Wrong astronomical facts - weren't we supposed to play in our milky way?

PsychoFish · Jan 19, 2015

I am out exploring and made a tour to see the system VV CEPHEI. From our observations this a binary star system with a red supergiant star and a smaller companion star. Furthermore VV CEPHEI A is one of the biggest known stars in the milky way.

I give you wikipedia as source, because the information are packed nicely together there. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VV_Cephei

Yesterday I reached my destination and I was disappointed to say the least. In the game VV CEPHEI is one single supergiant, that has only a fraction of the size it should have.
This is what I found:

View attachment 9420

The two big problems I have with this are the two obvious ones:

A) It is way to small. It is widely belived this star has a solar radius of at the very least(!) 1,050. Ingame this was reduced to 318? From everything I've heard and discovered so far, the systems in ED are modeled after what we know of them NOW. I know, that in fact our knowledge is centuries old the further we are from a star, but I was under the impression this is not part of the star calculation. And this wouldn't explain:

B) Where is VV CEPHEI B? Not much to say here. It is by fact a binary system.

I accepted, that the distances in ED are inacurate to what is believed to be known today. I was also not expecting to see the mass transfer, that should be visible between star A and B. But I was not prepared to find a whole different system at my destination. Maybe someone can shine a light at some facts I am missing. Otherwise I'm not sure if exploring can be "I'm going to a certain POI I know exists" other than "well, I just fly in one direction, hoping to find something".

:S:S:S

Toscaner · Jan 19, 2015

yes, i have found several system that don't match Wikipedia-articles.

but you have to see that
1. wikipedia is not the one single source for correct information. it's just one source and is often enough wrong itself.
2. there's several differnt catalogues with information, maybe one that FD uses has different information.
3. there's so many stars. what to you seems like one huge and important star, is to FD just one of 100k stars.

nonetheless, just ticket it, if you have good reasons.

Pennyblack · Jan 19, 2015

Elite Dangerous - You never get what's written on the tin.

It's nothing new.

Vandaahl · Jan 19, 2015

I don't think there is much wrong, its more a case of 'not knowing'. If you look at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_known_stars, VV Cephei is believed to be between 1000 and 1900 times the size of our sun. If I had a GPS that gave me a similar estimate about the distance I had to travel, then I would bin the thing.

Another example: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mu_Cephei
TL;DR, we just don't know how far away the thing is.

What you see in game (I think), is what is there in the used catalogue(s), not what science believes or think it is.

rennarda · Jan 19, 2015

IF you centre the galaxy map on Sol you'll see constellations outlined amongst the stars. Notice Orion - it's probably the easiest constellation to spot. Notice that its' in 180º the wrong direction from the Orion nebula. Erm.

I've also found quite a few double planets that are far too close for astronomical reality eg. there's one in Xmcanoue where the moon is no more than a radius away. There's another, forget the system name, but the world was 'Africa' or something, and the moon was 'Mitterand' or something - and the moon is just barely skimming the atmosphere. Seriously - you can't even catch it in super cruise ! AFAIK the Earth/Moon system is regarded as a close double world, but that's pretty far our in ED terms !

The reason this is wrong is because of the tidal force on the moon - the difference between the force of gravity at the close side of the moon versus the far side of the moon is so great that it would tear the moon apart (into a ring) and/or pull the two bodies together into one.

Varrag · Jan 19, 2015

I suppose that they forgot or didn't have time to accurately handcraft this particular system. Hell, even the Sol didn't look quite well (I don't know did they fix Jupiter, Io, etc later). There are also inconsistencies/bugs in Stellar forge: for example people were finding 200 million years old blue supergiants making full rotation at 20 seconds - both should be literally impossible.

rennarda · Jan 19, 2015

The point is that the procedural generation is not generating realistic results - is should be prevented by the algorithm, and not require any manual tuning.

simon terlecki · Jan 19, 2015

well wikipedia in english and in french can't even agree on its distance from us, one claiming 5000 LY and the other 3000LY, so with that much disparity in the info on technically the same site, and with the english version actually having a sentence stating that some researchers think it's closer to 500 radius, I have to think that it may simply be the database that FD used that differs from your expectation.

As for the companion star, maybe you just haven't found it yet (don't know if you use an advanced scanner or not) and if it's not there, that is probably a bug/data error for the system.

Shads · Jan 19, 2015

Would it be THAT surprising if in the far distant future we actually managed to visit the starts and planets we are now just trying to peer at through statistical possibilities and computer logarithms only to find they are not as our predictions and observations described?

Snuble · Jan 19, 2015

rennarda said:
IF you centre the galaxy map on Sol you'll see constellations outlined amongst the stars. Notice Orion - it's probably the easiest constellation to spot. Notice that its' in 180º the wrong direction from the Orion nebula. Erm.

I've also found quite a few double planets that are far too close for astronomical reality eg. there's one in Xmcanoue where the moon is no more than a radius away. There's another, forget the system name, but the world was 'Africa' or something, and the moon was 'Mitterand' or something - and the moon is just barely skimming the atmosphere. Seriously - you can't even catch it in super cruise ! AFAIK the Earth/Moon system is regarded as a close double world, but that's pretty far our in ED terms !

The reason this is wrong is because of the tidal force on the moon - the difference between the force of gravity at the close side of the moon versus the far side of the moon is so great that it would tear the moon apart (into a ring) and/or pull the two bodies together into one.

From what I remember the Moon could be as close as 9000 something km from the earth before bad stuff started to happen. Well, that is relative of couse, with the moon that close the earth would not be a good place to live, but that is the closer limit. That is 1 and a half Earth radius, you could not fit another earth between the earth and moon.

