ALIEN: The Weyland-Yutani Report (S.D. Perry, 160 pages)

[gold]

One last thought, that website that says Calpamos is 117,000km in diameter, is that canon/confirmed...accurate whatever it's called. The diameter of Calpamos was never mentioned in the CMFM or WYR? I should buy these 2 books already...

As SM mentioned, Calpamos' size is pointed out in the USCM Tech Manual (the book refers to it as "Zeta 2 IV", the 4th planet in the Zeta 2 Reticuli system), but I don't remember the exact number off the top of my head. I can check it in a little bit, though.

Seriously? The diameter is in there? Please find it. Thx Gold for the link I will check too if I can find it.

Sorry for the delay.

Page 137 of the CMTM says Calpamos is "a Jovian supergiant - a brown dwarf protostar - notable for its relatively low albedo and a well developed ring system. Zeta 2 IV has a mass of 1.899 x 10^25 metric tons (approx. 10 Jovian masses) and an equatorial diameter of 306,400 km".

Awesome. Whoever wrote or gave him that info for the CMTM back in 1996 did a great job! They really did their research.

Exactly what I found in my research too. That really is a Jovian Super Giant - borderline brown dwarf protostar with a 306,400km diameter or approx. 2.2x the diameter of Jupiter. Not sure about the Mass, I'm just talking about the size.

Thx for the info this clears a whole lot and a 12100km sized moon or moons make much more sense now. Great stuff.

It could be because the CMTM was written in I think 1997.  In September of 1996 a discovery was made of a hot jupiter type planet around ζ2 due to observed radial velocity shifts of the star, (The purported planet had a mass of .27 Jupiter, and a 18.9 day orbit, and was 0.14 - 0.55 au from the star, which would mean human perceptible day and night cycle with very bright daylight.) But the discovery was quickly retracted as the signal was shown to be caused by pulsations of the star itself.

Now we know that ζ2 (which is pretty much identical to our sun (99% of the mass, 90% of the size)) has a debris field around it, but it's asymmetric in shape and we know ζ2 isn't what's making it asymmetric. It is probably a planet. So if they want to be accurate, canon writers should take that into account. The perturbing planet can have a mass no greater than twice that of Jupiter and is orbiting with a periastron (clostest distance to ζ2) around 150−250 AU from the star (250 times the distance between our sun and Earth). That means it's 3-5 times further away than Pluto is from our sun.

Pluto at the surface has as much light at noon as we have on Earth just after sunset. This hypothetical planets' available light would range from night/starlit to pitch black. The fact that we are talking about a hypothetical  S/2039 (HD20807 IV) 2 or moon of the planet would mean it's just a tiny bit brighter as the planet itself would reflect light onto the moon (albeit with a low albedo like the CMTM stated way back in the 90's)

Whoever's writing the canon for these movies should take that into account (if they want to be that accurate). But the fact that the ACMTM got it so close is amazing and speaks volumes of the knowledge or researching ability of whoever wrote it. To realise a jovian gasgiant so far out of ζ2, calling out the low albedo, etc. It's surprisingly accurate research.

OT: It reminds me of the depths of Dan Aykroyd's research in 1982 before he wrote Ghostbusters with all that equipment and technobabble. esp that genuine article: "On the quantum mechanics of anomalous phenomena" he based it all on.

[Nostromo]

Now we know that ζ2 (which is pretty much identical to our sun (99% of the mass, 90% of the size)) has a debris field around it, but it's asymmetric in shape and we know ζ2 isn't what's making it asymmetric. It is probably a planet. So if they want to be accurate, canon writers should take that into account. The perturbing planet can have a mass no greater than twice that of Jupiter and is orbiting with a periastron (clostest distance to ζ2) around 150−250 AU from the star (250 times the distance between our sun and Earth). That means it's 3-5 times further away than Pluto is from our sun.

Hi Gold, so you're saying that a planet is causing an assymetric debris field around the host star (ζ2)? And that planet is located around 150−250 AU away from ζ2? Am I correct?

