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Astrometrics/Stellar Cartography
Welcome to the Astrometrics lab for the USS Katana!
Here you will find information on Planetary classes and stellar phenomena.
Stellar Phenomenon
Below is a glossary of all known Stellar Phenomenon to date.
GALACTIC PHENOMENA:
The sub-headings below are representative of different types of phenomena encountered in the Home Galaxy.
ASTEROID BELT – A toroidal zone around a star, usually at a distance where physical law predicts a planet. The zone contains a large amount of stony or metallic debris, ranging in size from microscopic to lunar.
BLUE STRAGGLERS – Hot, massive, bright blue stars found in the cores of a few globular clusters, stragglers are
formed by the head-on collision of two red giant stars.
The increase of mass and fresh hydrogen mixture from the envelope into the new star’s core causes the star to behave like
an extremely massive young star, no matter the age of its progenitors.
CLUSTERS:
Star Clusters – groupings of stars that are not just coincidentally close to one another. Stars in a cluster share some common
characteristics, such as origin, galactic velocity and so forth.
GLOBULAR CLUSTER – A globular cluster is a very densely packed grouping of several hundred thousand stars,
generally Population I.
Globular clusters define the spherical “halo” of the Home galaxy. These clusters are almost gas- and dust free.
OPEN CLUSTER – An open cluster is a relatively loose association of several hundred stars, generally Population II.
The cluster is usually found in or near a spiral arm of the galactic disk.
Open clusters presumably consist of stars formed from the same nebula at the same time. Such clusters are often associated
with such nebulas or their remnants. These clusters played an important role in determining the intragalactic distance scale in
pre-spaceflight times.
GALAXY:
A galaxy is any of innumerable large groupings of stars, typically containing millions to hundreds of billions of stars.
GALACTIC CORE – The core of the Home Galaxy is formed from a supermassive globular cluster of stars. Interesting phenomena have been observed or postulated near the geometrical centre, including:
An energy barrier similar to the one surrounding the entire galaxy
An intense radio source (Sag A)
A black hole massing several million Sols
The so-called “Great Annihilator”
No official expedition has successfully reached the galactic core, though an unofficial one did so in the 23rd century. Sporadic communication with races in that area existed in the 24th century.
GALACTIC DISK – Consists of stars and matter orbiting in a plane around the galactic core. A large part of the mass and almost all the visible matter of the Home Galaxy exists in this relatively thin disk.
GALACTIC HALO – The halo is a spherical volume containing all the Home Galaxy mass. Most visible matter in the halo outside the galactic disk consists of globular clusters.
EDGE OF THE GALAXY – While the Home Galaxy does not have a visually definable “edge,” the existence of an ‘edge’ phenomenon, an energy barrier, was demonstrated in the 23rd century by a ship attempting to penetrate the edge nearest Federation space. Exploration vertical to the disk plane demonstrates that this barrier does not exist above or below the disk to a distance of several hundred parsecs. Theories postulate that the barrier is spherical and surrounds the galactic halo. The exact nature of the energy barrier is not known.
SPIRAL ARM – The spiral arms in many galaxies are the visual traces of a gravitational density wave passage caused by a large number of very young, bright and massive stars lacking in the more settled regions of the galaxy.
Contrary to popular belief, the overall numerical density of stellar objects in spiral arms is not significantly greater than in the less spectacular part of the disk.
MATTER:
The sub-headings below list some of the more exotic forms of matter encountered by previous starship expeditions.
DARK – So called “dark” matter is not really darker than other matter; the phrase refers simply to unobserved galactic mass. During the late 20th century, evidence indicated that the Home Galaxy mass was considerably more than could be accounted for by observation.
DEGENERATE MATTER – exists under temperatures and density conditions such that the Pauli exclusion principle prevent the formation of electron shells around the matter’s atomic nuclei. Such degenerate matter is found in white dwarf stars and in the cores of some ordinary stars and planets. Degenerate matter is usually incredibly dense. A single teaspoonful would weigh tonnes.
NEGATIVE MATTER – First postulated by the 20th century author E.E. Smith, no reliable observation of negative matter has ever been reported. Unlike antimatter, negative matter has negative gravitons and repels ordinary matter. Upon contact, the matters would cancel each other out without the release of energy.
ANTI-MATTER – is similar to ordinary matter except that its atoms are composed of positrons orbiting about
anti-proton and anti-neutron nuclei. Physical properties are indistinguishable from ordinary matter. When the two types meet,
they convert one another into pure energy. The ability to construct antimatter, developed in the 21st century, made interstellar
flight possible.
Also called “Contraterrene” or “Seetee” (CT) matter (archaic).
DYSON SPHERE – is an artificially constructed sphere surrounding a star. Creation of such a sphere is beyond current Federation technology, but one such sphere has actually been discovered and visited by a Federation ship.
Infrared signatures presumed to belong to several such spheres have been observed in Federation Astronomical surveys. The canonical Dyson Sphere would have an internal surface area many times the total surface area of all the Federation inhabited planets.
QUANTUM FILAMENT – is a closed loop of twisted space, of fractal dimensionality, with interesting and unpredictable associated physical effects. Unlike cosmic strings, quantum filaments do not pose major dangers. However, starship encounters with a filament are to be avoided. They are presumably generated in supernovas.
NEBULA – is a region of space in which interstellar matter density is significantly higher than average. Nebulas may result from stellar explosions or from “pile-up” due to passage of gravitational density waves.
NEUTRINO:
A neutrino is a light, chargeless atomic particle.
NEUTRINO DEFICIT – The “neutrino deficit” is the intermittent lack of solar neutrinos, presumably produced in stellar-core nuclear fusion, demonstrated to early 21st century astronomers that stars operate in a mode of dynamic rather than static stability.
