More data from the mission catalogs of the
Viator Infinita:
LocName "RS 8474-1353-7-1496666-502 B4"
Name "RS 8474-1353-7-1496666-502 B4"
Parent "RS 8474-1353-7-1496666-502 B"
Pioneer "Andreas DeVanitais"
Date "2717.04.30 04:12:36.82"
Descr
++Viator Infinita Data Bank ALPHA-GAMMA++
++(Planetary Discovery & Research Log)++
+(-No official name-)+
+Class: Terrestrial CO[sub]2[/sub] N[sub]2[/sub] O[sub]2[/sub]EuXericPelagian-Gaian+
- The third planet from the B component.
OVERVIEW:
The RS 8474-1353-7-1496666-502 system is a far binary pair comprised of a type G8.5 main-sequence yellow dwarf primary and type M0.4 main sequence red dwarf secondary. RS 8474-1353-7-1496666-502 BIV (hereafter designated "BIV") is a small (0.41622 Earth-Mass) exotic world orbiting as the fourth and outermost planet of the B component in the system, and harbors a highly hostile environment. It has has survived numerous debris impacts by virtue of the fact that 0.17 AU inwards towards the parent star (the M0.4 component) a 0.27 Jupiter Mass gas-giant disturbs the interplanetary medium and slings comets and other planetary debris away from the giant and often into it's smaller neighbor's gravitational well. Despite all these troubles, tenacious life has developed in the oceans and upon the land masses of the small terrestrial. Its 0.16 AU semimajor as a nontidally-locked planet in a small solar-system gives it a year of only 31.73 days (or 730 hours, 49 minutes and 5 seconds) and a complete solar day of exactly 2,920 hours, 4 minutes and 18 seconds, with truly bizarre day/night cycles as a result.
ENVIRONMENT:
At 2.27 bars of pressure, the atmosphere is a torpid (but highly complex) affair made up of 96.6% carbon dioxide, 1.78% molecular nitrogen and 0.57% molecular oxygen by volume (along with many trace gasses like sulfur dioxide, water vapor, hydrogen sulfide and various halogenic compounds). Coupled with a gentle axial tilt of barely 4 degrees, the world's seasons offer little liberation from the blistering temperatures that tyrannize the planet during its insane 1,461hr 22min day. A relentless 63.91 degrees Celsius (147.03F) turns the land into a mirage-warped hellscape, with steaming foul-smelling oceans and caustic deserts beset by moaning acid-rain storms and near constant volcanic activity. No respite from this can be found when a hemisphere slips into a Stygian 1,458hr 20min night - the temperature drops by 70 degrees to envelope the planet in a chilling -10 degrees (~14F)over a period of 60 hours. What little water was left on the surface freezes, and the liquid reservoirs it inhabited as lakes or estuaries are now flooded by seething pools of previously vaporized sulfur dioxide. The land is swept by gales and blizzards of frozen sulfuric acid, which had been maintained as liquids saturating the atmosphere during the day. Hyperviolent storms triggered by the change in temperatures pelt the planetary surface with this now icy acidic compound.
However abyssal the above information sounds, even greater drastic variations occur when the inner gas-gaint of the B component star stretches the orbit of its outer terrestrial neighbor into a oblong ellipse every decade or so, driving the maximum temperature to approximately 97 degrees Celsius during the day and over 15 degrees Celsius (during the night) at a close pass to the sun. A lowering of the ambient temperature to less than 40 degrees Celsius (during the day) and almost -70 degrees Celsius (during the night) occurs during a aphelion pass. This creates horrendous climatological chaos, as various atmospheric and thalassogenic materials are frozen, unfrozen and vaporized on the planet's surface. BIVs copious volcanic activity only complicate the mayhem, as they pump large amounts of CO[sub]2[/sub] and SO[sub]2[/sub] into the atmosphere, collected by the languorous storms that trawl the oceans and continents day and night and spread the volcanic byproducts as a poisonous (to Earth-life, that is) coffee-like haze of carbon and sulfur dioxide smog and acid rain during the day, and blizzards of sulfuric acid and hydrogen sulfide at night. Such storms, largely because of the light gravity (75.35% of Earth's), and heavy faineant atmospheric conditions, can last days or even months (although according the 'local-time' relative to the planet, these weather patterns last only hours at most!). Various types of ice and snow form at different times during the planet's tortuous days and nights depending on its orbital circumstances.
