# Science Fiction Planets **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [August 7, 2000, 8:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/science-fiction-planets/28465 "2000-08-07T20:36:18Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Jimpy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/c68b51/32.png) [@Jimpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jimpy)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2000, 8:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/science-fiction-planets/28465/1 "2000-08-07T20:36:18Z")
A couple of days ago scientists announced they found a planet orbiting Epsilon Eridani, the star which Babylon 5 orbits (the scientists left off the Babylon 5 part). Last August, scientists announced they discoverd a planet orbiting 40 Eridani, the planet that Vulcan orbits (the scientists most certainly mentioned this, Star Trek rates higher than Babylon 5, I guess). NOTE- I am aware of the fact that these are gas giant planets that have been discovered. My question is, are any other science fiction planets orbiting real stars? Do these stars have known planets? Is there a reason why both Vulcan and Babylon 5 are in the constellation Eridanus? Could J. Michael Straczynski be copying Star Trek? Is Star Trek copying Babylon 5? What about Star Wars? Could a Star Destroyer take out a Vorlon ship? How come about a billion people have appeared in both Babylon 5 and some incarnation of Star Trek but no one from either have appeared in Star Wars? How come when I type “Babylon 5” unless I do it slowly it comes out “Babyon 5”? I got an “A” in typing about a billion years ago didn’t I? Why don’t I have this problem with Star Trek or Star Wars? Or Battlestar Gallactica? Are they ever going to make the Battlestar Gallactica movie they’ve been talking about for years? And speaking of movies, did Lucas put a cute 5 year old girl in Episode II as a Jedi trainee just to appeal to the young kids? Is she Episode II’s Jar Jar Binks, so to speak? And what about Men in Black 2, is that still on schedule? And are any of the stars mentioned in the first MIB real stars? Are there any other science fiction planets orbitng real stars? ---
**Author:** ![jasonb94](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/71e660/32.png) [@jasonb94](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jasonb94)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2000, 8:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/science-fiction-planets/28465/2 "2000-08-07T20:48:34Z")
Wow, looks like someone oughta lay off the rock! 😉 ---
**Author:** ![TampaFlyer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/71e660/32.png) [@TampaFlyer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TampaFlyer)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2000, 9:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/science-fiction-planets/28465/3 "2000-08-07T21:00:04Z")
Jar Jar will be back in Episode 2, that much I know. ---
**Author:** ![BlockHead](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/aca169/32.png) [@BlockHead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BlockHead)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2000, 9:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/science-fiction-planets/28465/4 "2000-08-07T21:05:03Z")
Yes. Yes. Yes. Possibly. No. What about it? Yes. They did. Because you didn’t type the “L”. No. They don’t need an “L”. Maybe 2 L’s are easier for you to type. No. We’ll see. Possibly. Yes. Yes. Yes. ---
**Author:** ![kanicbird](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/5f8ce5/32.png) [@kanicbird](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kanicbird)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2000, 9:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/science-fiction-planets/28465/5 "2000-08-07T21:33:17Z")
shouldn’t this be in MPSIMS??? ---
**Author:** ![Derleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Derleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Derleth)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2000, 9:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/science-fiction-planets/28465/6 "2000-08-07T21:43:16Z")
Jimpy: Lay off the stimulants. Your mind is going way too fast. k2dave: Jimpy actually had a decent GQ question before his tangents caught up with him. I truly hope his suspicions are unfounded, that the writers of the shows used stars that were then known to be sun-type and therefore pretty likely to have at least some planets. It would be a huge black eye if the astronomers were just copying from popular shows so blatantly just to boost popularity. ---
**Author:** ![Lemur866](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lemur866/32/434_2.png) [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2000, 10:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/science-fiction-planets/28465/7 "2000-08-07T22:20:35Z")
Look, when you’re a science fiction writer and you have a nice alien planet, you often want to stick it in a plausible place. So you go to your astronomy books, and find a couple of close sun-like stars. Tau Ceti, Alpha Centauri, etc. are good ones. Bad ones would be Sirius and Procyon. Although they are very close, they are much more energetic than Sol and are pretty young stars. Even Vega is young. In general the brightest stars aren’t the best candidates since they are mostly giants. Alpha Centauri is the exception because it’s _really_ close. But the other close stars are mostly very low magnitude. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2000, 11:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/science-fiction-planets/28465/8 "2000-08-07T23:05:18Z")
