The Hill Star Map and Exoplanets

tanka418
Here is a 3d view based on the Hill map. It is from around 70 ly in the direction of Gliese 59.1

Its kind of interesting; all but 2 or 3 are "G" class stars, all are over 3 billion years, typically less than 6 billion.

Correct! Almost all the stars on the map are older than our Sun. That is one of the things a bit remarkable about it. The ages of most stars on the map were not pinned down when Marjorie Fish created her model.

Yet, they are just the age of stars one would expect to produce advanced life.

Thank you, JadeStar, for all your good work in giving us the latest information on the star map stars. There are a few interesting exceptions to the generally older stars on it.
The route connecting Zeta 2 Reticuli to Gliese 86 and Tau 1 Eridani connects the supposed home star to stars only 2.3--3.6 and 2.4 billion years old, respectively. Perhaps these star systems have been colonized from Zeta Reticuli. They appear too young for sentient life to have evolved there.
It appears that the inner habitable zone planet in the Tau Ceti system is in about the same situation as Venus, in our system. If it is to be considered habitable, it must have somehow escaped Venus' fate. How likely is that, and how might this have played out? The outer HZ planet looks to be a somewhat worse case than Mars would be in a similar situation. Its greater mass , and the reasonable possibility of a relatively thick, heat-retaining atmosphere could tip the balance in its favor, it seems.
Could there be another Earth-like planet between planets e and f? Could it be dynamically stable there? Should such an additional planet have already been detected, if it exists?
Any thoughts on the hollow oval in the original Betty Hill star map? It lies roughly midway between Tau Ceti and Gliese 86.

Ross 54
Thank you, JadeStar, for all your good work in giving us the latest information on the star map stars. There are a few interesting exceptions to the generally older stars on it.
The route connecting Zeta 2 Reticuli to Gliese 86 and Tau 1 Eridani connects the supposed home star to stars only 2.3--3.6 and 2.4 billion years old, respectively.

Correct. And you're welcome. I'm not done yet. More interesting things to come.

Perhaps these star systems have been colonized from Zeta Reticuli. They appear too young for sentient life to have evolved there.

Perhaps. One thing that perplexes me about Gliese 86 is that it contains a white dwarf companion. As you know white dwarfs are the burnt out stellar remnants from main sequence stars using up all their hydrogen and helium fuel.

So Gliese 86 would have had to have formed after the star that is now the white dwarf died for it to be so young. It makes me wonder a lot about Gliese 86 b, the Jupiter size planet around Gliese 86 and what else might exist there. It is a weird system to us, it might be just as weird to 'them'.

It appears that the inner habitable zone planet in the Tau Ceti system is in about the same situation as Venus, in our system. If it is to be considered habitable, it must have somehow escaped Venus' fate. How likely is that, and how might this have played out?

Oh, this could be the subject of a whole other post on planetary atmospheres and albedo. I blame myself for over simplifying the Habitable Zone in relation to Habitable Planets.

Venus is a hellish place because its atmospheric make up and density. In short, Venus started out with a denser atmosphere than the Earth. Which would have been excellent had it been born just a little further out from where the Earth orbits the Sun. In fact, if you could swap Venus for Mars you likely would have had two Earthlike planets in our Solar System with Mars perhaps being a third!

We in fact know of a system where this may have occurred called Gliese 667C pictured on the chart below:




So amazing, 3 habitable worlds could be orbiting in a system which is part of a 3-star "trinary" star system!!



That has given rise to some interesting sunset artwork:




So, Venus had bad luck in that its atmosphere was too dense for where it formed. Tau Ceti e is suspected of having a thinner atmosphere than Venus which would mean that unlike Venus's hellish runaway greenhouse effect, you'd have more of Tau Ceti's heat re-radiating back out into space so that the planet doesn't end up in that kind of temperature spiral and would be more like our Earth.

Tau Ceti e would of course be a little warmer than our Earth. Some speculate it could be mostly a jungle world or even a world covered almost entirely by water with a few land masses since it likely would not have large polar ice caps like we have.

The outer HZ planet looks to be a somewhat worse case than Mars would be in a similar situation. Its greater mass , and the reasonable possibility of a relatively thick, heat-retaining atmosphere could tip the balance in its favor, it seems.

It's in a better case than Mars because of its size. Tau Ceti f is larger than Mars and the Earth, it's atmosphere would be expected to be much denser than Mars which would allow it to hold more heat in.