Nevertheless, BIV remains a beautiful planet. Dangerous and vitriolic yes, but beautiful. Typically the two glorious suns (a large firey golden one and a smaller white-aureate one) grace the sky with their splendor. The heavy atmospheric pressure can warp their light on the planetary surface into fantastical mirages. The steam of the oceans and volcanoes often display fiery rainbows and ever on the horizon violent storms flash with exotic lightning. At night the hellish winds shape frozen piles of sulfuric acid twisted by the onslaught of H2S rain into ghoulish shapes and new pools of sulfur dioxide hiss and bubble. A strange, alien glamor seems to dominates this world, defying any loathing that its hostility may invoke in chauvinistic Earthling onlookers.
- A titanic volcano dominates the seascape
TERRAIN & PLANETOLOGY:
The surface of this planet is comprised of a global shallow ocean of hot, highly saline H[sub]2[/sub]O and various dissolved or dissociated acids, and four fair-sized continents - one roughly in the north, the other three located below the equator. None of the continents sport any tall mountain ranges or inland seas - though large rivers meandering freely through the low terrain are present. These river's exact position or even existence is constantly in flux as the planet's strange 'seasons' (i.e. day/night cycles influenced by the planet's orbit in absence of any axial tilt effects) freeze, vaporize and liquefy their contents. Most of the land is made up of savanna-like regions, plateaus, badlands and deserts. The ocean is speckled with islands beyond count - each the product of a still-active volcano, the monolithic children of a highly-active planetary core. Though lacking on the mainlands, these vents are the prime reason for the abundant CO[sub]2[/sub] count in the atmosphere. Were it not for them, the planet would have had a light atmosphere of a pressure less than 5% that of Earth's. The expedient dumping of greenhouse gasses including H[sub]2[/sub]O and SO[sub]2[/sub] (making up 0.53% and 0.27% of the atmosphere respectively) from the volcanoes would be enough to cause a deadly runaway greenhouse effect - were it not for the fact that the planet does not have the mass to retain a heavier atmosphere - thus allowing it to escape any atmospheric complications. There is no analog in the Sol solar-system of BIV. Planetary astronomers could consider it a Mars-mass cousin of Venus that. It avoids the fate of either Mars or Venus due to its orbital ballet around its star and its highly active geothermic activity. It outgasses the atmosphere it cannot hold onto just as volcanoes on the surface replenish it. Without those mighty monuments of tectonics, BIV would surely outgas and perish as a Martian twin.
LIFE:
At first glance, this planet would appear to be barren and highly hostile to any organic processes. But life - including rough analogs to animals, plants and other, more exotic kingdoms has nevertheless existed on BIV for billions of years. It first evolved much in the same manner as Earth-life - in the warm, shallow mineral-rich anaerobic seas, where a majority of it still remains. The abiogenesis of this life occurred near deep sea hydrothermic vents, starting out as anaerobic sulfur-reducing organisms - a trend that would eventually dominate the world. They started out as pH-resistant alternatives to nulcleoproteins forming complex chains of sulfur-based animo acids. After millions of years of development this lead to the rise of 2 nucleobase DsNA (Desulfovibrionuceic Acid), which would form the backbone of development for all of BIV's biology. These organism's biochemistry was based on high temperature Iron-Sulfur composite structures of mineral bases with catalytic transition metal centers (predominantly iron and nickel, but also incorporating cobalt, manganese, tungsten and zinc as catalysts). These catalytic centers catalyzed autotrophic carbon fixation pathways to generate small molecule (non-polymer) organic compounds from inorganic gases (i.e from the already present carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, hydrogen cyanide and hydrogen sulfide that saturated the oceans and atmosphere). These organic compounds were retained on or in the mineral base as organic ligands of the transition metal centers with a flow retention time in correspondence with their mineral bonding strength thereby defining an autocatalytic "surface metabolism". The catalytic transition metal centers became autocatalytic by being accelerated by their organic products turned ligands. The carbon fixation metabolism became autocatalytic by forming a metabolic cycle in the form of a sulfur-dependent version of the reductive citric acid cycle. Accelerated catalysts expanded the metabolism and new metabolic products further accelerated the catalysts.
