I've found hundreds if not thousands of neutron stars and probably a few dozen black holes while out roaming the core but tbh, nothing of much interest in their orbits. Just wondering if anyone has seen an ELW orbiting a BH. I think it'd be cool to see a planet like that distorted by it as you fly by. I guess it would have to be pretty close to the BH for that though.
ELWs around a black hole or neutron star. . . do they exist?
- Thread starter iBR0WNY
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You can get ELW directly orbiting neutron stars - neutron stars have a very high temperature but a very small radius, and the habitable zones around them can vary widely in size, so it's pot luck.
There's no way to have an ELW directly orbiting a single black hole as the black hole doesn't emit any heat and so there's no habitable zone around it.
You could potentially have an ELW orbiting a black hole in a multi-star system, if the other stars were hot. Heat mechanics in Elite work rather strangely for multiple stars and they're actually more conducive to creating big habitable zones than reality is.
You can also find them orbiting Herbig Ae/Be 
Thanks for the info. There's still so much I don't know about this game. I never really look at the stats in the system map but I guess I figured black holes would be hot. Aren't they really hot in real life, with those accretion disks? I know they're not in game though. Hopefully someday.
You just crushed my dream. Thanks. . .
Like Jackie Silver said, an ELW orbiting only a black hole is impossible. It is possible for an ELW to co-orbit a black hole and any other star(s) that do have habitable zones. It's also possible that the ELW is in orbit of a star (typically a class M dwarf star) that is in orbit of a black hole. In such cases, we call them ELMs: Earth-like Moons. (There are also ELMs around gas giants, or other kinds of planets. In those cases, they are heated by their parent star(s).)
The rarest example would be Sluenoe CL-Y g5 ABC 6 h, which is a ringed Earth-like moon that orbits a class T dwarf star (ABC 6), which in turn co-orbits two black holes and a neutron star. Plus it's 3100 ly below the galactic plane, because hey, why not.
Also, an interesting bit: all the ELs found in mass code h systems (AA-A h) are moons. Little wonder though, as they tend to be moons of smaller stars which orbit more massive black holes.
Earth-likes have been found around almost all sorts of stars, and in some very interesting configurations too. Like orbiting a solo class L dwarf star, with no other stars in the system. You can check the list of Earth-like worlds for such rarities.
The rarest example would be Sluenoe CL-Y g5 ABC 6 h, which is a ringed Earth-like moon that orbits a class T dwarf star (ABC 6), which in turn co-orbits two black holes and a neutron star. Plus it's 3100 ly below the galactic plane, because hey, why not.
Also, an interesting bit: all the ELs found in mass code h systems (AA-A h) are moons. Little wonder though, as they tend to be moons of smaller stars which orbit more massive black holes.
Earth-likes have been found around almost all sorts of stars, and in some very interesting configurations too. Like orbiting a solo class L dwarf star, with no other stars in the system. You can check the list of Earth-like worlds for such rarities.
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Have definitely seen (discovered?) ELWs orbiting neutron stars. Was pretty surprised at the moment, but then I figured, heck, if it has a habitable zone then why not? Maybe I just always assumed some sort of additional deadly radiation.
One question I do have about it though - can the process of a star evolving to neutron status truly allow for a pre-existing ELW to survive? I doubt one could form AFTER the star goes neutron....
One question I do have about it though - can the process of a star evolving to neutron status truly allow for a pre-existing ELW to survive? I doubt one could form AFTER the star goes neutron....
In truth, they likely wouldn't have time to form before the star burned out and collapsed to a neutron star anyway - only big stars end up as neutron remnants and because they're big they live fast and die young. Assuming that somehow an Earth-like world *was* found around a big star (maybe alien space bats terraformed it quickly) it would be first fried as the parent star heated up as it evolved through different stages of fusion, and then pummelled by a massive shockwave when the star's core collapsed. The world itself might survive as a lump of rock but the biosphere would be frazzled.
Least, that's my understanding of it. Boils down to "nuh-uh, no way!"
All signs point toward Frontier's definition of Earth-like Worlds being only that the planet has a human-breathable atmosphere. (Plus not too low gravity.) Ignore the fact that they all have green landmasses, you can get ELWs around stars that are far too young for flora to have evolved on the planet's surface. (Unless aliens seeded them, of course.)