The reason Mars is cold and dry has more to do with its size and lack of a magnetic field (which is due to size) than the orbit of it. If Mars were just a 1/3rd larger than it is then it would likely still have liquid water rivers running on its surface. Tau Ceti f while on the edge of its habitable zone would still be considered habitable because its atmosphere would be thicker than Mars. That far out though it would likely be mostly ice and snow. A bit like an arctic planet.

Could there be another Earth-like planet between planets e and f? Could it be dynamically stable there? Should such an additional planet have already been detected, if it exists?

Very good thinking! The answer is yes!

What leaps out of the data is the disproportionate gap between planets e and f. This is actually a good sign. Likely there are other planets in there which are not massive enough to be detected so far with the technique these were detected by (Radial Velocity). Planets the Earth's size and smaller are almost impossible to detect using the same technique they used to find a, b, c, d, e, and f because the noise in the data from activity on the star Tau Ceti masks them. There could easily be a habitable Earth twin with a period of 250 days. If we could directly image this system we might be in for a surprise of another system with 3 planets in the habitable zone.

Any thoughts on the hollow oval in the original Betty Hill star map? It lies roughly midway between Tau Ceti and Gliese 86.

Yes, I plan to go into what this is. I've been fascinated by some of the stars on the map that did not have lines going to them and they line up nicely with some recent Habitable Zone exoplanet discoveries.

By the way, I am now convinced that Marjorie Fish made one error on her map with one of the stars. If one takes Gliese 67 and instead substitutes Upsilon Andromeda or Ups And for short (a star with an habitable zone Jovian planet which may have habitable moons) then it makes a lot more sense and fits Betty Hill's drawing. (more on that in a later post after I walk through the rest of the stars on the map). I suspect it may be because Ups And wasn't thought to be as close as it actually is before the Hipparcos satellite (which didn't exist when Marjorie Fish made her models).


I found the match when I cross-referenced the Hill-Fish map with the PHL's HEC catalog of potentially habitable exo-moons.


Ups And just popped out right next to Gliese 67 and I was like "wow, that's awesome!"

Upsilon Andromeda is only 2.6 light years from Gliese 67 as well! That's almost half the distance between our Sun and Alpha Centauri.

Any way you rotate the map in 3-D Upsilon Andromeda works.

In case you're wondering why I'm taking so long to wrap all of this up and post the video I've been talking about.

I've been converting a crapload of data from the comma separated value (CSV) spreadsheets on the Planetary Habitability Laboratory site as well as some other catalogs like SETI Institute's observation lists from Green Bank, WV, Parkes,Australia and Arecibo, Puerto Rico plus NASA's old HRMS star list and the HabCat list to the Celestia data format (fun fun, not) so that I could visualize where the stars are in relation to each other and the Hill-Fish map.

I think I've converted something like 30,000+ star positions to Celestia data.

The more data the better right!?! Better to sift through while correlating or ruling things out.

Along the way I've been teaching myself Celestia script (the language Celestia uses for script) and it's been a little daunting at times.

Nevertheless I plan to have a hauntingly beautiful video ready to roll around Halloween (give or take a few days). Classes and a job during the day can get in the way.

JadeStar
I plan to have a hauntingly beautiful video ready to roll around Halloween (give or take a few days).

Can't wait for it. I'm sure it will be great.

reply to post by _BoneZ_


I agree BoneZ.
2nd.

reply to post by JadeStar


JadeStar, welcome to ATS.....I foresee a very knowledgeable soul, an open mind, and someone who can bring a lot to ATS.

You HAVE to put this in its own thread. Very very informative and going to be buried in this thread forever unless you release it.

reply to post by JadeStar


Great stuff Jadestar!

I'm really glad I checked back once you said you were going to be posting some info related to your thoughts re: the Hill Star Map. Both the information and the presentation of it are top-notch!

Terrific job on the science and am looking forward to seeing how you tie it in to the map and your thoughts about that and what it means.

I have some questions and thoughts of my own but will wait until you've finished presenting your info, thoughts & analysis.

LightAssassin
reply to post by JadeStar

 

JadeStar, welcome to ATS.....I foresee a very knowledgeable soul, an open mind, and someone who can bring a lot to ATS.

You HAVE to put this in its own thread. Very very informative and going to be buried in this thread forever unless you release it.

I will put it in its own thread when I post the video. I plan to edit together all of my research into a series of posts beginning with that video so it will all be good.

And thank you for the welcome to ATS!

