Considering its inferred great age, can we expect Tau Ceti to be less active as far as sunspots go? I'd like to make a texture of it for my Tau Ceti add-on, but I don't know if it is worth the effort if it wouldn't appear significantly different from your average G-type sun.
...John...
What Does Tau Ceti look Like?
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Topic authorDollan
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What Does Tau Ceti look Like?
"To make an apple pie from scratch, you must first create the universe..."
--Carl Sagan
--Carl Sagan
Of course, we don't really know what ANY other star looks like in detail beyond the fact that some have brightness variations over their surface.
http://www.solstation.com/stars/tau-ceti.htm doesn't mention anything about sunspots... but I'd guess it probably looks similar to the Sun (a little more orange though).
http://www.solstation.com/stars/tau-ceti.htm doesn't mention anything about sunspots... but I'd guess it probably looks similar to the Sun (a little more orange though).
My Celestia page: Spica system, planetary magnitudes script, updated demo.cel, Quad system
Actually, the only star other than our own whose surface has been directly photographed is Betelgeuse, and the largest prominent convections have been regularly observed.Malenfant wrote:Of course, we don't really know what ANY other star looks like in detail beyond the fact that some have brightness variations over their surface.
http://www.solstation.com/stars/tau-ceti.htm doesn't mention anything about sunspots... but I'd guess it probably looks similar to the Sun (a little more orange though).
To human eyes, things would appear just slightly more yellowish (more like late afternoon on Earth). It's also a smaller star than our own, so any habitable world will be a little bit closer. It's still one of the best candidates for habitability in our local neighbourhood of stars, along with Eta Eridani and the primary stars of the Alpha Centauri star system.
d.m.f.
There IS such a thing as a stupid question, but it's not the question first asked. It's the question repeated when the answer has already been given. -d.m.f.
d.m.falk wrote:Actually, the only star other than our own whose surface has been directly photographed is Betelgeuse, and the largest prominent convections have been regularly observed.Malenfant wrote:Of course, we don't really know what ANY other star looks like in detail beyond the fact that some have brightness variations over their surface.
That's actually the one I was thinking of when I mentioned the brightness variations

My Celestia page: Spica system, planetary magnitudes script, updated demo.cel, Quad system