Planet designations

[the_Brainz]

I hate to butt in, however I am currently working on a Stargate book in my spare time (since I am a writer), and I am trying to find someone with a knowledge of how the planet desginations in Stargate work. Most planets have a P3X prefix, and the way in which they are structured leads me to believe that perhaps the P stands for "planet", the 3 is the order from its star, and the X followed by the numbers is the designation of the star.

This would appear to be a reasonable assumption, and is perhaps reinforced by the occasional differing designations. For example, P3A prefixes could indicate a different type of star to the P3X -- however, this being the case, why not use standard star prefixes? For example, the Earth would then become P3-G1-001 or whatever. This could be simplified simply by stating that the sun is a G-type star, and not that it's a G1 (am I wrong? I have a nagging feeling it's a G2...) Then the Earth would become P3-G001, Mars would become P4-G001 and so on. However, then the "PB" designation crops up, and I wonder whether this theory is anywhere near right. Perhaps B is another type of star, and there is only one planet...

Does anyone have an alternate theory, or comments on this one? In case you are wondering, no, I am not writing this book for money; it's a side project. In fact, it isn't technically a book since I didn't want to spend too much time on it -- it's a novella. That aside, any information on the planetary designation system, or a link that could point me to a helpful resource, would be very much appreciated. So far I have had every question but this one answered -- most of which I didn't need answered or knew already.

Thankz

DAnS

 

[SGPflughaupt]

In the early episodes they made the remark that the designations were based on the locations on a codec found on Abydos that they good most of the coordinations from. I dont know how that translates to the locations they have found using other sources in later eps, though.

 

[markpud]

Wow that is a good question, I had sometimes wondered about the designations myself... I hope that the system they use is consistant, I know on some shows that kind of detail can go out of the window, and it could become random. I've a feeling the attention to detail in SG-1 will ensure that this is not the case.

Anyway I'll be keeping my eyes peeled for the "canon" explanation of this one

 

[muzungu]

The sun is a G2 type star. X isn't a star type unless they are using a system different to current astronomers (stellar types range from O to M) and B could simply indicate that the planet is orbiting a binary system.

 

[the_Brainz]

That's the problem...

Hey, that B==binary could really solve a problem there! Of course, it's all still speculation, but it's certainly not implausible. The fact that they use Xs and Cs for stars (assuming this designation is correct, which it probably isn't) indicates that either, as you say, they do not use standard astrometric (is that the word?) convention...or, on the other hand, that the X and C don't designate star types. SGPflughaupt mentioned that the designations are based on some kind of codec discovered with the stargate and, if this is the case, the letters could be something altogether more technical -- heck, maybe it actually refers to the stargate itself. Perhaps the people who created the gate system had the stargate Type A, B, C and D, but Daniel misinterpreted the D as an X

One question though...you say that stellar types range from O to M. Forgive me if I'm missing something, but doesn't O come after M? Even if you meant M to O, that only gives you M, N and O. What happened to G? I admit I'm a little confused...

 

[muzungu]

I apologise when i said that stellar clasiffication went from Oto M, what i meant was

O=Blue-violet
B=Blue-white
A=White (Sirius, Vega)
F=Yellow-white
G=yellow (Sun)
K=Orange
M=Rea-orange (Betelgeuse, part of Orion)

Each spectral class is further sudivided into 10, with 0 as the hottest and 9 as the coolest.

 

[the_Brainz]

Perhaps we can make something of this...

Ah, excellent -- now that we have that to work from, I wonder if anything can be made of it? For example, what is the most likely star that an "M-class" planet would orbit? (Is M-class an actual designation also, or did Star Trek make it up? I have a feeling it actually is a designation, but then if it's also the designation of a star, that could cause a problem...)

Judging from the appearance of the planets on Stargate, looking at the sky and sun in particular, most of them look like they probably orbit G1, G2 or G3 type stars (well duh, coz it's filmed on Earth maybe?)...but how easy is it to tell -- would an F5 star look any different from a planet orbiting at 90 million km, to a G2 type star from a planet orbiting at 150 million? At least, without them actually showing us a fairly close view of the sun, and looking quite carefully? Perhaps you could answer this muzungu?

Still, if the P3X etc is a planet-star designation, I have to wonder exactly how it works. And something that doesn't exactly support this idea is that the code is written P3X-456, not P3-X456 as you might expect if my theory were correct. Oh well...

 

[muzungu]

To answer your question about M-class planets orbiting different stars at different distances. First I would like to point out that the term M-class planet is fiction, at present there is no specific system for labeling planets becaus up until now few have been observed outside the solar system. To answer your question, yes an F5 star would look different to a G2 star no matter what the size of the orbit, the main difference would be in the colour of light emitted and also the fraction of higher energy radiation emitted. Also i'm not quite sure whether a human viable planet could orbit any tiype of sar (i'm assuming that M-type planets are habitable). For example type M stars are generally giant stars near the end of their lifecycle (ie last few 100 million years) and as such life would have little time to evolve on the planet, as the star would have changed in size dramatically and thus would be emitting a vastly differnt amount of energy to when it was a normal size. Also O type stars emmit large amounts of UV radiation because they 'burn brighter', and so life would have to be much more resiliant to radiation than on Earth. However i will attempt to find out.

