billion years old, just over a billion years older than the Sun, and is what astronomers call a main-sequence ​K-type dwarf star. Its two companions orbit at about the same distance that Pluto does to our Sun. 40 Eridani A is slightly reddish-orange-colored and is somewhat cooler and smaller than the Sun. 

Could 40 Eridani A have a planet Vulcan orbiting it? Unfortunately, there has been no detection of such a world there — yet.

 40 Eridani A does have a habitable zone that could support a planet with liquid water. It would circle the star in about 223 days, much shorter than Earth's year. It's not likely any planets that formed would still exist in this three-star system, but if they did, we could talk about what they're like, particularly if one existed in just the right place to support life.

In the Star Trek universe, Vulcan is shown to be a world with stronger gravity and a somewhat thinner atmosphere than Earth has. The climate could be somewhat Earth-like, although not identical to what we enjoy here. Vulcan could be getting just enough light and heat from 40 Eridani A to help life survive and keep water liquid. For the world to be the desert planet we see in the  Trek series, Vulcan would need to be a little drier, and that would limit the density of its atmosphere. It might be more like Mars, but with more atmospheric gases and somewhat more water vapor.

If the planet is more dense than Earth (that is, if it has more iron in its crust and core), then that would explain the heavier gravity. 

Vulcans

These few planetary facts would help explain the physical characteristics of the Vulcans and their cultural adaptation to such a world. Whether they arose on Vulcan or came there from somewhere else, the Vulcans had to get used to warmer weather, desert-like terrains split by mountain ranges, and less oxygen to breathe. Luckily, in the show, humans could survive on Vulcan, but they tended to tire out more quickly and did not have the physical strength the Vulcans did.

While Vulcan and the Vulcan race do not exist, this is the sort of thought experiment that astronomers do as they search out worlds around other stars.

To even begin to figure out if a distant world supports life, they need to know as much as they can about its orbit, its parent star, and the conditions on both. A hot star and a close-in planet, for example, would be a very unlikely place to look for life. A star with a world in its habitable zone is a good candidate for a life-supporting world, and future studies of such places will look at the world's atmosphere for signs of life. 

As we search the worlds of our own solar system for habitable zones, places where water could exist — particularly on Mars, which is the target of the first major human missions to another planet — we could do worse than to look at our own science fictional views of life on other planets. We've long imagined life on other worlds through science fiction. It's time to find out how much our stories could  match reality.

https://www.thoughtco.com/visiting-vulcans-star-3072342

4 posted on 09/19/2018 11:16:34 AM PDT by ETL (Obama-Hillary, REAL Russia collusion! Uranium-One Deal, Missile Defense, Iran Deal, Nukes: Click ETL)
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To: C19fan
Image result for star  Vulcan constellation

Vulcan supposedly orbits a star called 40 Eridani A,a star that really exists. It lies about 16 light-years from Earth in the constellation Eridanus. Its more formal name is Omicron 2 Eridani, and is informally also known as Keid (from the Arabic word for "egg shells"). In reality, this star is a triple star system, but the primary (which is the brightest one) is what we call 40 Eridani A. It's about 5.6 billion years old, just over a billion years older than the Sun, and is what astronomers call a main-sequence ​K-type dwarf star. Its two companions orbit at about the same distance that Pluto does to our Sun. 40 Eridani A is slightly reddish-orange-colored and is somewhat cooler and smaller than the Sun. 

Could 40 Eridani A have a planet Vulcan orbiting it? Unfortunately, there has been no detection of such a world there — yet.

 40 Eridani A does have a habitable zone that could support a planet with liquid water. It would circle the star in about 223 days, much shorter than Earth's year. It's not likely any planets that formed would still exist in this three-star system, but if they did, we could talk about what they're like, particularly if one existed in just the right place to support life.

https://www.thoughtco.com/visiting-vulcans-star-3072342

5 posted on 09/19/2018 11:20:24 AM PDT by ETL (Obama-Hillary, REAL Russia collusion! Uranium-One Deal, Missile Defense, Iran Deal, Nukes: Click ETL)
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To: C19fan
This just in: Astronomers have received some transmissions from the newly discovered planet.
6 posted on 09/19/2018 11:44:01 AM PDT by real saxophonist ( YouTube + Twitter + Facebook = YouTwitFace.com)
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To: C19fan

We’re going to find trouble out there.


