Gastins Star

Gastins Star is not visible from earth, being obscured by Wikipedia:Tau Ceti. First viewed 403 years ago from one of the first ZMI Deepshot vessels. Gastins Star was discovered by the ZMSF Harmony's first navigator Heny Gastin who later that day tragicly died when one of the ships internal water tanks ruptured flooding his and 3 other compartments. In his honour the name stuck. Similar to the Sun in mass and spectral type however, Gastins Star is a "metal-deficient" star and therefore was deemed unlikely to have rocky planets or usefull ore bodies around it and thus was not scheduled for a standard exploratory mission.

Given this it was not until 211 years ago that the ZMSF Yonder discovered that Gastins Star has more than ten times the amount of cometary and asteroidal material orbiting it than the Sun does. This was determined at range by measuring the disc of cold dust orbiting the star produced by collisions between such small bodies. This result seemed to put a damper on the possibility of complex life in this system, as the two planets found there by the yonders planetary passive optic detection big array would suffer from large impact events roughly ten times more frequently than Earth. On the bright side liquid water was detected on both the 1st and 2nd planet. A STL probe was launched by the Yonder on its closest aproach to gastins star (38.2 ly). On arrival the probe discovered that the closest planet to the primary now known as Gebra was a hostile sterile cratered landscape however not only did Gastins World the second planet from the primary have life but an abudunace of it in advanced forms. Gastins world life forms were found to be uniquly adaptable with a by comparison with terrestial natural evolution an amazing rate of adapation and mutation. Though for the most part non compatible for the purposes of simple agriculture gastins worlds life forms seemingly recovering from one in a long series in mass extinction events proved a unique lure. A full colony program was prepared to set up a large long term biological harvesting and research operation. The colony fleet was build and 130 years ago the ZMI colonisation fleet headed by the ZMSF Archer claimed gastins star for the company. One of the noteable heavy components of the fleet was the massive modular industrial platforms used to harvest and secure any objects deemed to be a hazard to the colony.

Observation data

Epoch J2000
Constellation Cetus
Right ascension 01h 44m 04.1s
Declination -15° 56' 14"
Apparent magnitude (V) 3.49

Characteristics

Spectral type G8 Vp
B-V color index 0.72
U-B color index 0.21
Variable type None

Astrometry

Radial velocity (Rv) -17 km/s
Proper motion (μ) RA: -1.722"/yr
Dec.: 0.854"/yr
Parallax (π) 0.27439" ± 0.00076"
Distance 221.88 ly
Absolute magnitude (MV) 5.68

Details

Mass 0.81 M☉
Radius 0.77 R☉
Luminosity 0.59 L☉
Temperature 5,380 K
Metallicity 41%
Rotation period 31 days
Age 1.0 × 1010 years