You are not talking about Calpamos concerning this, right? I read somewhere that Calpamos is situated right after ζ2's habitable zone. Would you happen to know if they've discoevered such huge Jovian Super Giants in this zone yet?

I will go check.



CT Cha b gas giant is the same size as Calpamos

[gold]

Now we know that ζ2 (which is pretty much identical to our sun (99% of the mass, 90% of the size)) has a debris field around it, but it's asymmetric in shape and we know ζ2 isn't what's making it asymmetric. It is probably a planet. So if they want to be accurate, canon writers should take that into account. The perturbing planet can have a mass no greater than twice that of Jupiter and is orbiting with a periastron (clostest distance to ζ2) around 150−250 AU from the star (250 times the distance between our sun and Earth). That means it's 3-5 times further away than Pluto is from our sun.

Hi Gold, so you're saying that a planet is causing an assymetric debris field around the host star (ζ2)? And that planet is located around 150−250 AU away from ζ2? Am I correct?

You are not talking about Calpamos concerning this, right? I read somewhere that Calpamos is situated right after ζ2's habitable zone. Would you happen to know if they've discoevered such huge Jovian Super Giants in this zone yet?

I will go check.

Yes, and no.

There is no planet of any significant size (that we can see) within a habitable zone of ζ2. The star simply does not wobble enough to indicate sizeable planets.

There is however a debris disk which until 10 years ago was thought to lie within a few AU (so was considered an asteroid belt like disk). Since 2011 we know it lies much further out, (~100 AU) and is more like a Kuiper belt.

The disk is however not symmetrical and this is theorised to be caused by a planet way out (say 150-250 AU, so outside the disk).

It is possible that the disk is deformed by a body much closer in than 150-250 AU, (a brown dwarf at around 15-20 AU). A brown dwarf is the same size as Jupiter but around 80x its mass.

So there is no planet (that we can tell) within 15-20 AU of ζ2.

PS: Visible surface light appears as a moonlit night at around 75-200 AU out from a sun like star (also depending on the albedo (reflectivity) of nearby objects (planets, moons, etc)).

[Local Trouble]

If any source, anywhere, bothered to acknowledge how "impossible" a planet that small is, then we wouldn't be having this conversation. A throwaway line where someone says "yeah, tiny LV-426 is made of absurdly-dense Unobtanium, that's why we mine there", literally anything.

Ah, I get it.  It's not that you can't suspend disbelief and accept it, it's that it hasn't been lampshaded to your satisfaction.  So if the WYR had made a passing reference to the oddity of LV-426's gravity for its size and then redacted a portion of the following text, would that have been enough for you?

And I appreciate your suggestion, but I'm already familiar with Solaris.  I just wish more people were.

[Nostromo]

Now we know that ζ2 (which is pretty much identical to our sun (99% of the mass, 90% of the size)) has a debris field around it, but it's asymmetric in shape and we know ζ2 isn't what's making it asymmetric. It is probably a planet. So if they want to be accurate, canon writers should take that into account. The perturbing planet can have a mass no greater than twice that of Jupiter and is orbiting with a periastron (clostest distance to ζ2) around 150−250 AU from the star (250 times the distance between our sun and Earth). That means it's 3-5 times further away than Pluto is from our sun.

Hi Gold, so you're saying that a planet is causing an assymetric debris field around the host star (ζ2)? And that planet is located around 150−250 AU away from ζ2? Am I correct?

You are not talking about Calpamos concerning this, right? I read somewhere that Calpamos is situated right after ζ2's habitable zone. Would you happen to know if they've discoevered such huge Jovian Super Giants in this zone yet?

I will go check.

Yes, and no.

There is no planet of any significant size (that we can see) within a habitable zone of ζ2. The star simply does not wobble enough to indicate sizeable planets.

There is however a debris disk which until 10 years ago was thought to lie within a few AU (so was considered an asteroid belt like disk). Since 2011 we know it lies much further out, (~100 AU) and was more like a Kuiper belt.

The disk is however not symmetrical and this is theorised to be caused by a planet way out (say 150-250 AU, so outside the disk).

