Vega?

Hello All: I need some help on an astronomy matter: If memory serves, there is
supposed to be a belt of planetoid orbiting the star Vega. Can anyone confirm
this? Also, who controls Vega in the the Tuffelyverse, if anyone?

> At 12:12 AM 6/23/99 -0500, you wrote:

Well, no one actually "officially" controls Vega in the Tuffleyverse, but
you'll meet a *whole bunch* of K'rathri in that sector of space...

> Hello All:

If you're asking "what do we in the Real World know about the Vega system", I
can't see how anyone could detect planetoids there. Planetoid would tend to be
evenly distributed and therefore would have no net gravitational effect, even
if our instruments were sensitive enough to pick up the shifts from bodies
that small. Make up what you like.

> Hello All:

Mark,

It is plausible that many, if not most, stars have planetoids orbiting them.
But do we have hard evidence of this yet? Or for Vega specifically? Not that I
am aware of (but it's not like I have my finger on the pulse of the
astronomy world or anything ;-). As for as detecting extrasolar planets
about other stars, I suggest you check out the following URL:

   http://www.physics.sfsu.edu/~gmarcy/planetsearch/planetsearch.html

This is probably the best page out there for extrasolar planets info (there
may be others, but I haven't had time to track them down yet). You will note,
if you click on the image at the top of this page, the smallest detected
planet about another star is a mere 0.44 times the mass of Jupiter (51Peg)
- a shade larger than my definition of a 'planetoid' ;-)

Also, be careful how you define 'belt'. See also my 'exposition' on asteroids
from about a year and a half ago)~Jan '98). I can repost it if people *really*
want.

As for who 'controls' Vega....Lord Nyrath will probably have that answer.;)

Mk

So I looked through the astro databases. Vega has a LARGE dust disk around it.
Its quite warm (70 K) and its absolutely huge. Its been detected out to 140
Astronomical Units! (Ok, its not an Oort cloud sized object but its still 3
times larger then the orbit of Pluto.)

The one thing about Vega is its an A0V (actually its the canonical A0V) which
means its about 100 times brighter then the sun has a surface temperature of
around 10,000K. This means its quite a bit warmer and therefore its
"habitable" zone (defined as the volume of space where the amount of light is
about the same as we receive from the sun here on earth) is bigger. However,
all that dust will absorb the light from the star, which is probably why it is
so warm. Quite possibly the top and bottom of the disk will be inhabitlable
but the middle will be dark and dusty (<achoo>).

cheers

> Brad Holden wrote:

        OK, It's a dust cloud rather than an "belt" of asteriod-type
objects. Sorry.