OTHER | WHEN I STARTED WORLDBUILDING SCI FI WORLDS

LOOKING BACK AT OLD STUFF...
 
Last night, I caught myself thinking of both conlanguing and the Paart Project, the project been stale for a while - I'm personally, in an art block, that's why I've been more active over here instead of drawing or writing much of my own.
As I was saying, the conlanguing and biology aspect of science-fiction looped my thoughts back to around 2015 - when I first took at dip at both.

It will be long until I finally publish my other works, but I tell you in advance there is plenty of stuff and entire timelines to rectify because of these, 'beginner' steps I took.

As cringy as it might sound like, well, prepare to see some utter non-sense, compared to what we've seem so far - and some crappy art as well.
Today we are going to explore the rise and fall of the Alpha Aquarii System.

ORIGINS

Since I first entered DeviantArt, I was astonished by the space art some artists got there, got decided to work in sci-fi and space art for a long time, and one of my earliest works mentions the Alpha Aquarii star.

Alpha Aquarii 

For those who don't know, Alpha Aquarii is the second brightest star in the constellation of Aquarius, it is a G2I-b yellow-giant star that lies 520ly away from Sol, it is 5x as massive as the Sun, and it's only 53Myr old, hence why it's classification is G2I-b signaling it is a young G2 star.
While in real-life, Alpha Aquarii is a lonely star, I for some reason I can't really recall why, made it a binary star, a Blue Giant and an Orange Giant.
A lot of my errors along the way come down to NOT RESEARCHING PROPERLY.

It's actually pretty great, I got experimenting with brush textures in GIMP

As we know by now, stars above class F aren't great candidates for life, or planets to form around, Giant stars aren't' that good either as they are rather unstable during the course of their lives.
Then I decided to put a planet around that blue star component, gave it a cheeky name, Nast(y), as it is so close to it's parent star, it's surface is molten and boiling away due radiation and tidal forces, I picked up that texture somewhere in the internet, and I had in for a long time and decided to use it there - so for whoever is the actual owner of it, I'm really sorry, I just had like 13 at the time.

 
And then, in my early attempts to 3D, after making several scale models of our own Solar System, I decided to make my own alien star system.
I used Donjon Generator to get a texture for the planet I wanted, poorly colored it and threw it up on the models with the only shaders I knew how to use - none. 

I still have this seed noted somewhere in my sketchbooks
 

Besides not knowing how to use any shaders, I also didn't smoothed any surfaces, so you can see they are all kinda blocky.

I had this one cool idea, the planet would larger and more massive than Earth, it would have this unique set of rings, and would have two large moons roughly the size of Mars, one would be habitable and have it's own ecosystem, while the other is a hazy and stormy world.
I dubbed the planet Lophus-IV 3045, or, Lophus IV for short - because, WHY NOT?.
Lophus IV lied at 12,5 AU from it's parent star, the aAquarii blue giant.
The data I made up for this planet include a surface temperature of about 18ºC, and wait for it, aAquarii had a whopping 62 solar masses.

For reference, Plaskett's star, is a pair of 54Msol and 56Msol blue giants, and both are between 120.000 and 220.000 times brighter than the Sun, so you can already see the problem going on here.
Calculating for a 62Msol star, we have this set of parameters:
 

As you can see, the system's outer boundary would be around 2.480 to 2.500 AU away from the star (~0,03ly), however, the Mercury Zone lies just as 3x farther away than our outer boundary, and the Habitable Zone falls at 0,48ly from the star.

Realistically, we would have nothing else but fine dust or gas around this star, as it's radiation and solar wind would negate planetary accretion in the first place, and the star's lifetime is rendered to only about 300 thousand years, not even enough for planet formation.

Surface temperatures on Lophus IV would actually be of 13,8        t h o u s a n d     ºC.

Now going temperature-wise about the stellar classification of aAquarii, it would be an A2V white star, nearly twice as large as the Sun, 97x brighter and living about only a billion years.

In which case Lophus would be indeed in the habitable zone, but on the far cold edge of it, the down-side however, is that it could only be formed more closely, at less than 7,5 AU, so it would be either a Venusian planet, or an airless giant rock.

