Above you see the same galaxy map area. On the left picture filter is set to show B-Type Stars. On the right picture filter is set to not show B-Type Stars. What does the white shading of a star indicate?
White Shading of B-Type Star stands for?
- Thread starter Heinz Volmer
- Start date
Above you see the same galaxy map area. On the left picture filter is set to show B-Type Stars. On the right picture filter is set to not show B-Type Stars. What does the white shading of a star indicate?
Alright thanks.
It's for sure not a planetary nebula.
It's for sure not a planetary nebula.
I always thought that it was down to the brightness or luminosity of the star that caused the white bloom, but do not know for sure.
Seen plenty of brighter and bigger stars that do not exhibit the bloom. And have also seen a few (higher mass) herbig Ae/Be stars that show this phenomenon. I'm sure it's just a localized dust cloud.
Ozric
Volunteer Moderator
I think I'd agree. It's not just B class stars that have them too, although it's often them or O, but I have seen quite a few TTS stars that have them.
You sometimes see the same effect around T Tauri stars, and many of those are definitely not bright enough for that to account for it. On the other hand, both T Tauri and the really bright B and O class stars you see this effect with are very young in terms of the age of stars in general, so it might make sense there's still plenty of dust around from the accretion disk when the planets were formed, not enough to really obscure any stars when you are there, and maybe far enough out from the main star that you wouldn't notice it, but it could still be illuminated by the main star enough to for these halos to form.
In fact we have direct evidence that these halos exist, HD 95086 has one according to NASA;
I don't know whether it has one in game, but halos not thick enough to form nebula's are probably reasonably common in the galaxy.
These small fuzzy patches around certain bright/young stars are tiny little un-named nebulae. You cannot see them anywhere else, except on the galaxy map; you can't see them in the actual system, and you can't see them from neighbouring systems.
They appear to exist purely and simply to add a visual effect to the galaxy map, to make it look "more galaxy-like", especially when viewed from a distance. Unlike regular nebulae, these tiny nebulae are still visible on the galaxy map at maximum zoom-out, looking like bright stars.
Because you can see them from so far away, these systems tend to act like beacons for explorers. Except perhaps for the core regions, there won't be a single one of these that hasn't been explored yet. All the ones I've visited have already been explored, even though all the surrounding systems were unexplored.
They appear to exist purely and simply to add a visual effect to the galaxy map, to make it look "more galaxy-like", especially when viewed from a distance. Unlike regular nebulae, these tiny nebulae are still visible on the galaxy map at maximum zoom-out, looking like bright stars.
Because you can see them from so far away, these systems tend to act like beacons for explorers. Except perhaps for the core regions, there won't be a single one of these that hasn't been explored yet. All the ones I've visited have already been explored, even though all the surrounding systems were unexplored.
Good question, OP. I'd often looked at that phenomenon and wondered why some stars (mostly and Os in my experience) had them. And thanks for the answers. This kind of thread is what makes ED great - people stopping to think, asking the questions that the rest of us don't, and getting answers.
I'm sure you can see them (sometimes?) from close, neighbouring systems. Sure, they don't stick out like PNs or anything - but I'm sure it's visible. I swear I took screenshots of one I saw some time back, but obviously can't find it now. Maybe I need to go and re-check...
I think I recall that as well, but really I stopped hunting them after finding the first hundred or so were discovered long ago, plenty of other stuff to do out there.
