"'I was taught that giant stars, able to become supernovae, do not have [planets].'
"'Well, they is still scratching their heads to account for Betelgeuse,' van Rijn remarked." (p. 666)
In other words, Poul Anderson wrote about Betelgeuse having many planets, then learned that it should not have had any. Van Rijn's remark is an effective incorporation of this new knowledge into the Technic History. Scientists are always scratching their heads about currently inexplicable phenomena.
Elsewhere in the Technic History, David Falkayn discovers that, although Beta Centauri should not have had any planets, it had captured an entire rogue planetary system. Until Falkayn made this discovery, the inhabitants of that system had a perfect hiding place. No one would look for them there.
3 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
And there might be actual, real world cases of stars having planets when theory says they should not!
Happy New Year! Sean
Current understanding is that planets form just fine around large stars, but such stars change their brightness fairly quickly by the standards of geologic time, so the planets would be very unlikely to have advanced life. To become habitable such planets would need terraforming as in "A Sun Invisible" and in (the revised versions only?) of stories mentioning inhabited planets orbiting Betelgeuse.
Kaor, Jim!
I noticed that in the revised version of "Honorable Enemies."
Happy New Year! Sean
Post a Comment