NEUTRINO DETECTOR – The neutrino, produced in many nuclear reactions, interacts weakly with other particles. It serves as an ideal tool for detecting, observing and measuring many phenomena whose electromagnetic emissions would be shielded by intervening matter. Massive, cumbersome and unreliable neutrino detectors were available as early as the late 1960s. The first practical detector was developed as a side effect of warp drive.
PANSPERMIA THEORY – is a theory, originally proposed in the 19th century by the Swedish botanist Svante Arrhenius, hypothesizing that life is carried planet to planet by spores. Otto Struve in the 1950s proposed a variation suggesting that life may be carried planet to planet by intelligent, though not necessarily intentional, intervention.
PROTO-UNIVERSE – events are hypothetical events describing phenomena associated with universe creation in a parallel universe that obtrude into this universe Such phenomena include severe space-time distortions, energy released and the formation of new matter. This may be the source of the “white hole” phenomenon.
PULSAR – A pulsar is a rabidly rotating neutron star of non-uniform surface luminosity. When the area of maximum luminosity comes into view during rotation, the star apparently emits an electromagnetic ‘pulse’. Pulsars are prized for their navigational utility.
QUASI-STELLAR OBJECT (QSO) – A quasar is an intense and unexplained source of electromagnetic and neutrino radiation, invariably observed at a great distance from the Home Galaxy. One theory proposes that quasars are black holes of galactic mass in the process of absorbing the galaxies that gave them birth.
ROCHE’S LIMIT – Is the distance beyond which a relatively massive and fluid satellite must orbit its primary to avoid being torn apart by tidal stresses.
STELLAR FUSION IGNITION – When the self-gravitational force of a gas cloud overcomes its natural tendency to dissipate, the cloud begins collapsing. This increases gas pressure, and in turn gas temperature. The temperature of a massive cloud will be enough to trigger nuclear burning in the core.
INTERSTELLAR or COSMIC STRINGS – Cosmic strings are extremely long gossamers of
extraordinarily dense material, possibly left over from the asymmetrical forces of creation. Interstellar or cosmic strings are
not “superstrings,” which are simply one physical model used to describe subnuclear phenomena. Nor should they be
confused with the similar but relatively innocuous “quantum filaments.”
Cosmic strings were postulated in the 1970s. Lennox Cowie and Esther Hu observed the first cosmic string in the late 1980s.
SUBSPACE:
Subspace is the “state” in which a starship travels from point to point at warp speeds.
Subspace is not completely divorced from normal space. Stars are visible from a ship in warp drive. They do seem to
“flow” past the ship, even when the ship is not travelling far or fast enough to justify such an effect by normal-space rules.
Subspace has its own rules, including its own “speed limit” similar to the lightspeed limit in normal Einstein space.
SUBSPACE ANOMALIES – While subspace appears to be much more uniform in nature than normal space,
hypotheses offer that there are occasional variations in its properties which could have very strange and perhaps undesirable
effects on a ship in warp drive.
The occasional appearance of an unstable wormhole and observation data on warp field malfunctions support this theory.
SUBSPACE VORTEX – One of many types of subspace anomalies, of which little is yet known. Vortices seem to be relatively stable in size, position and effect, and to have no correspondence with anything in normal space at the same location. They are detectable as an uneven flow of energy through subspace. Proximity to a vortex while in warp can cause damage to the warp drive coils due to sudden chances in the warp field permeability.
ENTROPY:
Entropy is a measure of any system’s disorganization, usually defined as the total number of accessible quantum states as
weighted by their relative accessibility. The second law of thermodynamics states that as a closed system moves toward the
future, its entropy cannot decrease.
TIME’S ARROW – This is a colloquial term for entropy, expressing its use as a means of distinguishing between past and future through the second law of thermodynamics.
HOLES IN SPACE-TIME:
Areas where space-time is discontinuous are known as “holes.”
BLACK HOLE – A black hole is an object with an “escape velocity” greater than the speed of light. Black holes
range from the microscopic to galactic in size.
Originally postulated by LaPlace in the 18th century and mathematically described by Zwicky and Oppenheimer in the
1930s, the first black hole (Cygnus X-1) was observed in the mid – 1970s. The first galactic sized black hole (M87) was
seen in the late 1970s.
Tidal forces and subspace stress near black holes of stellar mass can be extreme. When matter “falls into” a black hole,
short-wave radiation is produced and subspace stresses may intensify erratically.
Also called “Collapsar.”
WHITE HOLE – is the opposite of a black hole: a hypothetical entity from which radiation and matter are emitted, apparently originating from nothingness. This may be linked to the hypothetical “proto-universe.” (Why not the other end of the black holes?
WORMHOLE – is a spatial discontinuity connecting two mutually remote areas of space. The generating mechanism is
not known, but unstable wormholes do appear without apparent cause, as well as being occasionally created by
malfunctioning warp drives.
Recent discoveries in the Bajoran system indicate that stable wormholes can be artificially generated, though the process is
not available to Federation technology.
QUASAROIDS – are small objects with energy emission spectre similar to quasars. Their heavy radiation output makes them difficult to approach for study. Their origin is unknown, but it has been suggested that they may be stabilized white holes or artificial objects produced by an advanced civilization. Quasaroids often have very high velocity relative to nearby stars.
VARIABLE STARS:
A variable star changes in rightness over time. These fluctuations are usually caused by expansion and contraction of the star
itself.
Periodic variables are stars whose brightness varies on a predictable schedule. Irregular variables, as their name implies, do
not vary in any predictable manner.
BLUE VARIABLES – are unstable, extremely massive blue giant stars with very short lifespans.
CEPHEID VARIABLES – are pulsating, highly luminescent stars. These play an important role in determining the
extragalactic distance scale since their periods are very strongly correlated with their absolute luminosities.
