Cool Stuff From Kepler For Science Fiction Writers

A couple of days ago, I found a link to an interesting article on space.com.  The article/slide show focuses on the strangest alien planets found by the Kepler spacecraft/telescope.  Some of the worlds discovered could be particularly interesting for science fiction writers who want to include real science to add to the story credibility.  Here are a few examples of worlds from the slide show and how they could be used. 

• Closest planet:  Epsilon Eridani b orbits an orange sun-like star only 10.5 light years away.  Whether your story uses faster-than-light (FTL) travel, near-light-speed, or stasis, you could reference such a world as a staging area for sending ships deeper into space.  A space station or planet-side outpost coule be used.  It could also be a staging area for an aggressive species planning to invade Earth.
• A planet in Globular Cluster M4 is referenced as the oldest planet found - an estimated 8 billion years before Earth.  If you want to discuss more advanced races, an older planet is a good place to start, that way you don't have to get into debates on the speed of the evolutionary process.  They had a head start.
• Fastest planet:  at only 740,000 miles from its sun, this planet makes its orbit every 10 hours.  I honestly couldn't say how to use it, but it just seemed too interesting not to mention.
• Waterworld:  A hyperspace-hop, slipstream-skip, and warp-jump away at only 40 light years lies GJ 1214b.  Researchers believe that this planet (about 3X the size of Earth and over 6X as massive) is most likely a water world.  I shouldn't have to give the obvious suggestion that humans move to this world for the water.  It could be a good place to bring up aquatic alien life (sentient or otherwise).  But another possiblity is another staging area.  Load up on more water for consumption and/or splitting water atoms to take oxygen for life support and hydrogen for fuel.
• Dying world:  WASP-18 is another world with a fast orbit - less than one Earth day and scientists theorize it could be orbiting closer to its star and impending doom.  This could be tied to lost civilization, planetary evacuation types of stories.  Encountering ships from the survivors.
• Most Habitable:  Gliese 581 d.  Only about 20 light-years away this is apparently the world with the greatest possibility for being habitable.  It's about 8X as massive as Earth.  I googled for a bit more since I'd heard of Gliese 581 before and found similar stories about the Gliese 581 c possibly being habitable.  Note that 581c also has a quick orbit  - 13 days.  Again, obvious story-lines one could use include staging area for deeper space travel, colonization...  Consider the potential difficulty of colonizing a world with a short orbit.

Keep in mind that Kepler's mission is to search for Earth-sized/like worlds.  Some of these don't fit that description, but they're interesting nonetheless.

Best Sky Show Tonight and How It Could Be Used In A Story

All you night owls should prepare.  The Geminid meteor shower will reach its peak tonight (December 13) into early tomorrow morning (December 14).  One interesting thing about this annual phenomenon is that scientists really don't fully understand the source of the Geminids.  The source was traces to of the a strange rocky object named 3200 Phaethon that sheds very little dusty debris — not nearly enough to explain the Geminids.

One thing that could be a cool writing tie-in (and it's probably been done before in something I haven't read) is to have alien visitors land on Earth during this shower, using the shower itself to conceall their entry into our atmosphere.  Such a reference could give credibility to that part of the story. 

Keep watching the stars.  Dream and

Write On

History Channel vs. SyFy

I don't know about the rest of you, but I'm finding more and more intersting material on the History Channel than SyFy.  I'm not just talking about the change from SciFi to SyFy either.  Let's face it, the quality of shows on SyFy has been dropping and what are they replacing traditional science fiction and fantasy with?  Wrestling?  Okay, that's about as fictional as you get, but I'd file that more under the genre of violent sitcom than something for SyFy.  Actually, if I may be blunt, I'd put it in my fictional channel called WTF.

Now let's look at the shows on the History Channel.  For the sci-fi lovers there are shows like The Universe, Ancient Aliens, and one I just discovered (not on the online list) called Bad Universe (focused on scientifically plausible threats to our world, how and why - including aliens, asteroids...).  Then for the fantasy fans there's MonsterQuest, Mystery Quest, and others.  Besides, the series, there are a number of specials/movies produced.

Not only are these shows entertaining, but they often give some interesting facts/research information that could be useful in writing.  Using the television may sound like lazy person's research, but these are good, quick references for writers to review in more detail on their own.

So tune it, watch, and

Write On