Rán

Rán, formerly known as Epsilon Eridani, is a relatively young and unstable star located ten light years from Sol. Human-directed colonization initially focused on the system's abundance of fissile material but quickly shifted attention to studying nascent life orbiting the gas giant Ægir on its habitable moon Bára.

Vesta dispatched settlers of their own to the solar system to claim it during a lull in hostilities in Sol, but after the collapse of the Vestan regime a faster ship was dispatched by the international community to arrive first, ostensibly in a show of support but in reality to stop them from reestablishing a base from which to threaten them. The ensuing tension and conflict between Vestans and other settlers has sadly defined the system ever since.

Ægir
Formerly known as Epsilon Eridani b, Ægir is a gas giant that orbits Rán at around 3.5 AU with a period of around 7.4 years, and has a mass around 1.2 times that of Jupiter. It hosts over two hundred notable natural satellites, among them the habitable world Bára, as well as a sizable hot torus of debris which is presumed to eventually accrete and cool to form new moons.

Bára
Bára is Ægir 's fourth-largest satellite, with surface gravity a fourth and mass a third that of Earth's. It is tidally locked to the gas giant and completes an orbit of it every one hundred and ninety hours, nearly eight days. The inward-looking hemisphere constantly has Ægir in its sky and from the sub-Ægiran point the gas giant appears to hang directly overhead.

Ægir's orbit is outside of what could be considered Rán's circumstellar habitable zone but Bára's thin atmosphere and small ocean are kept warm by tidal heating from the gas giant and volcanism characteristic of a young planet. Surface conditions are somewhat like those of Earth's Paleoarchean era or Mars' Early Hesperian era.

Being a young planet, Bára possesses a strong magnetic field which will weaken with time as the convection currents that power its geodynamo slow. This field interacts with Rán's strong solar wind to produce auroras that can be seen in the sky from anywhere on its surface at any time of day. Ægir's own geodynamo and powerful magnetic field shields the moon from Coronal Mass Ejections and other violent solar weather.

Other natural satellites
The three largest of Ægir's moons are the extremely volcanic Hrönn, Dúfa and Blóðughadda and besides Bára the other major satellites being Bylgja, Hevring, Himinglæva, Kolga and Unn. A general rule is that the smaller the satellite the faster it cooled after its formation and the less volcanism you'll find on its surface, with the notable exception of the small Kolga whose outward-facing hemisphere glows red from an ancient impact that has left it ringed with debris.

Contents

 * 1Name
 * 2Discovery
 * 3See also
 * 4Notes
 * 5References
 * 6External links