I mentioned, and linked an image of the three dimensional context of the the Hill star map a while back. I refer to in in what follows, so I link to it again--www.ufoconspiracy.com/images/zbetty.gif
The Zeta Reticuli star system appears to be situated near the right hand wall of the applied cube, not far from the lower right corner. All the star routes extend either to the left, or away from the viewer. None reach to the right, or toward the point of view.
There are presumably Sun-like stars in those latter directions, within the same distance as the longest direct star trip, which is from Zeta 2 Reticuli to our Sun. One wonders at this. It does not seem likely to be a random occurrence, nor does appear calculated to reach the maximum number of Sun-like stars within a limited distance. Its almost as if certain directions of travel were being intentionally avoided.
I see several possible explanations for this. 1.) Zeta Reticuli could be on the edge of the territory of another civilization in space, which somehow constrains its travel in those areas. 2.) There is an actual lack of stars, or at least of Sun-like stars, in the neglected areas. 3.) We are seeing only a section of a larger chart. Other parts could cover the areas to the right, and foreground.
Any one of these possibilities is interesting in itself, but if the astrophysical explanation in 2.) can be confirmed, we would have fresh scientific data to support the validity of the map.

Ross 54
I mentioned, and linked an image of the three dimensional context of the the Hill star map a while back. I refer to in in what follows, so I link to it again--www.ufoconspiracy.com/images/zbetty.gif
The Zeta Reticuli star system appears to be situated near the right hand wall of the applied cube, not far from the lower right corner. All the star routes extend either to the left, or away from the viewer. None reach to the right, or toward the point of view.
There are presumably Sun-like stars in those latter directions, within the same distance as the longest direct star trip, which is from Zeta 2 Reticuli to our Sun. One wonders at this. It does not seem likely to be a random occurrence, nor does appear calculated to reach the maximum number of Sun-like stars within a limited distance. Its almost as if certain directions of travel were being intentionally avoided.
I see several possible explanations for this. 1.) Zeta Reticuli could be on the edge of the territory of another civilization in space, which somehow constrains its travel in those areas. 2.) There is an actual lack of stars, or at least of Sun-like stars, in the neglected areas. 3.) We are seeing only a section of a larger chart. Other parts could cover the areas to the right, and foreground.
Any one of these possibilities is interesting in itself, but if the astrophysical explanation in 2.) can be confirmed, we would have fresh scientific data to support the validity of the map.

I vote for #2 And I will explain why sometime soon.

Ross 54

I see several possible explanations for this. 1.) Zeta Reticuli could be on the edge of the territory of another civilization in space, which somehow constrains its travel in those areas. 2.) There is an actual lack of stars, or at least of Sun-like stars, in the neglected areas. 3.) We are seeing only a section of a larger chart. Other parts could cover the areas to the right, and foreground.
Any one of these possibilities is interesting in itself, but if the astrophysical explanation in 2.) can be confirmed, we would have fresh scientific data to support the validity of the map.

No, sorry, no lack of stars. Within 50ly of Sol there are over 120 "G" class stars (Sol like) The number of other classes way out numbers the "G" class.

The reality is that they have to share this space (a volume aprox 50ly around Sol) with other factions.

1. Sirian Orion Alliance (my name for them) is a larger and somewhat older faction.
2. Draconin civilization...the infamous Reptilians.

I'm planning to do a large 3D map soon, or you can go here for a crude/old map. It has all three factions on it, but is in serious need of an update.

Also, that "cube" that was drawn to "enclose" Reticulan space was just a convenience of the original author, I seriously doubt it marks the edges of any "territory". The map I believe represents the areas that Reticulan Grays travel...kind of like a "trade route".

eta: The cube also shows Zeta(s) Reticuli as being on the surface of the cube, when in fact there is a star at 67ly (or so from Earth) closer to the point of view.

And, it is far more interesting to address that which is NOT on the map. Inface in my analysis of ppular myth; it is far more interesting to note that which is absent.

tanka418

1. Sirian Orion Alliance (my name for them) is a larger and somewhat older faction.
2. Draconin civilization...the infamous Reptilians.

What hard evidence exists to supports this nonsense? I know! I know! ....None. Dude, seriously.....stop living on fantasy island. It isn't healthy.

The fact of the matter is, while life may indeed exist in many galaxies and many systems throughout the universe....up until now, we have no proof of any. Stupid Si-Fi stories about reptilians and the like are kiddie stories that you're supposed to grow out of.

reply to post by LogicalRazor


Flying craft have been depicted and written about for thousands of years. Ancient and even current civilizations believe their ancestors are from the stars.

And don't even get me started on the flying craft and other technology in the bible.

No, there may not be 100% definitive proof that aliens have visited this world, but there's enough evidence to hypothesize and suggest as much.

Oops. I meant to say I vote for 3.

There are some interesting things just off the map.

BTW: I would be highly suspect of any one claiming aliens come from Sirius, Pollux, Aldebaran or Arcturus for the same reason one would be highly suspect of claims of aliens from the Pleiades or the Orion Nebula.

