A wanderer hunting the curiosities of the galaxy

MattG

MattG
I've seen a few threads of similar Exploration Logs and I enjoy reading them, so I thought I might start chronicling some of the wonders I encounter. It would've made more sense to have done this at the beginning of my journey but hey ho. I'm slowly heading back to Sol at the moment (some ~18k LY out), but only to dust off the 'conda so I can head straight back out.


Yesterday, I jumped into MYNOAW LR-T c4-411. Looked pretty plain and boring but there was a planet around the 3rd star
lUiF2BQ.png

In the system map it didn't look quite spherical, and it wasn't too far away so I went in for a better look. I was not disappointed, it was wonderfully egg shaped
QmMJMTE.jpg

MJ619iX.jpg

I've not encountered such a squashed-looking planet, so was extremely happy with this find. When I was inspecting the system map, I also noticed it had an orbital period of just 0.2 days and a rotational period of 0.1 days. I figured I'd see if I could see any actual movement. I went in close, dropped out of SC and started taking pictures every 30 secs. I came back about 1h40m later and this is the result
[video=youtube_share;P0EAbs41CUI]https://youtu.be/P0EAbs41CUI[/video]

Pretty happy with the result, but I didn't realise the stars were spinning so fast - in hindsight I should probably have taken a picture every 5 secs or so to smoothen it out a bit. I'm also glad I returned when I did - the closest star was < 1 LS away from me and when jumping away from it I still nearly went over 100% heat. If I left it too much longer I think I might've come back to a cooked carcass of an Asp. I'm an expert at crashing into stars, but has anyone ever died from a star crashing into them?
 
Last edited:

marx

marx
ClayMatthews52 said:
WoW nice find CMDR! How's an egg shaped planet even possible?
Click to expand...
Disclaimer: I am not an astrophysicist nor geologist (astro-geologist?). Such bodies are possible: see the dwarf planet Haumea in our very own solar system. But this planet is much larger and heavier. I'd say its shape is probably due to extreme tidal forces, and it might not be in a stable orbit nor a stable state.

@ MattG: splendid find! I'm curious about one thing from the system map: are there any other planets around the other stars, and what's the orbital plane of them? (Both the stars and the planets, if there are any of the latter.) I noticed that this one has an orbital inclination of 6.97 degrees. Again, IANAAP, but it could have been a captured planet that's just now going through a difficult time.
 
Last edited:

MattG

MattG
marx said:
@ MattG: splendid find! I'm curious about one thing from the system map: are there any other planets around the other stars, and what's the orbital plane of them? (Both the stars and the planets, if there are any of the latter.) I noticed that this one has an orbital inclination of 6.97 degrees. Again, IANAAP, but it could have been a captured planet that's just now going through a difficult time.
Click to expand...

It was the only planet in the system, part of what piqued my interest. As it was an unscheduled stop, I forgot to scan the main star but here's the 2 close to it
B6gOH3M.png


jab3vVk.png
More than made up for the _hours_ I spent trying to find an ELW in/near MYNOAW AA-A h23 proc-gen nebula :)
 

MattG

MattG
So I arrived back in the bubble on Sunday after a 5 week trip. I made 107m, far exceeding my expectations - especially given I spent a significant amount of time scanning carbon and red giant stars, which are worth a pittance.

On my journey back, I came across another flattened planet. Months having never seen one (or noticed, anyway), and then 2 within a couple of days. This one is a bit more potato than egg.
txYbmRv.png


a02KTP6.png

System map
T9Mbcm2.png

9N4VBOI.png

wL2XExp.png

There's a lot less features on this planet, and it's also tidally locked with a orbital/rotational period of just 0.1 days.

I made another time lapse of this one, but only hung around ~23mins this time - partly because I wanted to get back to the bubble and partly because that M class was getting closer and I didn't fancy getting melted.
[video=youtube_share;55h7J_b20as]https://youtu.be/55h7J_b20as[/video]

I'll be heading back out soon and have my next destination in mind, but I have a bunch of earth-likes to sift through first.
 

