Delta Vega

[Pauln6]

There are lots of unknown variables such as the speed of Vulcan's orbit around T'Khut, the speed of T'Khut's orbit around the Vulcan sun, and how these relative orbits would affect Vulcan's climate, particularly temperature, and daylight with a thin atmosphere. Can gas giants exist within a star's habitable hot zone or would the solar wind burn them down to their rocky core? I think calling Vulcan a moon is the least of its problems!

Andor is also a moon but its icy temperature seems a bit more realistic, at least from what we know about our own solar system.

 

[Brandonv]

Can gas giants exist within a star's habitable hot zone or would the solar wind burn them down to their rocky core?

We actually have one real life example of a gas giant in a star's habitable zone. 55 Cancri f (Wikipedia). Not to mention all the "hot Jupiters" that have been discovered, which show that gas giants can be very close to a star.

As for Vulcan being referred to as a planet, maybe in the 23rd century an object with a certain minimum mass is called a planet, regardless of what type of body it orbits. Yeah, I know, I'm grasping at straws here.

 

[Crazy Eddie]

Yet it makes no sense to refer to Vulcan as "planet Vulcan" if it's in fact a moon of a gas giant. You wouldn't hear anyone refer to Titan as "planet Titan".

I can't recall how often it is actually called "the planet Vulcan," instead of just "Vulcan." It's never referred to as a moon or a dwarf planet, of course, but then neither is Andor (which is clearly a moon of a larger planet).

As for Vulcan being referred to as a planet, maybe in the 23rd century an object with a certain minimum mass is called a planet, regardless of what type of body it orbits. Yeah, I know, I'm grasping at straws here.

If their home world is a moon, there's no reason to assume the Vulcan definition of "planet" would be in any way similar to the human definition. They would have spent almost their entire history being well aware that other worlds exist in the heavens and never having misidentified them as mere "wandering stars" until the advent of telescopes. In this case, the Vulcan word commonly translated as "planet" would mean literally "solid spherical celestial object" while another word translated as "gas giant" would mean "liquid/gaseous spherical celestial object."

 

[Set Harth]

Where is all this T'Khut stuff coming from.

AFAIK:

http://img1.fantasticfiction.co.uk/images/n1/n8764.jpg

[Hotlinked image converted to link. Images posted inline should be hosted on web space belonging to you. - M']

 

[M'Sharak]

Where is all this T'Khut stuff coming from.

AFAIK:

http://img1.fantasticfiction.co.uk/images/n1/n8764.jpg

[Hotlinked image converted to link. Images posted inline should be hosted on web space belonging to you. - M']

Please be sure in the future that images posted inline are hosted on a Photobucket or similar account registered to you. See here for TrekBBS guidelines concerning the posting of images.

 

[Captain Rob]

Does anyone suppose that in the 23rg century that Pluto's a planet again?

 

[M'Sharak]

It was less than 80 years from its discovery to the time it got demoted the first time. There's time for Pluto's status to change back and forth two or three times between now and the 23rd century.

 

[Pauln6]

Can gas giants exist within a star's habitable hot zone or would the solar wind burn them down to their rocky core?

We actually have one real life example of a gas giant in a star's habitable zone. 55 Cancri f (Wikipedia). Not to mention all the "hot Jupiters" that have been discovered, which show that gas giants can be very close to a star.

That's interesting. And, while I think the plot makes far more sense if Delta Vega is in a neighbourijng system, if its orbit kept T'Khut between it and the star for much of the year it could stay very icy while remaining close to the desert world of Vulcan. Still that doesn't readily explain why Vulcan doesn't have widely varying seasons but maybe it does and we've just never seen them - if there is little moisture in the air we'd just have a freezing cold desert without any snow to give us a visual clue of the cold.

 

[Crazy Eddie]

Can gas giants exist within a star's habitable hot zone or would the solar wind burn them down to their rocky core?

We actually have one real life example of a gas giant in a star's habitable zone. 55 Cancri f (Wikipedia). Not to mention all the "hot Jupiters" that have been discovered, which show that gas giants can be very close to a star.

That's interesting. And, while I think the plot makes far more sense if Delta Vega is in a neighbourijng system, if its orbit kept T'Khut between it and the star for much of the year it could stay very icy while remaining close to the desert world of Vulcan. Still that doesn't readily explain why Vulcan doesn't have widely varying seasons but maybe it does and we've just never seen them - if there is little moisture in the air we'd just have a freezing cold desert without any snow to give us a visual clue of the cold.

It might not really matter, since a planet's climate has alot more to do with its composition and atmosphere than the amount of sunlight it gets. Again, Venus-Earth as an example: Venus is very similar to Earth in terms of size and density and is still--theoretically--inside the habitable zone. It's a flaming wasteland, however, because of has a heat-absorbing atmosphere of sulfuric acid and a whole host of other nasty things. It also has a very slow retrograde rotation (it's day is actually longer than its year) and a non-existing magnetic field so the atmosphere is directly exposed to solar winds.

Delta-Vega could likewise be an ice planet if its core was cold and inactive and its atmosphere had an unusually low amount of carbon dioxide (that plus an unusually thick o-zone layer could account for the planet having a thriving ecosystem and yet still be frozen over). On the other hand, we don't know for sure that Delta-Vega IS an ice planet. Kirk might have just landed near the south polar region of what is otherwise a very lovely planet.

 

[Timo]

Or on a high plateau covered in glaciers - perhaps a prime location for Starfleet's antenna farm?

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Timo]

There are lots of unknown variables such as the speed of Vulcan's orbit around T'Khut, the speed of T'Khut's orbit around the Vulcan sun, and how these relative orbits would affect Vulcan's climate, particularly temperature, and daylight with a thin atmosphere.

It might be interesting to speculate that the Romulans chose their star system of exile on the basis of it being maximally similar to their home system. That is, the orbital layout glimpsed in ST:NEM for Romulus and Remus might be a close approximation of the situation in the Vulcan system, just with the "twin planet" possessing no moons of note.

http://movies.trekcore.com/gallery/albums/tmphd/tmphd0167.jpg

A gas giant? Or a big rocky world pockmarked with craters, not all that different from Remus? It doesn't seem as if the artist tried to do a gas planet there - the surface looks vaguely Martian in style instead. Or something out of the TOS menagerie of "Class M" worlds...

Timo Saloniemi