This also means that an Earth-like world might still be hostile to human life down there. For example, sure, you could breathe the atmosphere, too bad that the radiation would drastically shorten your lifespan. At present, the game doesn't seem to model that when it classifies worlds: this might mean that in the future, some ELWs will no longer be ELWs, but perhaps they might just differentiate between better and worse colonisation candidates. Either way, it's unlikely to change anytime soon.
But basically, what's currently an ELW in Elite might not always have been such. Ignore how green the landmasses look from orbit (as all ELWs look the same), the biosphere might still well be done for down there. (Or "might be well done", heh.)
This also means that an Earth-like world might still be hostile to human life down there. For example, sure, you could breathe the atmosphere, too bad that the radiation would drastically shorten your lifespan. At present, the game doesn't seem to model that when it classifies worlds: this might mean that in the future, some ELWs will no longer be ELWs, but perhaps they might just differentiate between better and worse colonisation candidates. Either way, it's unlikely to change anytime soon.
But basically, what's currently an ELW in Elite might not always have been such. Ignore how green the landmasses look from orbit (as all ELWs look the same), the biosphere might still well be done for down there. (Or "might be well done", heh.)
Fully agree with your understanding of the process - doesn't seem possible. But what the heck, right?
Found this on my way from Coloina to the Core last year. I bookmarked it after a detailed scan but I later ran out of fuel on my return and died.
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The Stellar Forge that determines habitable zones looks purely at "radiation levels" as generating heat - in other words, the quantity of radiation reaching a planet, warming it. It does not take into consideration the quality of the radiation - visible light, infrared, ultraviolet, x-rays, gamma rays... it's considered all the same. This is why it has no problem generating an ELW around a hard radiation source like a neutron star.
In reality, ELWs could not exist around neutron stars, as far as we can tell. Jackie is correct in stating an ELW could likely not form "naturally" around a large O or B star that would turn into a neutron star or black hole, as it wouldn't have enough time. In the unlikely event that a life-bearing planet did exist around such a star, the life - and likely the entire planet the life was based on - would be vaporized in the supernova explosion. Planets like those that we have detected around supernova remnants (black holes and neutron stars) are believed to have either re-coalesced from the vaporized debris, or perhaps they are the cores of gas giants which have been completely stripped of their atmospheres.
Life as we know it would not be able to thrive under the light of a neutron star. The visible light from a neutron star is only a tiny percentage of it's net output, which for a typical neutron star is in the x-ray and gamma ray region of the spectrum. For isolated, non-pulsar neutron stars, the so-called "radio-quiet neutron stars", they might actually appear black or dull red to the naked eye, emitting virtually no visible light at all, and emitting entirely in the x-ray/gamma ray region. There's also a massive stellar wind (more like a perpetual cosmic ray hurricane) to contend with, powered by the super-powerful magnetic field, billions of times more powerful than any magnetic field we can create on Earth, which would strip any planet of any theoretically protective magnetic field of its own.
In ED, ELWs around neutron stars always seem to have thick atmospheres, often near the upper limit of human habitability (about 4 atmospheres). I assume this is the Stellar Forge's attempt at creating "shielding" from the excessive radiation. However, as mentioned above, whatever "shielding" might be effective against such radiation levels would be stripped away by the hostile space environment around a neutron star.
This is all according to our current understanding, of course. Once we get out there with real-world spaceships and see for ourselves, we might find that these theories are incomplete or incorrect. But I suspect that ELWs around neutron stars in the real world would be impossible without sentient intervention.
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Scary!
[video=youtube;tlTSXr4PfSg]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tlTSXr4PfSg[/video]
[video=youtube;tlTSXr4PfSg]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tlTSXr4PfSg[/video]
I suspect that part of the reason they overlooked damaging radiation is that in a sci-fi sense, you can write it off as an "engineering problem". Colonization isn't necessarily prevented by radiation, it just requires building settlements with the appropriate shielding, or subterranean facilities, etc.
In terms of naturally occurring life, it might still be possible far enough beneath the surface, but surface vegetation would either not exist, or would take a drastically different form. Interesting subject to speculate about though.
In terms of naturally occurring life, it might still be possible far enough beneath the surface, but surface vegetation would either not exist, or would take a drastically different form. Interesting subject to speculate about though.