So anyway, I started worldbuilding (kinda :P)

 
I continued to throw in planets around the two stars, deciding I would have two systems orbiting each other, each world would be radically different from the other.
And by the time I found out about the unsuitability of O stars, I just pouted and threw a super strong magnetic field around the planets.

I was also super inconsistent with the moon sizes of the planet, oof.

The good thing about this entire project back in the day, is that I used it learn more of my favorite 3D tool, LightWave, and after some long time, I just used the Alpha Aquarii system as a stand to test shaders and building methods.

Lophus III, from the secondary system

I learned to build varied and better atmospheres for the worlds I created, and now I can build the like in a matter of minutes - all thanks to entire weeks working on these early projects.

A pack with some surface files from my studies

Maybe the second time I textured the habitable moon of Lophus IV

And Deeran now had a more solid opaque look now

By this time, I started researching why did the planets looked or behaved the way they did, at least, what my poor research skills at the time could render me.
I started to be obsessed with giving my world the most realistic look possible, yet, I could never drop the cartoonish inspirations for them, I did not changed much on the project until very recently and then dropping it out. 

Silic 733b was one of the worlds I used to practice textures, procedural rocky ones, lighting and atmospheres, the cloud texture is still generic HD one from NASA

I practiced color temperature changes and perspective while doing moons around planets too.

The many moons of Noitel, in the secondary system

Lophus IV and Deeran, as seen from Nerthei

Nerthei and Lophus IV, as seen from Deeran

I created these guys, the Luri (LU - 'RIH), floating squid like beings that inhabit Lophus IV, or as they call it, Cerna ("Home" in their language).

 
I also tried some worldbuilding with nations, and wrote several stories and myths, much of which never posted because i needed to rectify inconsistencies...

At least I had some notion that fully unified alien planets weren't nearly as feasible as aliens itself, so I made them divided in many nations, the most powerful of them, being Chevoy

The Luri had a very specific niche the universe I created with my brother, they were what the red-shirts in Star Trek are - they die to show the thing is serious af.

The Luri story arch starts a long time ago, they were generally divided in many, but many tribes, as the ages went on, they've fought several wars with their neighboring states over the harsh lands of Cerna, but reached a rather steady cold war rhythm after for a while, and then there was this period of great conflict using advanced technology that almost drowned them in their own blood over oil and fertile land - imagine if all the wars over the last 200 years just didn't happen and then exploded in the early 2020s, that's what happened.

The aftermath of that wast the formation of few very large empires / major states that control every pool of resources and acre of fertile land, the problem is that the Luri reproduce so fast that not only are conflicts in these scales possible, but, they ran out of the accessible resources very early on, so they started to explore outer space with the objective of expanding - you know, the space buses.

This expanding regime helped keep nations from sneaking and killing each other for resources as each could now have as much water, metals and land as they could wish, give the right time.

This expanse had come to a sudden halt when they landed on this particular icy moon looking for well, ice for a desert colony in that same system. They had discovered an ancient outpost with an unknown purpose for them, and they didn't have the time to really study it, because another expanding race of highly xenophobic aliens, the Hyades, had found their way into that particular system, attracted there by the outpost's beacon.

It happens that, the Hyades have been spending whole centuries collecting and studying these ancient structures, improving their own technology with it, and wiping colony after colony, and even alien homeworlds, they have become extremely aggressive in their campaigns, and would often respond to aggression with disproportional force - because early on, they had been almost extinct by one of the foreign races.

The Luri were now living on top of many of the relics the Hyades were after, and now the Luri colonies were topped over one by one as one single Hyade armada pierced through their territory.

From this point and on there is a split, originally, a small Luri fleet feels to Earth to seek help (somehow) in change to give us urbanization and building technology - on the latter version, they just die there.

One of the warship designs of the Luri

 
The last time I saw their homeworld, Cerna, it was this:

ALPHA AQUARII SYSTEM 2020 EDITION
Tweaking the major physical data of the system, I get to:

α AQUARII A
2 Msol
1,67 Rsol

32 Lsol

Class A5IV

Lifetime 1,76Gyr

αAQR-A b
0,87 Me
0,91 Re
1,05 G
0,75 AU
Year Length 168 days
Surface Temp. 550ºC
Radiated Terran, it's crust is largely cracked due to tidal bulging towards it's parent star, crust out-gassing creates a thin atmosphere that is constantly being blown away by solar wind.