From these beginnings, life exploded in the frothing oceans of the planet, and evolved into steadily more complex forms. However, due to the powerful solar-flares that the parent sun of BIV releases every few days, organics could not exist in the shallower waters nor the surface of the planet. For a billion years, the organisms languished in the murky deeps. Eventually though, UV resistant bacterium floated to the surface and began anaerobic photosythesis using the S8 molecule as protection. Millions of years passed and more organisms took to the shallows and finally conquered the hellish landscapes as autotrophs and their pursuant heterotrophs. BIV's atmosphere began to take on it's more modern composition as anaerobic organisms photosynthesized with S8 or a magnesium caroteinoid as pigment and respirated. Some oxygen was created by their efforts, but this was in a side affect of their photosynthesis, and a minority at that. Many organisms did not photosynthesize and instead avoided affiliating with the nuclear 'winters' and sweltering 'summers' of their world, instead adapting for the synthesis of atmospheric compounds and terrestrial chemicals rather than 'outside' influences for energy.
The different varieties of BIV life, from kingdoms to species, are too varied to describe here. Suffice to say that they have some analogs to Earth life, and that most seem to be comprised of many millions of microrganisms working in tandem much like the member's of Earth's Cnidaria phylum (which comprise of creatures like Portogeuse Man-o-War and coral reefs etc). Most, even the mobile heterotrophs, secrete protective exoskeletons of various sulfur compounds, which are predominantly utilized to protect against UV damage or excessive acidity. Almost living creatures on the planet surface can enter hiberatory states for long periods, especially useful for weathering bad storms or whatever solar cycle they are not adapted to (Many organisms hibernate during the night, for example). Evolution is much slower on BIV due to the poor bonding properties of their sulfur-based nucleic acids. Mutations do occur at a high rate though, and as many lineages of organisms died out from outlandish genetic evolution as other extinction events like asteroid impacts.
EVENT LOG:
LocName "RS 8474-1353-7-1496666-502 B4"
Name "RS 8474-1353-7-1496666-502 B4"
Parent "RS 8474-1353-7-1496666-502 B"
Pioneer "Andreas DeVanitais"
Date "2717.04.30 04:12:36.82"
Descr
++Viator Infinatium Data Bank ALPHA-DELTA (Int. Alien Life-Form Discovery & Research Log)++
+Species: Name not given+
The surface of BIV is difficult to study due to its hellish environs, and no personnel from the Viator Infinta were sent down to examine the planet in any closer detail due to this. Graphene-coated remote-controlled multiterrain probes armed with nanite repair modules were more then sufficient at collecting data for analysis. But members of the xenobiological team were sorely tempted to brave the wildernesses when it was announced that intelligent life had been found on one of the southern continents. It has since been settled as a false alarm, but the discovery is no less interesting because of that. Queer structures had been spotted by probes and satellite imagery all across the plateaus of the continent. These structures appeared to be at the time the work of mobile, social creatures that roamed the landmass. Closer inspection led to both disappointment and further intrigue. The beings 'constructing' the structures were large multi-limbed semi-autotrophs that traveled about ceaselessly and without much purpose. Like most BIV lifeforms, their bodies are in fact colonies of many smaller organisms working together, much like non-sessile Earthly coral reefs. They absorb sunlight through their highly porous surface membranes and devour minerals from receptacles on their locomotive structures. Respiration is anaerobic. For protection against the elements and the dangerous large predators of their continent, they huddle together while traveling. No real interactions were seen to occur between separate creatures aside from the occasional mineral exchanges - since their so far vague life-cycle seems to start by asexual reproduction. They can apparently grow indefinitely and only die by accidents, savage weather or predation. The 'structures' seen by the probes were in fact the carbonate shells of dead elders which had grown to behemoth sizes and perished. Groups of other, smaller kith took shelter under their remains, and cast off biological detritus and other waste as they did so, giving us observers the illusion that they were building. So far no intelligence has been observed in these creature or in any other on BIV. Nor is their any evidence of exploration or colonization by other extraterrestrials in the solar-systems of the A or B components, past or present. Perhaps further investigation will reveal more?