MattG

MattG
So I've been back out for a while now in my stripped down conda on a hunt for Earth-Like Worlds and "Interesting Stuff". It'd been a good 10+ hours since I last saw an ELW, prob closer to 13-14 hours so it was a pretty dry spell - but it was worth the wait. I then found 3 within 30 mins, and the first one alone more than made up for the previous lack.
CkKI3Sy.jpg
Not only is it a ringed ELW (only my second ever, and over a year since my first), it is also a moon of the Class III gas giant in the background, and has a composition that's 86.9% ice. Very happy with this one, almost makes me want to head back to ensure I get the tag!

This was the second one
9PLDAyX.jpg
Nothing particularly exciting about the screenshot, but this one is a whopping 2.8879 earth masses and a radius of 8252KM which I'm pretty sure is the biggest ELW I've ever seen.

The third was nothing special in itself, but was the icing on a rather wonderful cake.


A bit after though, this happened
[video=youtube_share;s3rRY9_U46c]https://youtu.be/s3rRY9_U46c[/video]

In the end, no damage taken (probably helped by the fact the conda is stripped to the chassis, and all non-essential systems are disabled) - but it was a healthy reminder of the dangers that lurk unseen. Certainly got the blood pumping, that's for sure.
 

GreyAreaUK

GreyAreaUK
ClayMatthews52 said:
WoW nice find CMDR! How's an egg shaped planet even possible?
Click to expand...

A high rotation rate might account for it, but it would have to be pretty high.

*edit: I'm seeing it as more oval-ish, in which case high rotation would work. If it's actually egg-shaped (ie, non-regular) then I have no idea*
 
Last edited:

MattG

MattG
Been a while since I posted anything interesting in here, so here's something that caught my eye a couple of days back.

So this is a binary pair of planets, one of which is a fairly standard water world. Nothing out of the ordinary here
3lYsI07.png


The other is a rocky ice world. The composition is very similar to that of the water world, but the pressure on this planet is over 378k atmospheres.
3dSYGZJ.png


I've seen high pressure planets often enough, and I've seen high pressure planets when paired with a gas giant - but I don't think I've seen a pair like this before. How does the rocky ice world have such extreme pressure whilst it's twin is so ordinary? I'm now on the lookout for an ELW that's part of a binary pair where the other planet has extreme pressure like this...
 

MattG

MattG
Came across this in my current voyage. Don't recall seeing a world with such high gravity before, will be interesting when we can land on planets like this.
PQtUnNr.png


Also found this pair orbiting extremely close, and the closer one is landable (and you can just make out a blue planetary nebula in the distance)
MZarY8n.jpg
Was going to land and get some more shots, but the landable one had gravity over 6G, I'm too far out and carrying too much data... maybe next time.
 

marx

marx
19.32g? I don't think any ship's thrusters could handle on that. Of course, lithobraking is also landing!
Then there's also the surface pressure of 1.1 million atmospheres. Perhaps ships might survive that, but I don't think SRV-s should. At least, certainly not the Scarabs.
Of course, even if you could survive landing somehow, good luck taking off with these.

So yeah, sounds like a Fun place to visit. Looking forward to it!
 
Last edited:

MattG

MattG
The 19.32G planet is Scaulao AA-A h249 A 15. It's quite a way out though, I think I will look for something similar a bit closer to the bubble.

Whilst out on this expedition, I also came across a very cool Wolf Rayet - just 96K. I know others have found similar, but I hadn't seen one of my own
IufkF0O.png
 

MattG

MattG
Found this system the other day, which I thought was mildly interesting.
u8mHuWI.png

Not often you find anything other than ice worlds orbiting a T-class dwarf, and when you do they're usually extremely close to the star. This HMC world is some 18K LS from the host. Unusual to see neon in the atmosphere as well, I think. I tried getting a nice picture of the planet but it was just a black ball, being so far from any light source :)
 

MattG

MattG
A couple of small updates. First off, EOL PROU IW-W E1-3035 - a fairly unremarkable system containing just 2 stars. Only interesting because of the huge distance between the stars - some ~657KLs. Not a record breaker, but certainly uncommon. (Clearly, I'm only an amateur ELW hunter!)
f11jxKr.png


