Errr.... this has got to be a bug, right?
http://i.imgur.com/FIXAtJ0.jpg
Red Giant, 0.2969 solar masses, 0.5 solar radius.
http://i.imgur.com/FIXAtJ0.jpg
Red Giant, 0.2969 solar masses, 0.5 solar radius.
Tiny Red Giant
- Thread starter bartmoss
- Start date
It's certainly odd. M subgiants (that's an M7 IVB) are rare as hen's teeth in my experience, and they should be heavier - certainly a star of that mass should not be evolving off the main sequence at that age. It could be that the luminosity class is being assigned based on some arbitrary set of rules and the star is being called a subgiant when really it's just slightly on the large side for its mass, but in no way a traditional evolving subgiant. I haven't been able to pin down the exact rules for luminosity classes, although there are some clear trends.
The stars which have evolved to K giants are much heavier at that age - slightly over 1 solar mass IIRR - and I've had very little luck finding any stars intermediate between the main sequence and the giants.
(If you look at an HR diagram for the handplaced stars in Elite, and compare it to the proc-gen ones, the proc-gen fall into nice narrow curves whereas the real ones are messier with broad stripes.)
In my ship's log file (link in sig) there's another couple of these, with IIRR similar stats.
The stars which have evolved to K giants are much heavier at that age - slightly over 1 solar mass IIRR - and I've had very little luck finding any stars intermediate between the main sequence and the giants.
(If you look at an HR diagram for the handplaced stars in Elite, and compare it to the proc-gen ones, the proc-gen fall into nice narrow curves whereas the real ones are messier with broad stripes.)
In my ship's log file (link in sig) there's another couple of these, with IIRR similar stats.
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Ahh, the famous Bonsai Red Giant. Very rare. I have one in a box on my dashboard 
Yup, probably a bug. The stellar Forge is good, but not perfect.
Yup, probably a bug. The stellar Forge is good, but not perfect.
That it does, but for that stage the radius should be much bigger. 0.3 solar masses is at the very bottom of the mass range for such a star but even there the radius should be tens of solar radii.
Sorry to hijack, but I have a similar find this morning and wondered bug or not.
1st, I arrived to this:
http://imgur.com/5MFSZiJ
Got kicked out due to transaction error. Logged back in to this:
http://imgur.com/SG61Phd
and figured I may as well scan.
Started making my way to the third body and it didn't scan....whoever heard of a sun that won't scan at 200ls? By the time I hit 20ls I was going real slow in fear of a weird bug that that would suddenly rain havoc on my poor ship. But then, around the 2.5ls mark...
http://imgur.com/jc4sZ7k
The basic part of the ADS evidently kicked in and 'discovered' the sun and then the DSS kicked in to do it's thing.
Result:
M class sun with a solar mass of 0.2695 and a radius of 0.4307
http://imgur.com/D5Un2pb
1st, I arrived to this:
http://imgur.com/5MFSZiJ
Got kicked out due to transaction error. Logged back in to this:
http://imgur.com/SG61Phd
and figured I may as well scan.
Started making my way to the third body and it didn't scan....whoever heard of a sun that won't scan at 200ls? By the time I hit 20ls I was going real slow in fear of a weird bug that that would suddenly rain havoc on my poor ship. But then, around the 2.5ls mark...
http://imgur.com/jc4sZ7k
The basic part of the ADS evidently kicked in and 'discovered' the sun and then the DSS kicked in to do it's thing.
Result:
M class sun with a solar mass of 0.2695 and a radius of 0.4307
http://imgur.com/D5Un2pb
Of course stars are notoriously able to both burn AND fade away at the same time. "Solar radius" (according to Wikipedia) is the distance where optical depth equals 2/3rds. I take that as meaning that enough light is transmitted through the sun outside that distance to make it possible to measure the passage of planets "behind" it. For example, when Mercury can be observed behind the sun, one would think the planet has passed the outer edge of the solar disc.
In case of red giants, a large volume of the star is pretty thinly populated with actual star material. That would make measuring star radius in nominal solar radii (695700 km) somewhat theoretical. In-game it may mean we are technically well inside the star when we fly close to it to observe it (well, to scoop from it).
S
Thing with these stars is that their masses are too low for them to be evolving up the giant branch - stars with masses in this range won't leave the main sequence until many times longer than the current age of the universe.
Even if the radii are either artificially low (i.e. bugged, in the same way that Herbig Ae/Be radii are bugged) or are deliberately low to represent a thin outer layer (I'm sceptical; there are overwhelming numbers of giants out there with more appropriate radii) these are Things That Should Not Be.
Even if the radii are either artificially low (i.e. bugged, in the same way that Herbig Ae/Be radii are bugged) or are deliberately low to represent a thin outer layer (I'm sceptical; there are overwhelming numbers of giants out there with more appropriate radii) these are Things That Should Not Be.
