The second leg of the Great Colonia Expedition was from Amundsen Terminal in the Lagoon Nebula to Eagle’s Landing in the Eagle Nebula, spanning from the 9th Feb to 13th Feb 3303! On the way I stopped off at the Omega Nebula and the Traikaae AA-A nebula high above the Galactic Plane, and gradually realised that I was in this for the long haul!
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I found an insane system on my travels!! It contains a Class V gas giant that orbits its white dwarf primary in only 15 minutes, and passes through the jet of the WD! Its orbital distance from the WD is 0.4 ls, so close that it cannot actually be reached using supercruise (the WD drops the ship out of SC about 2 ls out). There is also a nearby M V companion star a few ls away. As an aside, there is an unusually high number of Carbon Star systems around this location too.
The planet is so close to the WD that (a) it is within the WD’s Roche Limit and should have been torn apart to form a ring system and (b) orbits faster than the WD’s rotation period (which itself is only 16 minutes) and therefore is spiralling in to the WD anyway due to tidal forces. The system is also 7.8 billion years old – how the gas giant continues to survive, how it got into its current orbit around the WD, and how the WD and its planet both got so close to the M V star after the end of the WD’s former red giant phase are all deep mysteries!
The System Name is BLAA PHOE NC-D D12-230, and it should already be in the 3D map of the latest version of EDDiscovery (under the name “Death Spiral”). Check it out, CMDRs! 🙂
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20 second timelapse video: |
15 minute full video (with music in the first half): |
Here is the Exploration Log (i.e. screenshot gallery) of the first leg of my Great Colonia Expedition, which I’m currently working on in my Elite Dangerous Exploration streams! This covers the somewhat roundabout journey the Bubble to the Orion Molecular Complex (yes, that’s in the other direction from Colonia – I took the scenic route!) and then turning around and eventually arriving at Amundsen Terminal at the Lagoon Nebula for some much-needed rest and repairs!
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