Lost Souls 2 Act 3 – Waypoint 7
14 Feb 2020Plait’s Supernova Remnant
System name
Distance to waypoint
3,347.0LY
Description
PSNR is an hourglass shaped supernova remnant, or planetary nebula respectively, glowing intensely in blue and bright green hues. The glow comes from the hard radiation output of the remnant’s central neutron star. The neutron star has an astonishing 2.3 solar masses and is orbited by a number of landable planets. The closest one is nearly 1,500 ls away, though, not enough for scenic tours on its surface. The planetary nebula is named after 21th century astronomer Phil Plait, who contributed heavily to opening up astronomy as a popular science for millions of fans and amateur astronomers. It is unclear, why he was named the ‘Bad Astronomer’, the reason presumably having been lost over the centuries. But as he would have put it: “The name stuck.”
Expedition Base Camp
The base camp for this waypoint will be Surface signal: Geological [38] on planet 3A in the Clookao PY-S B23-1 system.
POI’s Along the Way
Gatehouse Nebula – Positioned directly above an easy crossing point to the Orion-Cygnus Arm from the core regions and 650LY above the Galactic Plane, this large nebula (80 x 110 x 80LY) both marks the crossing point and provides a good view of the approach to the core and the spiral arms beyond. Whether it is watching more the approach from the core or protecting it from foes approaching from the spiral arms is anyone’s guess! It is not devoid of life itself, housing an Ammonia World that requires some determination to reach, being more than half a million LS from the jump-in point (EODGOSLY TL-S C5-3 C5). There is also an Earth-like World just outside the nebula, its ‘Sentry’ in a sense (EODGOSLY BY-O C7-0 C3).
V1343 Aquilae – V1343 Aquilae is a so-called microquasar and consists of a central black hole of appr. 16 solar masses and an orbiting A-type star.
The central black hole (named SS 433) consumes the companion star which rapidly loses mass into an accretion disc formed around the SS 433. The accretion disc is subject to extreme heating as it spirals into the primary and this heating causes the accretion disc to give off intense X-rays and opposing jets of hot hydrogen along the axis of rotation, above and below the plane of the accretion disc.