αAQR-A c
1,84 Me
1,15 Re
1,39 G
5,2 AU
Year Length 8 years, 142 days
Surface Temp. 32ºC
Warm Oceanic Terran, has a dense water vapour and carbon dioxide rich atmosphere and bears strong volcanic activity and primitive microbes in scattered seas.

αAQR-A d
3,52 Me
1,56 Re
1,74 G
5,44 AU
Year Length 8 years, 357 days
Surface Temp. 638ºC

Steam World Superterran, has a dense water vapour, ammonia and carbon dioxide rich atmosphere, water accounts for about 10% of it's mass. On it's surface lies a 6km deep global ocean of supercritical water, and above this ocean a super saturated water vapour atmosphere 50~80km high.

αAQR-A e (LOPHUS IV)
2,15 Me
1,27 Re
1,33 G
5,7 AU
Year Length 9 years, 230 days
Surface Temp. 16ºC
Oceanic Superterran, has a dense, hydrogen, water vapour, ammonia and carbon dioxide rich atmosphere, has two Mars sized moons, both which bear volatile rich atmospheres.

αAQR-A f
2,15 Mj
13,3 Re
2,46 G
26 AU
Year Length 93 years, 284 days
Surface Temp. -135ºC
Ring-less Jovian, has 4 Mercury-sized major moons.

αAQR-A g
35 Me
5 Re
1,4 G
28 AU
Year Length 104 years, 295 days
Surface Temp. -126ºC
Ring-less Ice Giant, has hundreds of asteroid sized moons.

αAQR-A h
24 Me
4,2 Re
1,36 G
31 AU
Year Length 122 years, 36 days
Surface Temp. -132ºC
Ringed Ice Giant, has hundreds of asteroid sized moons and one large moon.

αAQR-A i
26 Me
3,5 Re
2,12 G
35 AU
Year Length 146 years, 175 days
Surface Temp. -141ºC

Ring-less Ice Giant, has hundreds of asteroid sized moons and one large moon.

α AQUARII B
1,37 Msol
1,26 Rsol

4,82 Lsol

Class F5V

Lifetime 4,55 Gyr

αAQR-B b
0,13 Me
0,52 Re
0,48 G
0,58 AU
Year Length 138 days
Surface Temp. 222ºC
Mercurian Subterran, has a trace atmosphere, has ice stored in it's polar craters.

αAQR-B c
0,98 Me
1,09 Re
0,82 G
1,65 AU
Year Length 1 year, 296 days
Surface Temp. 85ºC
Moisty Carbonic Terran, has a dense water vapour and carbon dioxide rich atmosphere.

αAQR-B d
1,54 Me
1,23 Re
1,02 G
2,19 AU
Year Length 2 years, 281 days
Surface Temp. 29ºC

Warm Oceanic Terran, has a dense water vapour and carbon dioxide rich atmosphere, has a large rocky moon, and primitive microbes.

αAQR-B e
8,01 Me
1,97 Re
2,06 G
3,75 AU
Year Length 6 years, 77 days
Surface Temp. -71ºC 
Frozen Superterran, has two Mercury-sized moons.
 

Mean distance between the stars is 584 AU, with the pair's barycenter 237,4 AU from the primary, with a mean eccentricity of 0,485.

Why around +500 AU? NASA's Spitzer observations for protoplanetary disks around binaries suggests that these may only form around close binaries up to 3 AU in separation, no disk when they are 3~50 AU apart, and then at least a disk in one of the stars when they are 50~500 AU apart, by kicking the stars further apart I increase the likelihood of both stars having planetary systems.


However, at this close from each other, both systems are truncated, ie, the interference boundary of both stars is inside the outer boundary of their systems due both of them being high mass main-sequence stars, component A being a subgiant.

This could mean that in between the stars lies a cloud of comets and dwarf planets that jiggle around the two and in between the system.

The point at which bodies are no longer necessarily bound to the primary star is at ~38 AU.

Maximum approximation from the barycenter is 113,9 AU while the minimum is 351,3 AU.

For the secondary star, the max. appx. is 166,4 AU while the min. appx. is 513 AU.

The minimum separation of the stars is about 280,3 AU, while the maximum is about 864,25 AU.

