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Space & Astronomy

Astronomers discover real-life planet Vulcan

By T.K. Randall
September 20, 2018 · Comment icon 3 comments

There really is a planet Vulcan... sort of. Image Credit: CC BY-SA 2.0 Gage Skidmore
The new planet is located in the same star system as Spock's home world in the 'Star Trek' universe.
Situated a mere 16 light years away, the planet, which is twice the size of the Earth, orbits a star known as 40 Eridani A which happens to have strong ties to the popular science fiction franchise.

Its significance stems from the work of British author James Blish who in 1968 declared in his book Star Trek 2 that 40 Eridani A is the star around which the planet Vulcan orbits.

Legendary Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry later doubled down on this idea in the 1990s when he wrote that the Erdiani system would be the ideal place for Spock's home world.
"Presumably, Vulcan orbits the primary star, an orange main-sequence dwarf of spectral type K1... Two companion stars - a 9th magnitude white dwarf and an 11th magnitude red dwarf - orbit each other about 400 astronomical units from the primary," he wrote.

"They would gleam brilliantly in the Vulcan sky."

The planet itself, which is the closest super-Earth that orbits a Sun-like star, was picked up by the Dharma Endowment Foundation Telescope (DEFT) in Arizona.

"Spock served on the starship Enterprise, whose mission was to seek out strange new worlds, a mission shared by the Dharma Planet Survey," said study co-leader Gregory Henry.

Source: Tech Times | Comments (3)




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Recent comments on this story
Comment icon #1 Posted by Timothy 6 years ago
Congrats to Dharma Planet Survey, the article says that this is the first ‘Super Earth’ they’ve found. Pretty close, apparently visible to the naked eye too. A little more here: http://news.ufl.edu/articles/2018/09/exploring-strange-new-worlds-star-trek-planet-vulcan-found.php The enthusiastic homage to Star Trek is good also.  Edit: My bad, should be obvious, but, please live long and prosper. 
Comment icon #2 Posted by HorusonofRah 6 years ago
Oh it's one of those
Comment icon #3 Posted by paperdyer 6 years ago
It's a shame that Leonard & Gene aren't around to here the news.


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