Alpha Centauri - help needed!

[Alexa]

Jo, I have a nice space photo you can use for inspiration.

 

[Jo Zebedee]

What Vertigo says. We know so little. You have a fair bit of leeway.

Of course, if you want an excuse for why the planet's never been detected, it might be in a dust cloud (there has been speculation of dense interplanetary dust in that system).

Sadly, I already gone and used that one in Abendau

 

[Parson]

View attachment 38097

Well this looks like the setting for a more SF and less comic book version of Wonder Woman.

 

[Brian G Turner]

Sadly, I already gone and used that one in Abendau

Alpha Centauri almost certainly has planets - the more we search space, the more we find planetary systems around stars are the norm. The great unknowns are simply the sizes, orbits, and compositions of such planets.

 

[SilentRoamer]

Alpha Centauri almost certainly has planets - the more we search space, the more we find planetary systems around stars are the norm. The great unknowns are simply the sizes, orbits, and compositions of such planets.

Yeah I gotta agree with our overlord. I suspect it is actually far less likely for there to be a star in existence without planets - although I still expect these to be numerous given the statistical values we are working with.

At the least I would expect most star formation to blow out the lighter gases and form orbiting gas giants - at least with the composition of modern stars - them being all light and Hydrogen-y.

 

[Ursa major]

I need two possible planets

What you need is a disclaimer:

"No rocky exoplanets were observed in the creation of this book."​

 

[hej]

I need two possible planets - one Earth-like - within Space Opera levels of conceiveability of proximity to Earth.

The two planets need to either share a system or be close enough to make a spatial war possible.

I'm happy to handwavium the travel between planets. So, without getting too technical, is there any reason that Alpha Centauri AB/Proxima couldn't provide the two planets needed?

Also - are there any other systems I should be looking at?

I have no idea about specific systems. I regularly read about astronomy but have not read up much on exoplanets.

You may find the following links helpful.

Terrestrial planet - Wikipedia
List of nearest terrestrial exoplanet candidates - Wikipedia
and also,
Earth analog - Wikipedia
Exoplanet - Wikipedia

 

[Justin Swanton]

If you want realism it's probably better to avoid red dwarfs. The planets in their goldilocks zones will almost certainly be tidally locked and that poses huge problems for life. But, heck, science fiction isn't all that much about the science...

 

[Danny McG]

It's science fiction, not science realism. Give it a thousand planets that constantly jockey for orbit space. Give it just one planet but have it made out of chewing gum. It's your story.

Tbh those 'hard' sci fi books with plausible physics and lots of little equations and drawings get on my nerves, too much info.

I'm currently reading a spy thriller and hero is in a car chase, I do not expect to turn the page to find a detailed explanation of the internal combustion engine with cutaway images.

Some people enjoy deeply detailed sci fi like that, I prefer the plot moving along instead of zoning me out.

 

[Mirannan]

If you want realism it's probably better to avoid red dwarfs. The planets in their goldilocks zones will almost certainly be tidally locked and that poses huge problems for life. But, heck, science fiction isn't all that much about the science...

Quite. But that doesn't apply to Earth-sized moons of gas giants in the Goldilocks zone of a red dwarf. Admittedly, in a case like that the day length would be fairly long - but they wouldn't be tide locked to the sun.