 

[the_Brainz]

Hmm

Once again, thanks for the info muzungu. I would assume, this being the case, that most planets with stargates orbit G-type stars in the 1 to 3 spectra sub-ranges -- or at least, from all the planets we have seen this would appear to be the general rule. We could probably extrapolate from this that, since there are probably stargates on most worlds that support life similar to our own, M-class planets are nearly always orbiting stars similar to Sol. This, of course, may be something of a fallacy in reality, for I am sure that at the right distance a planet could orbit several different types of stars and still be quite capable of supporting life, however as far as Stargate is concerned the law is M-class planet == G-class star. The reason for this is obvious from a production standpoint.

This being the case, and since we have seen PB, PC and PA planets, all of which look like they have G-type stars, we must assume that my nice theory was wrong, and the A, B, C and X does not refer to a star type. Any suggestions? I am still not quite willing to give up my idea that the P stands for planet though -- it just seems too convenient.

Just a note on the side; you assume that all M-class planets can support life, however this is the definition of an M-class planet. A planet with a similar mass and composition to the Earth, orbiting a G2 type star at 149 million kilometres is almost certain to be M-class; you probably realise this, but I just wanted to be sure in case.

One last thing, since you say that the "M-class" designation is fictitious. This designation comes from Star Trek, and subsequently I would prefer not to use it for two reasons: firstly it's plagiarism, and secondly M is already a star type. I would prefer to use E, for Earth, which makes more sense anyway. So, an E-class planet is one that supports life. I hope you won't object.

Although...funny thing is I have a sneaking suspicion that I heard Carter call an Earth-like planet an M-class...maybe she watches too much Star Trek

 

[muzungu]

To answer your original question, I think that the planet codes are based on a similar system to the one that exsists today for recording celestial objects. If you want to find out more you could try the following link, to The NASA Astrophysics Data System. http://adswww.harvard.edu/

 

[Koala]

In one of the earliest episodes (perhaps even the first) Carter states that the codes are the binary representation of the gate address. I haven't been able to break it down any further. Yet. At first I was thinkthing that the P3 indicated "planet 3" or Earth as the origin. Clearly the later use of numbers other than 3 would disprove that. Unless it fits into an algorithm to take into account the stellar drift. Maybe the point of origin had to be compensated by whatever the differences are between the 3 and whatever other number is used.

Maybe finding some means of laying out the numbers in binary and cross referencing them with the 39 glyphs would help solve it. We'd have to watch the episodes, write down the glyphs used (in order) and compare it to the numeric representation.

Then again, it might just be that the writes randomly assigned the numbers by rolling dice. That's probably closer to the real answer.

 

[CynVision]

Originally posted by muzungu
Also O type stars emmit large amounts of UV radiation because they 'burn brighter', and so life would have to be much more resiliant to radiation than on Earth. However i will attempt to find out.

They play with this bit of science on a few episodes. IIRC, sometimes they blame it on the lack of ozone in the atmosphere and sometimes the star. One show where it was a major plot point was in "the First Commandment." We Tauri just don't know how blessed our world is to have an ozone layer protecting us from our unstable sun star.

One of the times they played with the brightness of the sun star had to be "Cold Lazarus." It was wickedly bright there. It is a bit funny that the show didn't play more with stuff like this. There are ways to "grade" the footage in post and remove colors. Farscape is one show that had tried this early on in their first season. Unless the tricks used to grade film are just too costly...

 

[PTeppic]

Is it likely that only planets with a certain tolerance of oxone, atmosphere, "soil" composition, vegetation etc. will produce a lifeform that is recognisably humanoid, or, support a transported-in human population?

Now, we know this is what the Goa'uld do - in fact the majority of human-based life out there appears to be either controlled or long-lost Goa'uld "seeded" planets. Perhaps the Tollan are just a population who genetically tended to learn and develop quickly?

Anyway, we know that above is what the Goa'uld did/do - and they use the gates. So - the high-value-naquaddah question: "why did the gate-builders put their gates where they did?"

Was it because there was life there at some time? Could they predict the actual or future hospitability of the planet for future colonisation? Did they have cross-time viewing or travelling? Did they have populations there, which are now long lost?

 

[CynVision]

I feel like the guys put them everywhere there was something of interest or value. We get a lot of references that the planet a MALP is sent to didn't have a breatheable atmosphere. The SGC is concentrating on oxy worlds, I think, mostly on a low cost basis. Low cost to not have to suit up to visit, and maybe be stuck somewhere running out of air... I don't feel the stargate builders had this limitation and in the future the SGC will get around to visiting more of the non-oxy planets. Surely exporing them would go better with a smarter, more mobile MALP.

I think the builders just put the 'gates where they could. The more you have the most useful the system.

 

[PTeppic]

The episodes where they do have to suit-up there is a good reason for doing so - e.g. Message in a Bottle there was an EM emission from the Orb...

 

[shu_hunter]

you guys are talking about y the stargates are where they are... don't forget a stargate can be moved to a different planet. also some planets were terraformed.
the goa'uld could've moved some stargates to wherever it was convenient for them. the ones that weren't particularly habitable, they could terraformed or the problem compensated for(UV shield s1 "the first commandment").
just a thought.

~Shu Hunter
:upto: stargate fan{atic}