Approximate shape of the star system

Primary is marked as red, and barycenter as a dot

Orbital period is ~7.687 years 

Given component A absolute magnitude is 1,06.

When viewed from component B at minimum approximation is seem as a -15,8 magnitude star, actually, 17x brighter than Earth's full Moon.

At minimum approximation, B is 2,5x brighter than before seen as a -18,8 magnitude star.

Component B absolute magnitude is 3,12.

When viewed at it's closest, B shines as -16,2 magnitude star

At it's furthest approximation, B is seen as a -13,17 magnitude star, or 1,5x brighter than the full Moon.

Both stars are bright enough to cast shadows on each other's planets, and both can be seen even during the day.
 

The brightest star in Earth's sky is Sirius, -1,46 mag., the dimmest an object can be and still be seen during the day is about -2,9 mag..

Throughout the last 5 million years, only a couple stars have met these parameters.

About 4,7 Mya, the brightest star was Epsilon Canis Majoris, with a -3,99 mag., definitely could be seen during the day.

And 4,4 Mya, it was Beta Canis Majoris, with a -3,64 mag., both were so bright during a fly-by near the solar system at 34 and 37ly, respectively.

FALL

This system turns out to be kind of interesting.

Starting by the rather unique position of the component A, as it' does falls in the HR diagram as a Delta Scuti Variable star.

The calculator only accepts values at a certain pace, but that is still plenty of room for a Delta Scuti Variable

Here is where it falls in the HR Diagram

Delta Scuti type stars have a helium rich atmosphere. As helium is heated it becomes more ionised, which is more opaque. So at the dimmest part in the cycle the star has highly ionised opaque helium in its atmosphere blocking part of the light from escaping. The energy from this “blocked light” causes the helium to heat up, expand, ionise, become more transparent and therefore allow more light through. As more light is let through the star appears brighter and, with the expansion, the helium begins to cool down.

For sake of specificity, Delta Scuti variables pulsate between 0,3~130% their usual luminosity, let's give component A a 33% variability, ie, a change of ±0,31 Mag. over the course of 3 hours, as an average of this type of variable.

Even though component A will only stay in Main Sequence for about 1,76 Gyr, the helium flash of such a star isn't as intense as you would expect of a Sun-like star for instance, a 2 Msol star like component A with will actually increase it's luminosity at first, but then spend up to 10-ish million years fusing Helium at a temperature rather similar and even inferior than it's main sequence phase, then around 22Myr in this subgiant phase, before expanding into a red giant with 5,4 Rsol - at this phase, it's luminosity will decrease towards 19,6Lsol, but bearing the spectrum of a cool G7IV star.

A second flash happens after this period, throwing the star's temperature, luminosity and diameter into red giant territory for the 25Myr remaining of it's lif, at the end of it's life, it's radius is 23,5 Rso, luminosity is around 188 Lsol, and with a K3III Red Giant spectrum.

Component A poofs as a planetary nebula 2,27Gyr after it's birth, Lophus-IV freezes before evolving any life - during the start of the red giant phase, and evaporates away by the end of the red giant phase. And this disintegration at it's closest approach at the cycle 297, a rather interesting thing to see, as it's white dwarf would still shine as bright as it's MS phase, slowly fading among the other stars as the eons pass by.

Component B however will last longer, even though it's supposed the last about 4,55Gyr in MS, it still has about ≲2,6Gyr in the subgiant phase, before entering Red Dwarf phase.
It would live enough to see the rise of complex life and even a technological civilization, the increasing luminosity would match the planet's water loss over time, maintaining a stable temperature for a wet swamp world maybe, it's inhabitants then would see themselves around a dying star and then may try to colonize it's outer system, the currently frozen superterran is a great candidate for colonization by this point - though the system around the A's white dwarf remnant is dead, it is still a pretty rich in anchors for interstellar launches.


With an initial position being at their closest, by 4,4Gyr, the component A would be at it's closest for a couple hundred years before not showing again for another ~7,7Kyr, which could be quite a pressure, they would ever know they were part of a binary system until very recently with the invention of the telescope.


And that's about all I have about this system, I hope you have enjoyed this reading, and learned something new, until next time.

- M.O. Valent, 14/06/2020