Planets

There are five planets in the Leif & Thorn solar system, along with lots of comets, asteroids, iceballs, and other miscellaneous small bodies. They orbit a G-type main-sequence star.

The planets have different names in different cultures. Ceannis, like many of its neighboring countries in the Gulf region, still uses the names from the ancient Gulf empire. In the polar regions, astronomical objects were associated with supernatural figures, and those are the names Sønheim uses.

In the past hundred years, since the advent of modern telescopes, the International Astronomical Union has chosen the names for newly-discovered objects. They pick the names from a variety of traditions, and try to start as few fights as possible.

Sizes are to scale but distances are not.

Órrinn

Hot rocky planet. Surface has lava oceans. Possibly the core of a former superhot gas giant (a “hot Jupiter”), its gaseous layers stripped away by intense solar wind.

Ceannic name: Órrinn (“gold star”)
Sønska name: Drengr (patron deity of warriors)

The World

Right in the habitable zone! Metallic core, silicate surface largely covered by ocean, tectonic plate activity. One major continent, so the eastern coastlines are subject to large hurricanes, and there's an arid superdesert in the middle that nobody likes to visit.

Orbited by a variety of artificial satellites, including orbital telescopes and the Pancontinental Space Station.

See Countries for political details.

Ceannic name: The World
Sønska name: Earth
Most other names: The local language's word for “dirt”

The world also has two natural satellites, one visibly larger than the other. These lead to extreme and multi-tiered ocean tides. Elevation is often built into coastal cities, so the lower levels can be used as streets during low tide and shelf tide, then as canals during high tide.

Ceannic names: “The moon” and “the moonlet”
Sønska names: Huginn and Muninn (the ghostly ravens who observe and report back to Dómari)
Iuilic names: Big Sister and Little Sister (creator deities)

Éagrinn

Cold rocky planet, dense and heavy. Non-active core means no magnetic field; atmosphere is thin and getting thinner.

Ceannic name: Éagrinn (“death star”)
Sønska name: Veiðimaðr (patron deity of hunting and cooking)

Racrinn

Cold planet too carbon-rich for water to form. Graphite surface, diamond substratum, tectonic and volcanic activity, carbon smog clouds.

Ceannic name: Racrinn (“rock star”)
Sønska name: Gørsimi (patron deity of treasure and spell-engineering)

Mhuirinn

Distant ice giant: rocky core, slushy fluid mantle, tons of atmosphere. Faint rings and a whole mess o’ moons.

Ceannic name: Mhuirinn (“sea star”)
Sønska name: Dómari (judge of the dead)


 


planets.txt · Last modified: 2020/06/14 18:42 by admin · [Old revisions]
Recent changes RSS feed Powered by PHP Valid XHTML 1.0 Valid CSS Driven by DokuWiki