There are solid reasons. Those stars either have dead star (white dwarf) companions (Sirius), too young (Pollux & the stars of the Pleiades), off the main sequence (Aldebaran is a Red Giant, Arcturus is an Orange Giant), or the left over ash of a supernova forming new stars and planets (Orion Nebula).

All of the above make "pretty pictures" (which is why contactees usually claim these places are the origin of the "space brothers" like they did with the planet Venus in the 1950s) but from an astrobiological point of view they are pretty hostile places to organic life.

I only point this out to make the distinction between these places and the places on the Hill-Fish map which upon first look are fairly boring, unremarkable stars (but exactly the kind likely to have life).

Popular stuff of myth and legend is absent from it, but what is not absent apparently are planets in habitable zones.

Could it all be the basis of a new modern myth making process? Perhaps but like I said, the closer we examine the stars on it and just off of it and in some cases the ones not labelled, the more interesting the whole area becomes.

reply to post by _BoneZ_


Actually, given the stars in this neighborhood (about 50ly) it is significantly more probable that Earth HAS been visited, as opposed to not visited. The real surprising thing is that we have not detected radio signals, nor seen any other sign of life near stars like Alpha Centauri, there are others that have significant age with no mythological life at all.

When we examine the Reticuli system we find that every star "should" be supporting life (right class and age). Some of these stars have a significant probability of supporting life somewhat more advanced than Earth. Also, there is no lack of planets either, as we have seen.

Using a "Drake like" equation we can determine how many species "should" be visiting; it works out to 10.5 as a conservative estimate.

When we begin to examine other "mythological" species and their homes the pattern started with the Reticuli system is continued and every species has a suitable home star, not just for life in general, but for the specific "kind" they are reported to be.

You should pay a bit more attention to Myth and Legend; most contain incredible truths.

reply to post by tanka418


You're preaching to the choir. Unless you replied to the wrong person.

_BoneZ_
reply to post by tanka418

 

You're preaching to the choir. Unless you replied to the wrong person.

Indeed, my bad...

Was intended for LogicalRazor.

sorry

reply to post by tanka418


It's not too late to edit your previous post.

Sorry I didn't do a bunch more stars today. I did one though, and the best stuff is yet to come.

54 Piscium
Reference
Class: G8 V ( A little cooler than our Sun)
Age: Between 6.4 billion years old
Distance from Earth: 36.1 light-years
Distance from Zeta Ret: 53 light-years
Planets: 1 Saturn sized planet
Companions: 1 brown dwarf
Debris Disk: none
Metallicity: 0.44 (metal poor compared to our Sun)

2009 Post: 54 Piscium is an orange-red main-sequence dwarf star of spectral and luminosity type K0+ V. The star may have 79 percent of Sol's mass (exoplanets.org), 86 percent of its diameter (Johnson and Wright, 1983, page 645), and 46 to 49 percent of its luminosity. With a fairly long rotational period of 48 days compared with Sol that is suggestive of greater age

The orbit of an Earth-like planet with surface water would be centered within 0.68 AU -- around the orbital distance Venus in the Solar System -- and take around 240 days (two-thirds of a year) to complete. However, the inner, eccentric orbit of a giant planetary companion "b" recently discovered around 54 Piscium would probably disturb the orbit of such an Earth-type planet.

This companion should account for the inner saturn-sized planet very eccentric orbit. This discovery may shed some light on other star's inner planets curiously eccentric orbits, as those orbits could well be the result of undetected stellar companions. The presence of an earth-like planet capable of sustaining life is considered unlikely because of the potential disruptions on the habitable zone and on this planet orbit caused by the inner planet. However, as time teaches us, we discover more and more curiosities every day.

Additional notes:

Actual image of 54 Piscium B (the brown dwarf)

I'd just add here that the orbit of 0.68 AU-0.74 within 54 Piscium would be somewhat stable according to some models so an Earthlike planet could actually be in a "sweet spot" or island of stability. I would not be surprised if this turns out to be to be the case.



That doesn't mean however that it is. It would certainly be a very odd planetary system to live in compared to ours but we've found quite a few odd planetary systems compared to ours. (Habitable planets in binary or trinary systems for example).



Things once thought to be extremely unlikely have been found to be common: ie Planets in binary star systems. The Milky Way galaxy continuously provides plenty of surprises. This is another older system compared to ours which could have advanced life. It's worth keeping an eye on for any future discoveries.

That's all for tonight. Some really good stuff is coming in the next batch of stars I examine either tomorrow or Thursday.