Ok if you read the last episode you'll know what's going on next, if not here's a summary... In order to finish his upgrades on the ship Noko requires a material known as Zirconium, and quite a lot of it! SAI has informed the crew of a recently discovered star, with unusually high levels of Zirconium, so we are now on the way there to harvest some... You'll find out how very soon!
Episode 8 Synopsis:
The ship warps into orbit around the small cloudy blue star, the clouds shimmer because of the high levels of metals. The captain is curious about how exactly Noko intends to gather the zirconium he needs from the star. Noko explains that he is reconfiguring the replicators to transport the zirconium atoms out of the atmosphere and into the reactor room. As he leaves for the reactor bay he says that he should not be disturbed. The engineer voices his concerns for allowing him to make unsupervised changes, and that he could be doing anything, the captain says that he trusts him. Shortly after the lights dim and SAI says that the reactor has been stopped and the ship is now running on stored power. The captain assures everyone that they shouldn't worry and asks SAI to scan the star, she begins to relay the information as usual to the captain, but they are interrupted by the engineer who again voices his concerns about Noko and storms out of the bridge. The captain follows him down to the reactor room, the engineer starts to bang on the locked reactor room door, demanding he be let in, ignoring the orders of the captain to calm down. The lights now brighten and SAI appears and informs them that power has returned, and energy output of the reactor has increased dramatically. The door reactor room door unlocks and Noko emerges, apologizing for the panic. He explains that the reactor itself is now capable of not only generating energy but storing enormous amounts of it, like a miniature star and that they should find a bright star to charge it. The captain obliges and asks SAI for any powerful stars nearby. SAI suggests various supergiant stars, the largest of which the captain picks. The ship's engines power up and the ship shoots off to it's next destination: VY Canis Majoris, the largest star in the galaxy.
Research:
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| Ain't it perty? |
What a stroke of look this little gem was! Here I am looking for a material for Noko's upgrades and I stumble upon a star with billions of tonnes of zirconium in it's atmosphere, and zirconium happens to be the element used to line nuclear fuel rods. So it even sort of makes sense that Noko might need the stuff! Very very happy!
This beautiful little ball is called LS IV - 14 116, it is a blue sub-dwarf meaning that it's really quite tiny... For a star at least.
What's unusual about this star is it's layer of 'clouds', which contains high amounts of metals, including an estimated 4 billion tonnes of Zirconium, 4,000 times the amount annually produced on Earth. This layer surrounds the entire star, which makes the surface impossible to see.
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