Tau Ceti, mentioned by Lemur866, is the closest (about 20 ly, I believe) single G-type (the same type as the Sun) star to the Sun, and is the home of Aurora in Asimov’s robot novels, Avalon in Niven’s _The Legacy of Heorot_, and Port from the anthology series _The Fleet_, among many others. Many of the stars from Star Trek are also real, such as Wolf 359 (there was a battle there with the Borg, right?), a red dwarf in our neighborhood. Vega was the origin of the signal in the book/movie _Contact_, although, as mentioned, it’s probably too young to have a civilization. Ford Prefect and Zaphod Beeblebrox from Douglass Adams’ _Hitchhiker_ series are from Betelgeuse, and almost all of the stars mentioned in _Men in Black_ really exist. None of the stars from _Star Wars_ are known to exist, but that’s a different galaxy, and there’s very few named stars outside the Milky Way. Most of these stars, of course, have not had planets found around them yet, but no star has yet been proven to be without planets, and it’s considered likely that most stars (or at least single stars) do, and we just don’t see them. Of the stars I’ve mentioned here, the only ones easily visible to the naked eye are Vega, a first-magnitude (bright) star nearly directly overhead in the evenings, and Betelgeuse, which’ll be visible in the fall. Tau Ceti is a bit faint for the naked eye, but if conditions are good, it’s visible, and Epsilon Eridani and Alpha Centauri are both too far south to see from most of the United States. ---
**Author:** ![Cartooniverse](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cartooniverse/32/3084_2.png) [@Cartooniverse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cartooniverse)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2000, 12:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/science-fiction-planets/28465/9 "2000-08-08T00:50:48Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by TampaFlyer \* > \*\*Jar Jar will be back in Episode 2, that much I know. \*\* Small world. I MEAN, SMALL WORLD !!! How small? It’s 2:40am, in Bryant Park- behind the New York Public Library on 42nd Street. I’m enjoying what passes for an omlette, on a meal break from setting up for “Good Morning America”. My meal partner is a delightful man, a brilliant cameraman…and the father of the actor who played Jar-Jar. Yes, he’ll be back in Episode II. He’s in Aussi Land now, shooting the picture. ( I cannot call it a film, because- GRRRRR- it’s not being shot ON film !! !). Who knew?? Cartooniverse ---
**Author:** ![Cervaise](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cervaise/32/16693_2.png) [@Cervaise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cervaise)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2000, 2:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/science-fiction-planets/28465/10 "2000-08-08T02:01:17Z")
Pulling a random thread out of that tangle of tangents: _Men in Black 2_ is stalled for the forseeable future because it would be prohibitively expensive to produce. None of the principals had a sequel clause, which throws a major monkey wrench into the finances. Will Smith had signed for the original before _Independence Day_ went through the roof; his asking price is much higher now. Ditto, to a lesser extent, for Tommy Lee Jones. It was also a semi-breakthrough for director Barry Sonnenfeld, whose biggest movie prior to _MiB_ was _The Addams Family._ Spielberg gets his cut as executive producer. You gotta figure on at least seven or eight mil for the screenplay, too (original draft plus a dozen mercenaries for uncredited polishing). All in all, you’re looking at seventy or eighty million above the line, easy, before you even get into the shoot, let alone post, which for a special-effects-heavy flick like this will doubtless flirt with nine figures all told. The total makes this not a good gamble for any production. Wow. A whole lot of information only peripherally related to a throwaway aside in the OP. Not totally a hijack, but close. ---
**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2000, 2:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/science-fiction-planets/28465/11 "2000-08-08T02:06:18Z")
Paul Theroux wrote in _The Great Railway Bazaar_, as he was riding a train through Malaysia, his impression of the place names he was passing: **"Names like science fiction planets: Tanah, Bidor, Klang."** ---
**Author:** ![Gunslinger](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/4491bb/32.png) [@Gunslinger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gunslinger)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2000, 2:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/science-fiction-planets/28465/12 "2000-08-08T02:32:04Z")
Vulcan was around _looong_ before Star Trek–the original planet Vulcan was “discovered” back in the 1800s, orbiting closer to the sun than Mercury (hence the fire-associated name). Turns out, it didn’t exist. Oops. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2000, 6:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/science-fiction-planets/28465/13 "2000-08-08T06:30:31Z")
Gunslinger’s right, of course… Another planet was hypothesized to explain a few minor peculiarities in Mercury’s orbit, peculiarities which we now know to be due to effects from General Relativity. I was just trying to answer in a science-fiction context, as the OP was asking (or seemed to). ---