It is possible that the disk is deformed by a body much closer in than 150-250 AU, (a brown dwarf at around 15-20 AU). A brown dwarf is the same size as Jupiter but around 80x its mass.

So there is no planet (that we can tell) within 15-20 AU of ζ2.

PS: Visible surface light appears as a moonlit night at around 75-200 AU out from a sun like star (also depending on the albedo (reflectivity) of nearby objects (planets, moons, etc)).

No, I meant has there ever been a gas giant of Calpamos's size or say 1.5-2.25x the size of Jupiter discovered just outside any star's habitatble zone. See that list I put also. And honestly, I would bury the debris field subject, unless you think it causes conflictions with Calpamos's location, because it's going to cause confusion.

[Local Trouble]

I'm so glad this thread has turned into an astrophysics discussion.

[𝔗𝔥𝔢 𝔈𝔦𝔤𝔥𝔱𝔥 𝔓𝔞𝔰𝔰𝔢𝔫𝔤𝔢𝔯]

F'king hell... 

Somebody, take the professor in the back and plug him into the hyperdrive.

[gold]

CT Cha b gas giant is the same size as Calpamos

Yes, but that's around a completely different star. It orbits CT Chamaeleontis in the constellation Chamaeleon and lies 13 times further out than ζ2 in Reticulum. EDIT: whoops, I missed this that you wrote: "No, I meant has there ever been a gas giant of Calpamos's size or say 1.5-2.25x the size of Jupiter discovered just outside any star's habitatble zone. See that list I put also"

F'king hell... 

Somebody, take the professor in the back and plug him into the hyperdrive.

I like these discussions If you're going to write canon, might as well do someresearch And you'd be surprised how often fan sites get looked up by scriptwriters for verification, etc.

[Nostromo]

CT Cha b gas giant is the same size as Calpamos

Yes, but that's around a completely different star. It orbits CT Chamaeleontis in the constellation Chamaeleon and lies 13 times further out than ζ2 in Reticulum.

lol eighth passenger, yea it's somewhere else, just nice to see how big it is compared to Jupiter and Earth. If LV-426 is really 12100km or just about as big as Earth than you can visualize it's size compared to Calpamos.

[Local Trouble]

Somebody, take the professor in the back and plug him into the hyperdrive.

Well said. 

I like these discussions If you're going to write canon, might as well do someresearch And you'd be surprised how often fan sites get looked up by scriptwriters for verification, etc.

I wouldn't have been surprised if Perry herself checked this thread from time to time...until now.  Good job, guys.

[gold]

CT Cha b gas giant is the same size as Calpamos

Yes, but that's around a completely different star. It orbits CT Chamaeleontis in the constellation Chamaeleon and lies 13 times further out than ζ2 in Reticulum.

lol eighth passenger, yea it's somewhere else, just nice to see how big it is compared to Jupiter and Earth. If LV-426 is really 12100km or just about as big as Earth than you can visualize it's size compared to Calpamos.

https://s15.postimg.org/x00rotxln/17_09_2016_4_34_06_PM.jpg

My apologies, yes you are right. But I agree, the level of precision evident in something like the CMTM or WYR is so high that a value of 1200km diameter for the moon is ridiculous. It doesn't fit in terms of the precision of the rest. I think it's why the ACMTM corrected it to 12000 km.

Somebody, take the professor in the back and plug him into the hyperdrive.

Well said. 

I like these discussions If you're going to write canon, might as well do someresearch And you'd be surprised how often fan sites get looked up by scriptwriters for verification, etc.

I wouldn't have been surprised if Perry herself checked this thread from time to time...until now.  Good job, guys.

Ok, ok I'll stop. Just wanted people to know what's out around that particular star.

[Local Trouble]

You're welcome to start a new thread.  Maybe a kindly mod could even split the posts.

[SM]

It could be because the CMTM was written in I think 1997.

It was published in mid 1995.

[Local Trouble]

It could be because the CMTM was written in I think 1997.

It was published in mid 1995.

How does Fox regard it?

[SM]

Maybe not the final word on marine hardware, but as close as you'll get, and more than anyone could want.