Next up is DRYOOE FLYOU IS-J D9-387, a system I visited back in the early hours of 19th Aug. Nothing out of the ordinary in this system, and only recorded as it was my millionth LY travelled
w32fhcF.png


tCVcCB2.png

Not often I actually notice milestones like this so was quite happy to capture this one. Some stats (assuming the ED figures are vaguely correct!). My visits are 92.56% to systems previously unvisited (by me). My average jump distance is 27.45LY. I jump approximately 9.66LY every minute. I earn almost 570CR per LY jumped. Up to 19th Aug, I had visited (or at least recorded) 193 Earth-Like worlds and claimed first discoverer on 167 of those, giving me an average ~5181LY between ELWs (or 5988LY if only counting tagged ELWs). I'm also - on average - nearly 9 hours between ELWs.
 

MattG

MattG
Whilst Wolf-Rayet hunting a couple of days back, I came across this little pair
Dcxr8lN.png
The "smaller" one is the Wolf-Rayet and the main star of the system. It has a solar radius of ~5.7. The beast next to it is a huge (345 solar radius) B class, less than 1K LS away. When I initially jumped in to the system my heat was immediately rising fast and I couldn't get away quick enough to stop a good baking. Some components took ~10% damage from the heat though most were around 5%. Despite the damage, I still enjoy finding systems like this, some sort of explorer's death wish I guess!

The same day, I also ran into this:
kAZjRir.png
That is a ringed white dwarf orbiting a black hole. It was almost one of my favourite finds ever - it has a handful of moons, one of which is a water world. Given the atmosphere and size, it looked to be a good candidate for an Earth-Like world but is sadly ~55 degrees too warm. I didn't get a good picture of it because the broken lighting made it a ball of blackness.

Lastly, just a couple of nice shots.
bKrDr54.png


7cWyBwH.png
The first is from the moon of an Earth-Like world - you can see the silhouette of the ELW in the sky. The second is just a gas giant but I really like the brown streak on it. You can also see it's moon, which is a terraformable high metal content world.
 

MattG

MattG
For the last few weeks, I've been stuck in the bubble losing my mind, waiting for 2.2 to drop. Last week I decided to make a quick visit to IC 1396 SECTOR RU-F D11-7. This is a system is less than 3K LY from Sol, and was initially discovered by CMDR Pearcy. It has a particularly interesting Earth-Like World - it has a landable moon, and is itself a moon of a gas giant. I figured such a configuration should mean the moon is quite close to the ELW, and might provide a good view for some pictures.

Here's the sysmap for the ELW and it's moon.
MW6HIx1.png

h8DcoaQ.png
It wasn't disappointing. The moon is just 10-11Mm from the ELW and provices for some fantastic views.

bauMyxU.png



4hPb382.png



There's an album with some more shots here

I also made a small time-lapse from the moon
[video=youtube;i5bLds75Xbk]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i5bLds75Xbk[/video]

I'm actually going to head back there again now 2.2 has dropped, for a few reasons - the system map for the ELW is broken because I think it has a negative rotational period (fixed in 2.2). The textures on the moon should be much improved in 2.2. The moon travels so fast around the ELW that it jerks and so a time lapse looks stupid - also fixed in 2.2. And lastly, the moon has geysers - if I can find one it might make for some even more impressive shots.
 

MattG

MattG
It looks like someone actually added IC 1396 SECTOR RU-F D11-7 to the list of destinations for passengers, so hopefully more people will give it a visit and get paid for doing so :)

coK2wI8.png
 

marx

marx
Oho, now that's a good tourist destination. I've been there before, but frankly, if I got such a mission too, I'd go again. It really is a great place for screenshots, and quite close by too.
I don't suppose you know where this mission was offered? From my experience (meaning it's anecdotal "evidence" at best) the same destinations tend to pop up at the same places.

MattG said:
It looks like someone actually added IC 1396 SECTOR RU-F D11-7 to the list of destinations for passengers, so hopefully more people will give it a visit and get paid for doing so :)

http://i.imgur.com/coK2wI8.png
Click to expand...
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom