Really beginning to put some thought into what I want to do with the series now has made me realise a few things that I had overlooked.
Being aimed at being quite educational I'd like to stick to facts and reality wherever it's possible. So I thought that perhaps the crew should be entirely human. Possibly picking up crew as the series progresses... That would make the exploration part feel much more believable. If we'd already found so many other species to form a galactic super-crew a huge portion of that exploration would have already been done.
It'd be like having a sailing exploration series on Earth based in the current day! There's not much left to find! So that's decision made... The crew will at least in the beginning be human.
The series will be from the point of view of humans, beginning to take our bigger steps into real space exploration. The pioneers of space exploration!
With that in mind I thought a good starting point could be an episode as the crew is leaving Earth on their expedition. We could do an episode about our own solar system, as they test their scanning equipment etc, which would give a brief summary about each of the planets and their moons.
Episode 1 Synopsis:
The team is assembled and after saying their good-byes they are ready for take off, after a final system check the crew blast off into space! To ensure all of the equipment is completely accurate the first mission is simple; to scan data from all of the planets in our solar system and gather energy for the first interstellar expedition. Along the way we find out many interesting facts about our neighboring planets and their moons, before finally with the mission complete and energy at full, the crew launch into space towards their next destination - Alpha Centauri; 5 lightyears away.
Our Solar System:
This will be a collection of information that could be used in the episode, be warned... It will be sizable:
The Sun!
Our sun is what is known as a 'Yellow Dwarf', and it's spectral class is G2V. This is a sort of ranking system for stars used in astrology; the G2 means that the surface temperature of the sun is approximately 5778 K (Kelvin), or around 5505 ˚C. The V means that it is (like most stars) a 'main sequence' star, meaning it generates it's energy via nuclear fusion of hydrogen into helium at a rate of 4,000,000 metric tonnes per second. In contrast to the relatively cool surface temperature, the temperature at the core is 15,700,000 K! The sun accounts for 99% of the total mass in our entire solar system.
As the sun is made up of plasma, it is not solid, this means that the sun rotates at different speeds at it's equator than at it's poles, the time of a rotation at it's equator is 25.6 days and 33.5 days at the poles. It is a near perfect sphere - the pole-to-pole circumference only differs from the equatorial circumference by around 10km.
We use our sun as the measurement of size for other suns so it is therefore 1 solar mass. We are located in the Milky Way galaxy approximately 26,000 lightyears from the galactic core, orbiting it at around 220km/s.
Mercury
Mercury is the closest planet to the sun with an orbit of 87.9 Earth days. The gravity on Mercury is around 0.38g relative to the gravity on Earth, which is 1g. The planet has the mass of 0.055 Earths. It has no moons.
Venus
The second planet from the sun, it orbits the sun every 224.7 Earth days. It is a relatively similar size to Earth at 0.815 the size of Earth. The surface gravity is 0.9g, which again is quite close. The average distance to the sun is 108,209,184 km. The atmospheric mass is 93 times that of Earth, meaning the surface pressure is equal to being 1km under water on Earth. The atmosphere is very rich in carbon dioxide, which traps in heat making the surface temperature actually higher than that of mercury at 460 ˚C (mercury's surface temperature varies from -220 ˚C to 420 ˚C), despite being more than twice the distance away from the sun. Venus is the second brightest object in the night sky viewed from Earth, after the moon.
Earth
The first planet in the solar system with a moon, our home planet is what we use to compare other planets, the gravity is 1g, a pound weighs a pound. The volume is 1 and the mass is 1.
Mars
The fourth planet from the sun, it has 2 moons; Deimos and Phobos. Mars is much smaller than Earth (0.151 Earths). The average distance from the sun is 227,939,130 km, a year on Mars lasts 668.8 Earth days. The surface temperature ranges from -87 ˚C to 20 ˚C. For unknown reasons the core of Mars has stopped spinning, meaning that the planet has no magnetosphere and therefore no protection against solar winds and radiation, which has boiled off almost all of Mar's atmosphere. It also means that volcanic activity has halted, making it a totally geologically dead planet.
Ceres
The only dwarf planet in the inner solar system, Ceres orbits between Jupiter and Mars. Originally considered the largest asteroid in the inner asteroid belt, it has since been discovered to be spherical and has a rocky core and outer icy mantle., and may even harbor a liquid ocean under it's icy mantle. It orbits the sun every 4.6 years.
Jupiter
The 5th planet from the sun and the largest in our solar system, and the first of our 4 outer gas giant (Jovian) planets. Jupiter's mass is 1000th that of the sun, but 2.5x the mass of every other planet in the solar system combined! Jupiter has a staggering 64 moons, 4 of which are very large; Io, Europa, Ganymede and Callisto, these are known as the Galilean moons (after their finder Galileo Galilei in 1610) the largest of these moons - Ganymede is larger than Mercury. Perhaps the most famous feature of the planet the 'great red spot' is a perpetual storm high in the atmosphere, it is big enough to fit 3 Earth sized planets inside. The gravity of Jupiter is 2.5g due to it's large mass. The average distance from the sun is 778,547,200 km, taking 4,332.59 Earth days to complete a single orbit. Although named gas giants, they do have solid cores, deep within the atmosphere under a thick layer of metallic liquid hydrogen. It is so cold on Jupiter that it rains liquid methane, cold enough to snap-freeze skin, this falls towards the core, evaporate quickly and re-enters the atmosphere as a gas.
Amazingly scientists believe that the frozen moon Europa may harbor life, although the frozen surface acts as a insulating layer allowing liquid water to exist even at such a distance from the sun, it is possible that life exists at the ocean floor around thermal vents, if that is the case it could completely change the way we see the universe and the rarity of life.
Saturn
The 6th planet in the solar system and 2nd Jovian (meaning Jupiter-like (gas giant)) planet. It is the second largest planet in the solar system. Wind speeds in the atmosphere of Saturn can reach up to 1,600 km/s, much faster than those found on Jupiter. Saturn is host to 62 known moons with stable orbits as well as hundreds of 'moonlets' within the large planetary ring. The largest of Saturn's moons; Titan is the second largest moon in the solar system after Jupiter's Ganymede, and the only one to possess a notable atmosphere. The planetary rings extend out to 120,700 km above Saturn's equator and are largely made up of ice water, some of which originates from the ice volcanos of Enceladus (another of Saturn's moons), where water erupts through the frozen surface in geysers, immediately freeze and due to the low gravity of the moon extend miles into the sky sometimes caught by Saturn's gravity. The average distance from the sun is 1,433,449,369.5 km and takes 10,759.22 Earth days to complete an orbit of the sun. The gravity on Saturn is 1.095g quite close to that of Earth despite it's size, this is because of saturns low density, which is 1/8th that of Earth. Saturn has a core composed of mostly nickel and iron, under a thick layer of metallic liquid hydrogen.
Uranus
7th planet in the solar system Uranus is the 3rd largest planet in the solar system after Jupiter and Saturn. Uranus contains much more ice (water, methane and ammonia) in its atmosphere than Jupiter and Saturn, giving it it's blue colour. Uranus has 27 moons. An interesting feature of the planet that makes it unique in our solar system is that it's poles are in-line with the direction of it's orbit (it's poles are on the sides, where most planets have their equator). The average distance from the sun is 2,876,679,082.5 km and takes 30,799.095 Earth days to orbit the sun (84.381 years). It has the coldest atmosphere in the solar system at -224 ˚C. The core consists mostly of rock and nickel, under a thick mantle of ammonia, methane and water ice.
Neptune
Neptune is the 8th and final planet in the solar system and last of the 4 gas giant planets. It is the 4th largest planet in the solar system after Jupiter, Saturn, and VERY slightly smaller than Uranus (only around 1,500 km smaller in diameter). It has 13 moons, the largest of which is Triton. Although Neptune and Uranus are near identical in many ways, they are distinguishable by the visible weather patterns of Neptune. These are driven by the highest sustained wind levels in the solar system, getting up to 2,100 km/s! Like Uranus, Neptune has a nickel and rock core underneath a very thick mantle of ammonia, methane and water ice. It is an average distance of 4,503,443,661.5 km from the Sun and takes a staggering 60,190 Earth days to orbit the sun (that's 164.79 years!)
Pluto
Originally classed as the 9th planet in the solar system Pluto has been re-categorized as a dwarf planet due to the discovery that it is part of the Kuiper Belt (the belt of debris at the edge of the solar system). Pluto is 1/3rd the size of our moon and only 1/5th the mass, hence it's reclassification. It is made up mostly of rock and ice, like most objects in the Kuiper Belt. It has an inclined orbit (it orbits diagonally around the sun compared to the 8 planets, at about 17˚), and it's eliptical shape orbit brings it temporarily closer to the sun than Neptune. Despite it's size Pluto has 4 moons, the largest of which is Charon. They are often described as a binary planetary system, because of the large relative size of Charon, it doesn't actually orbit around Pluto, rather it and Pluto orbit around a point between them (like they're dancing). Pluto ranges from over 7 million km from the sun to as close as 4.4 million km, and takes 90,613 Earth days to orbit (248.9 years).
Eris, Haumea and Makemake
Another dwarf planet of the Kuiper Belt was discovered in 2005. This dwarf planet is very close in size to Pluto and also made of rock and ice. It's orbit is farther out than Pluto and also has a much larger incline (it orbits diagonally at 44˚ around the sun). Like Pluto, Eris also orbits eliptically but does not cross the orbit of Neptune, it will however, in around 800 years be closer to the Sun than Pluto for quite some time due to the length of time their orbits take. At it's farthest distance from the sun Eris is more than 3x the distance of Pluto at it's farthest point. Eris takes 557 years to orbit the sun.
Other dwarf planets in our solar system are Haumea; an eliptically shaped object about 1/3rd the mass of Pluto in the Kuiper Belt, and Makemake; another Kuiper Belt object around 1/5th the size of Pluto. Haumea, Makeme, Eris and Pluto are now considered 'Plutoid' planets (dwarf planets beyond the orbit of Neptune).
I can't in good will bring myself to change the font to Courier as I usually do... The post would possibly block out the sun! Edit: scratch that... I did it anyway for continuity's sake. This post has taken me a very long time to compile, but I feel like there are plenty of interesting facts to pick and choose from for the episode, and probably even enough to spread into a double pilot episode.
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