It started as a joke. A cheap jab at the First Great Expedition, fueled by the necessity to make fun of anything so large and successful, particularly because i knew I couldn't take part with my work/family schedule that leaves few hours of playtime. But it took off anyway and I've come to enjoy it and it has become my main focus when I play.
I set myself goals, travel, take the odd screenshot, upload it to facebook with some insights and a bit of science.
Enjoy, and if you want some more, follow me on facebook.
I set myself goals, travel, take the odd screenshot, upload it to facebook with some insights and a bit of science.
Here's some examples:
The Milky Way as represented in Elite
angerous. The procedurally generated galaxy shown here has 400 billion stars. The known stars and exoplanets (and new discoveries) are added by hand. But that represents an incredibly small number of the total. The rest are 'predicted' using complex algorithms and generated by a piece of software called the Stellar Forge. It basically runs the history of the galaxy through 14 billion years of stellar evolution.
The Milky Way is a barred spiral galaxy and is known to be larger than average. I love the fact that in a billion years time it will collide with its closest neighbour Andromeda. Will our descendants (no longer human, but of human origin) still be around to see it. I hope so.
The Milky Way as represented in Elite
angerous. The procedurally generated galaxy shown here has 400 billion stars. The known stars and exoplanets (and new discoveries) are added by hand. But that represents an incredibly small number of the total. The rest are 'predicted' using complex algorithms and generated by a piece of software called the Stellar Forge. It basically runs the history of the galaxy through 14 billion years of stellar evolution.The Milky Way is a barred spiral galaxy and is known to be larger than average. I love the fact that in a billion years time it will collide with its closest neighbour Andromeda. Will our descendants (no longer human, but of human origin) still be around to see it. I hope so.
This is an L-Class Brown Dwarf Star. The most surprising thing to notice about Brown Dwarfs is that they are not actually Brown. Like all colour the distinctive colouring of the star comes from the light it's emitting. In this case from Iron Hydride and Chromium Hydride. When I was a child I imagined that Jupiter was 'almost' a brown dwarf. This isn't quite true, but it is romantic to me for some reason. I wish brown dwarfs got more love from we explorers. The first star of this type was discovered in 1988, but wasn't properly understood until a few years later the L Class being designated to fit it, which is GD 165B about 103 Light Years from Earth. This star here is a little bit further away... just under a thousand light years away.
This world is about the same size and weight as the Earth and only a little hotter. The atmosphere is nitrogen and oxygen like ours. But that difference in temperature (330k vs 280k on earth) means a whole 50 degrees difference which explains why there's no oceans given the pressure is also similar to Earth. I'm also interested in the atmophere here, you can see the storms. There were more on the whole globe which I didn't get in the image. It's the sort of planet I'd love to get down to explore.
An Ice Planet we've discovered, it's just under 8 times the mass of Earth and its diameter is more than twice as large (which fits mathematically, so the density must be around the same, maybe a little under). It's in a nice system with a few metal rich planets and brown dwarfs. The atmosphere is helium (really rare on our planet, to the point of not existing, we really shouldn't be using it on kids balloons) with some hydrogen and neon. It has a beautiful ring system I'm only hinting at here, as we know by now, probably caused by a moon getting too close.
Milky Way Makes Joke
I'd actually made my post for today. But I wanted to do a little bit of exploring before turning into my bunk for the night. Things aren't as they appear. Yes, this is a gas giant. Type I, of the same family as Jupiter in our solar system. But it's only 1.25 times the mass of Earth. One point two five. Consider Jupiter is 317 times the mass of Earth. So this gas 'giant' here is only about one third of a percent the mass of our own gas giant. But the strangest thing going on here is that this gas giant is actually a moon of an ice planet that's thirty two times the mass of Earth. The Milky Way made a joke. Normally ice planets (like Europa and Ganymede and others) orbit gas giants as moons. Here we have the opposite. It's the first time I've ever even heard of something like this. I love how the Milky Way surprises me out here.
I'd actually made my post for today. But I wanted to do a little bit of exploring before turning into my bunk for the night. Things aren't as they appear. Yes, this is a gas giant. Type I, of the same family as Jupiter in our solar system. But it's only 1.25 times the mass of Earth. One point two five. Consider Jupiter is 317 times the mass of Earth. So this gas 'giant' here is only about one third of a percent the mass of our own gas giant. But the strangest thing going on here is that this gas giant is actually a moon of an ice planet that's thirty two times the mass of Earth. The Milky Way made a joke. Normally ice planets (like Europa and Ganymede and others) orbit gas giants as moons. Here we have the opposite. It's the first time I've ever even heard of something like this. I love how the Milky Way surprises me out here.
Enjoy, and if you want some more, follow me on facebook.
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