**Author:** ![Jimpy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/c68b51/32.png) [@Jimpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jimpy)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2000, 8:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/science-fiction-planets/28465/14 "2000-08-08T08:07:32Z")
Hmm, maybe I was on drugs when I posted. My reasoning was that my “question” was actually two questions, so I turned it into seventeen questions off the top of my head. But now that I am rested, it looks pretty stupid. Some random thoughts on the responses to my original random thoughts– I knew that Jar Jar Binks was in Episode II (and probably III) but George Lucas has stated that Jar Jar becomes a more powerful character, and perhaps less appealing to very young kids, so I wondered if [Phoebe Yiamkiati](http://www.starwars.com/episode-ii/cast/phoebeyiamkiati.html), who plays a jedi trainee, might be thrown in to get the youth crowd more interested. \*\*Cervaise \*\*points out some very good reasons why Men in Black 2 might not get made, except he is wrong about the price for the screenplay. Robert Gordon (best know for **Galaxy Quest** ) is writing the screenplay for MIB 2 and he isn’t all that pricey, maybe half a mil tops. Negotiations are currently underway with the major stars. Will Smith has read an early version of the screenplay and thinks it’s great. Barry Sonnenfeld hs told variety that MIB 2 is likely to be his next project after \*\*Big Trouble \*\*. The thing that could have really bogged down production, the sequal rights from the comic book creator, was included in the original contract so it’s not a problem. Right now, things look good. I actually knew tha answer to this one when I asked it. ---
**Author:** ![fredicus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/779978/32.png) [@fredicus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fredicus)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2000, 9:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/science-fiction-planets/28465/15 "2000-08-08T09:36:27Z")
Anyone remember the game Frontier ? I had the Elite2 version which had just about every star I’d ever heard of, and then some 🙂 But some these suns also planets, I can’t remember if any of them might fit( overlap ? ) into the Star Wars / Star Trek /Babylon 5 cycles. Anyone got a machine slow enough to play it ? LOL ---
**Author:** ![SPOOFE](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c5a1d2/32.png) [@SPOOFE](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SPOOFE)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2000, 9:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/science-fiction-planets/28465/16 "2000-08-08T09:52:09Z")
All I know is that the planet Tatooine really DOES orbit the double stars, Tatoo I and Tatoo II. Corellia really DOES orbit Corell. And Yavin 4 really DOES orbit the gas giant Yavin. But we won’t find out about it for another billion years, so until then, get more sugar into your diet. ---
**Author:** ![Bear\_Nenno](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bear_nenno/32/3358_2.png) [@Bear\_Nenno](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bear_Nenno)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2000, 9:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/science-fiction-planets/28465/17 "2000-08-08T09:59:16Z")
Can a planet really have two suns?? Wouldn’t it suffer from some horrible climate changes during the year? What kind of orbit would it have? ---
**Author:** ![Phobos](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Phobos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Phobos)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2000, 1:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/science-fiction-planets/28465/18 "2000-08-08T13:07:34Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Bear\_Nenno \* > \*\*Can a planet really have two suns?? Wouldn’t it suffer from some horrible climate changes during the year? What kind of orbit would it have? \*\* I think it’s possible, but rarer…finding a stable orbit would be tough. Many proto-planets would be pitched out of a mutli-star system. I suppose there may be stable orbits close to one of the stars provided the second star was distant enough. The closer the stars are to each other, the tougher it would be to find a stable orbit. As far as climates go…the planet doesn’t care. That’s more of a question for the probability of life arising/surviving there. ---
**Author:** ![Sister\_Vigilante](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9de0a6/32.png) [@Sister\_Vigilante](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sister_Vigilante)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2000, 2:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/science-fiction-planets/28465/19 "2000-08-08T14:46:01Z")
The thing about Battlestar Galactica is (for those of you who just couldn’t live without this info), Richard Hatch is gung-ho about making the next film. He even went so far as to have a “preview” filmed. He’s also written two books about the continuing adventures. He shows up at sci-fi conventions to plug all of the above. The problem with all of this is, Richard Hatch has no rights to the story. And the people who do, aren’t interested. ---
**Author:** ![Cervaise](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cervaise/32/16693_2.png) [@Cervaise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cervaise)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2000, 4:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/science-fiction-planets/28465/20 "2000-08-08T16:12:31Z")
Just a clarification, and then I’m done harping on this: > [@](#): > > he is wrong about the price for the screenplay. Robert Gordon (best know for Galaxy Quest) is writing the screenplay for MIB 2 and he isn’t all that pricey Yeah, maybe, if he were the only writer. I guarantee you they’ve got line items for rewrites, and that they total a minimum, **minimum** , of $5 mil set aside for all the hired guns they’re planning to bring in. Not a single Big Summer Movie goes before the cameras without a half-dozen writers having had a crack at it, regardless of who gets screen credit – and they all get paid. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/science-fiction-planets/28465.md?page=2)