Celestia Forums

Hi everyone!
First of all, I'm new to this forum and I'd like to apologize for any mistake I make with my english, as it's not my native language.
I've rendered an artistic, but yet based on some scientific information, view of the Rigel Kentaurus System (Alpha Centauri).
Astronomers say there may be only a few small rocky planets in the system and that's what I mainly tried to do. Of course I added a bit of fantasy.

The first noticeable thing we see in our approach to the system is a big gas giant. It haven't been detected through radial velocity because it doesn't orbits Rigel Kentaurus A neither Rigel Kentaurus B. The planet orbits the common center of mass in the system, at a distance of about 50 astronomical units.



The planet is not alone in this dark and cold place. It's got two misterious companions around it.



Our main target now is Rigel Kentaurus A, which's got some interesting planets and moons to be explored.
In the outer part of the system we find a frozen and foggy rocky sphere and it's moon.



As we go deeper in the system, we bump into exactly what we were looking for. A very special binary system of planets.



The ocean planet's mass is enough that the barycenter of the system lies outside the barren planet's body.
Right now, a huge storm is happening on the south ocean's warm water of the blue planet.



We desperately drive into the planet's atmosphere, searching for life. We find lots of animals and plants to be catalogued. Even though the mission was successful, we didn't find inteligent life, which would have been a lot of luck to find so next to our home planet. To end our journey, we stare at the barren planet from in the ocean one and delight ourselves with a beautiful view.







Well, that's it. If you liked these pictures and want to explore the rest of the planets and moons yourself, you can download the full addon HERE.




See ya!
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StarLight wrote:The planet orbits the common center of mass in the system, at a distance of about 50 light-years.

I know your add-on is fictional, but putting this planet at a distance of 50 light years from the system centre of mass also puts it further from Rigel Kentaurus than hundreds of other stars, and far outside the system's Hill sphere.

Hungry4info wrote:I know your add-on is fictional, but putting this planet at a distance of 50 light years from the system centre of mass also puts it further from Rigel Kentaurus than hundreds of other stars, and far outside the system's Hill sphere.

I'm sorry for that. I just used the wrong term while writting the post.
A mistake that has already been corrected. The addon is correct, with the planet orbiting at 50 AU's, not LY's.

Thanks for showing me that, as I didn't even notice it.

Very nice. I like the look of the second one...it actually looks cold!

-M-

Thanks!