7 posted on 09/19/2018 11:47:06 AM PDT by Crucial
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To: C19fan

So that must be where vulcanized tires were invented.


8 posted on 09/19/2018 11:53:30 AM PDT by mountainlion (Live well for those that did not make it back.)
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To: C19fan

Fascinating.


9 posted on 09/19/2018 12:13:35 PM PDT by TBP (Progressives lack compassion and tolerance. Their self-aggrandizement is all that matters.)
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To: C19fan

Live long and prosper.


10 posted on 09/19/2018 12:13:50 PM PDT by TBP (Progressives lack compassion and tolerance. Their self-aggrandizement is all that matters.)
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To: C19fan
"which of course doesn’t exist"

Or does it? It's entirely possible that a Vulcan mind-melded with Gene Roddenberry, giving him the idea of Star Trek to prepare mankind for it's eventual destiny.

11 posted on 09/19/2018 12:15:06 PM PDT by DannyTN
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To: C19fan
"which of course doesn’t exist"

Or does it? It's entirely possible that a Vulcan mind-melded with Gene Roddenberry, giving him the idea of Star Trek to prepare mankind for it's eventual destiny.

12 posted on 09/19/2018 12:15:06 PM PDT by DannyTN
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To: C19fan
"which of course doesn’t exist"

Or does it? It's entirely possible that a Vulcan mind-melded with Gene Roddenberry, giving him the idea of Star Trek to prepare mankind for it's eventual destiny.

13 posted on 09/19/2018 12:15:07 PM PDT by DannyTN
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To: Red Badger; KevinDavis; annie laurie; Knitting A Conundrum; Viking2002; Ernest_at_the_Beach; ...
A chance to begin again on the off-world colonies... oops, wrong meme.
 
X-Planets
· join · view topics · view or post blog · bookmark · post new topic · subscribe ·
Google news searches: exoplanet · exosolar · extrasolar ·

14 posted on 09/19/2018 12:15:08 PM PDT by SunkenCiv (www.tapatalk.com/groups/godsgravesglyphs/, forum.darwincentral.org, www.gopbriefingroom.com)
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To: real saxophonist

Manual or automatic?


15 posted on 09/19/2018 12:16:24 PM PDT by SunkenCiv (www.tapatalk.com/groups/godsgravesglyphs/, forum.darwincentral.org, www.gopbriefingroom.com)
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To: brytlea; cripplecreek; decimon; disndat; KoRn; Grammy; steelyourfaith; Mmogamer; dayglored; ...
a ping to APoD.

16 posted on 09/19/2018 12:17:40 PM PDT by SunkenCiv (www.tapatalk.com/groups/godsgravesglyphs/, forum.darwincentral.org, www.gopbriefingroom.com)
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To: DannyTN

+1. I know several fans of ST that a proponents of this theory.

In any case Roddenberry was blessed with a great concept generator that was self prophetic.


17 posted on 09/19/2018 12:18:53 PM PDT by mad_as_he$$
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To: rjsimmon

Jupiter?


18 posted on 09/19/2018 12:20:21 PM PDT by READINABLUESTATE (But if thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought.- George Orwell)
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To: READINABLUESTATE
The reference was to Ceti Alpha and the article is about Spock's home planet. If you recall, Khan Noonien Singh was exiled to Ceti Alpha 5 in TOS. In Wrath of Khan, Chekov and Captain Tyrell went there thinking it was Ceti Alpha 6. Things went downhill from there.


19 posted on 09/19/2018 12:49:44 PM PDT by rjsimmon (The Tree of Liberty Thirsts)
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To: real saxophonist

This just in: Astronomers have received some transmissions from the newly discovered planet.

Related image

Image result for transmissions shipping

20 posted on 09/19/2018 12:51:28 PM PDT by ETL (Obama-Hillary, REAL Russia collusion! Uranium-One Deal, Missile Defense, Iran Deal, Nukes: Click ETL)
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