RE: (TFT) Traegor: System Data and Physical Description

[Michael S Kluskens <mkluskens@yahoo.com>]

At 6:21 PM -0700 9/17/01, Pasha and Rick Smith wrote:
> Hi all,
> 	I really liked the GURPS Space world generation
> system but the huge discoveries in the last couple
> years (many solar systems discovered) have dated it
> some what.
>
> 	First gas giants CAN have really close orbits
> near the primary. This was thought to be impossible
> at the time Space was written.
>
> 	Second 'well ordered' solar systems where the
> planets have nice close-to-circular orbits are proving
> to be fairly rare. Tho many suns have solar systems,
> most have planets with highly eccentric orbits.

Large gas giants near a star are more detectable than a smaller 
planet at that location or the same planet further out.  Also, I 
think highly eccentric orbits are also more detectable than circular 
orbits.

So I'd say wrong conclusions based on incomplete data (that is a 
small part of how we lost the space shuttle, plot the number of 
O-ring burn-throughs (sp?) versus temperature and no obvious trend, 
now also plot the launches where the O-rings didn't burn-though, now 
there is an obvious trend--nontechnical decision making was the main 
part).

First, the only systems that are detectable are those with large gas 
giants or failed stars near the primary, there is some concern that 
these solar systems are really binary solar systems and the "planets" 
are just brown dwarfs.

If you want a realistic modern universe (like the RPG Universe tried 
to create), find out what systems that astronomers have discovered, 
setup those up as described and then make sure that all other systems 
within that distance have planets that would not be detectable from 
Earth, i.e., no gas giants that close to the sun (at least 3-4 times 
further out) and any planets that close have 10x less mass.  I figure 
factor ten is fall enough below the current techniques that you have 
enough room to be realistic and the system can't be detected from 
Earth for quite a number of years.

I've collected several databases of nearby stars to someday make a 
full up realistic universe, but haven't collected any of the 
planetary data.

You might be interested to know that there are astronomers who 
believe the asteroid belt is actually the remains of a planet that 
formed but was pulled apart by Jupiter.  Other parts from this planet 
hit the Earth, are the moons of Mars and some other planets, and if I 
remember formed either our moon or when they hit Earth caused the 
moon to be further from Earth's crust.

If you add that missing planet in you get a nice proportional rule 
for a planetary system, basically the distribution of mass, orbits, 
and elements.  Been a while since I looked at such things so I can't 
remember more.

Michael
--
Michael Kluskens <mkluskens@yahoo.com>

Got a question? The answer is "I don't do windows."
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