Escape Velocity: Chapter 2 – From the heart

Dan Wild

Tales from the Orion Arm: Book 3 Previous chapter Two moths entered the lecture theatre and danced near the stage lights. Dimble would now have an audience of eight, if he counted the hawk moths. A Tentacled Shrew strode anxiously into the hall, but only because she had forgotten one of her eight gloves. Two …

Alpha Centauri: Two bright princesses and a red dwarf

Dan Wild

I remember as a teenager, blinking though binoculars, excited that I could just make out Alpha Centauri as a double star. Then I borrowed a low-end refractor telescope and could more easily make out the binary nature of the pair. It was the Jesuit, Father Jean Richaud (1633-1693), who first determined the binary using his …

Cosmogony 213: Proxima Centauri

Dan Wild

Closest star to the sun. Part of a triple star system. Several trading outposts orbit Proxima Centauri, drawing their power from large arrays collecting magnetic and solar energy from Alpha Centauri A and its twin. Proxima b, a tidally locked planet capable of sustaining life, orbits this red dwarf star. Residents live in perpetual twilight. …