The technical term is the Roche limit, and I'm pretty sure google have the info at hand there. FD most likely have this formula nailed in the stellar forge, so what you see there COULD be possible. Given the large number of systems in the Milky Way it most likely happens (or have happened at some point) somewhere.

sutex · Jan 19, 2015

rennarda said:
The point is that the procedural generation is not generating realistic results - is should be prevented by the algorithm, and not require any manual tuning.

YES TRUE.. the one point of this game, that got me in, WAS the 400 billion stars , if Star Citizen , is just going to do a Universe , and the rest better , then ED has to get the Astronomical data right!! It is the selling point/failing point for most of us.

Wedgetail · Jan 19, 2015

rennarda said:
The point is that the procedural generation is not generating realistic results - is should be prevented by the algorithm, and not require any manual tuning.

Humans have argued for millennia over how the universe was formed, and where it is heading. If Anyone has come up with the algorithm to simulate the universe perfectly, without any manual tuning, pretty sure the first implementation wouldn't be in a crowd-funded entertainment game

PsychoFish · Jan 19, 2015

I am well aware, that Wikipedia is not the best source, I checked some, but couldn't find "the ultimate scientific paper" out there, so I took the source that had the most average facts.

On my journey I found some other discrepancies aswell. E.G. a giant(!!) star, that has a solar radius of 0.7 - ridiculous. A water world, that has almost the exact athmosphere as earth and mostly land masses, but still is called "water world". I can accept, that random generated stuff can be flawed. But a major object that appears on most TOP lists. Even the designation "VV" says that it's a variable star -> something has to effect it's brightness to earth -> afaik only a second star can do that.

Of course I have an advanced disco scanner. Also: The star in the system view would be called VV CEPHEI A even if I hadn't found the second one.

Poseidal · Jan 19, 2015

Ticket it. After the discovery of the Earth-likes recently, they updated the ones there, so it could be a mistake/oversight.

It could be a case of a different catalogue they used to the one put into Wikipedia, so not necessarily wrong because it is different to the wiki.

Toscaner · Jan 19, 2015

PsychoFish said:
I am well aware, that Wikipedia is not the best source, I checked some, but couldn't find "the ultimate scientific paper" out there, so I took the source that had the most average facts.

On my journey I found some other discrepancies aswell. E.G. a giant(!!) star, that has a solar radius of 0.7 - ridiculous. A water world, that has almost the exact athmosphere as earth and mostly land masses, but still is called "water world". I can accept, that random generated stuff can be flawed. But a major object that appears on most TOP lists. Even the designation "VV" says that it's a variable star -> something has to effect it's brightness to earth -> afaik only a second star can do that.

Of course I have an advanced disco scanner. Also: The star in the system view would be called VV CEPHEI A even if I hadn't found the second one.

variation in variable stars can have intrinsic and extrinsic reasons

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Variable_star

ZeeWolf · Jan 19, 2015

There are a number of catalogues with conflicting information. We don't have an accurate map of the Milky-Way which is why the game contains a 'model. Michael Brookes manually entered data from many catalogue sources but many of them contradict the other. The model is being continuously tweaked as new data becomes available and they are happy to take tickets on possible errors. Expecting them to create a model which corresponds to every star in the sky based on every available data source is not realistic.

PsychoFish · Jan 19, 2015

This would suggest that VV CEPHEI is an intrinsic variable (also ecxplaining, why it is as small as it is ingame), although all sources I could find on the internet so far says it is a binary. Thanks for the info, though.

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ZeeWolf said:
There are a number of catalogues with conflicting information. We don't have an accurate map of the Milky-Way which is why the game contains a 'model. Michael Brookes manually entered data from many catalogue sources but many of them contradict the other. The model is being continuously tweaked as new data becomes available and they are happy to take tickets on possible errors. Expecting them to create a model which corresponds to every star in the sky based on every available data source is not realistic.

I don't expect a perfect universe. But a popular system like that I thought would be accurate to the most common theory.

jpaulwilson1982 · Feb 15, 2015

Elite's accuracy has been good enough for me, but then again I don't research everything for accuracy. But, what I have researched seemed okay. Like, on Valentine's Day someone showed me their daily Bing wallpaper, which displayed the Heart Nebula. I just had to check Elite's map to test how accurate it is, and the Heart Nebula (and the near-by Soul Nebula) was there. It didn't match perfectly with sources I read (distance was a bit off), but I was pleasantly surprised to see the nebula there at all.

So, for folks who expect and check for dead-on accuracy, I see how the game would be one disappointing turn after another. For folks like me who are satisfied with mere "nearness" to accuracy, it's good enough to provide the illusion of realism. Whichever type of person you are, I can't hate. Both sides of this topic are valid, in my opinion.

Speaking of inaccuracies and impossible astronomy, check out this post.

Phier · Feb 15, 2015

Dear diary:

Today I was horrified to learn that a video game did not have perfect astronomical data for the entire known Milky Way galaxy. I feel betrayed.

WalterHWhite · Feb 15, 2015

To round it up...

Aside from the 'varying' sources, ED have added in astronomical objects that have been in the mainstreamn news. We can't seriously expect them to include everything involving <obscure mention of extrasolar planet discovery> until there's a way for them to parse that kind of information easily into the game.

Even if they did managee to accumulate every news piece out there, surely the benefits as mere players of a game are quite marginal. You'd get about 2.2 seconds of enjoyment knowing object XYZ discovered yesterday is in the game.