Btw one minor nit :

There would be a double planet orbiting the A component of 70 Ophiuchi (known as Ophiuchus Alpha and Beta, respective to size),

I’m not sure that works because Alpha and Beta are the Bayer nmae designations for stars as you may already know – Alpha Ophiuchi is the white giant (A5 III) type star also known as Rasalhague with Beta Ophiuchi being a pulsating orange giant (K2 III) star.

As Kaler notes (article linked to my name here) the component stars get tagged A & B (upper case) and presumably by current convention the hypothetical planet(s) would get lower case letters b, c, d, e, etc .. Which, of course, would change once Humans live on them as worlds but I doubt that they’d use ‘Alpha’ and Beta’ for them.

For Whatever little Its Worth, My suggestion for planet names – & naturally its ultimately entirely up to you – would be to use some of the astronomers who once suspected third planets (presently unconfirmed at best, refuted outright at worst) existed in the 70 Ophiuchi system. To quote from an article I wrote years ago :

The controversy began in 1842 with J.H. Madler the first to note deviation from Keplerian motion. (Robert Burnham Jnr., 1978.) One of the earliest report on these suspected dark companions caused a kerfuffle leading the collapse of the career of one of the participants. Excitement reached a peak in 1899, when American astronomer T.J.J. See proclaimed that; ” .. certain apparent irregularities in the orbital motion of .. 70 Ophiuchi were explained by the companion having a massive dark satellite moving about it in a 36-year period.” (Ashbrook,1984.) This report was attacked by a mathematical astronomer named Moulton in a paper which showed that such a system would be highly unstable and could not exist. Consequently See ” .. wrote an ill-considered letter to the Astronomical Journal that led to his life-long disbarment as a contributor.” (Ashbrook,1984.) This affair was a major factor in the destruction of See’s life, he later suffered a nervous breakdown, and his eventual fate was to remain trapped until his death in the ruins of his career. (Ashbrook, 1984.)
This episode was not the end of the speculation over a third component to Seventy Ophiuchi for since Madler’s initial finding many others – including W.S. Jacob in 1855 and T. Lewis in 1906 have reported anomalies in the orbit. Despite attempts to cast doubt on the measurements by Dr Strand in 1937 this puzzle refuses to die. A study of astrometric plates carried out in 1943 revealed “.. indications of a 17-year perturbation with an amplitude of about 0.015″; the mass of the assumed third body would be about 1% of the solar mass. At present it can only be said that more observations are needed to settle the question …” (Burnham, 1978.) My most recent information on this debate is that as of 1991 it was observed that “the presence of a third body in the system is suspected, possibly a planet about ten times Jupiter’s mass, but the unseen planet’s existence has not yet been confirmed.” (Motz & Nathanson, 1991.) Perhaps this is one mystery we may see resolved soon given the new revelations on extrasolar planets discovered around 51 Pegasi et al.

Thus I’d like to suggest using the names See and Madler for the binary components although See and Strand (with Madler an outer gas giant or gas dwarf perhaps?) has a certain poetic appeal to it too!

Sources : (as cited in brackets in non-italicised quote.)

Motz, Lloyd & Nathanson, Carol, ‘Constellations’, Aurum Press, 1991.
Dole, Stephen, ‘Habitable Planets for Man’, Rand Corporation, 1964.
Burnham, Robert Jnr., ‘Burnham’s Celestial Handbook’, Dover publications,1978.
Ashbrook, Joseph, ‘The Astronomical Scrapbook’</i., Sky Publishing & Cambridge University Press, 1984.

@44. Sam H : Cool idea – I’ll definitely buy your novel when it comes out!

@41. Joseph G : Aw shucks. Thanks. If I had a newsletter I’d certainly love to have you as a subscriber to it.

@42: My own explanation for this – this view is from offshore one of the islands of an equatorial archipelago on an Earthlike planet of Alpha Centauri A, with the primary having already set and Centauri B shining on the Horizon, its orange K-class tint obvious at such a low angle and light level. The moon is not a moon nor a mammoth space station, but the smaller body of a double-planet system similar to Pluto and Charon, with our view being on the slightly larger node.

As well, that planet also has it’s own theme song:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QKwK-ZhTurg

^this also relates to an idea I have for one of the planets in an epic SF novel I currently have in my head. There would be a double planet orbiting the A component of 70 Ophiuchi (known as Ophiuchus Alpha and Beta, respective to size), separated by at least 50000 km. Alpha would be about 1.6 times the size of Earth and uninhabitable due to its 50% 2 atm CO2 atmosphere (but containing valuable minerals, hence the extensive mining), whereas Beta would be a mostly arid world of approximately Earth-size with small oceans, various ecosystems and an atmosphere that is unbreathable (10% CO2), but at a pressure similar to mid-high mountain ranges, being the base of mining operations on Alpha and supporting a population of at least 100 million Ophiuchans. ^I actually just drew up most of these details on the spot , but one detail I already had firmly set was that there would be an advanced space elevator directly connecting the two worlds, and both would retain their sphericity. Even given the technology of the 39th century, would such a thing be possible? How much would they move/librate relative to each other?

Argh, that’s not a good job of describing it, but the “smile” should be on its side.

Secondly, you’re right that the atmosphere seems to be a lot thinner than ours indeed, in which case the orange color of the sunlight isn’t caused by the atmosphere, but by the spectral type of the star itself. Then the light reflected off the moon, should most probably have an orange tinge as well, which it hasn’t. Both facts lead me to the conclusion that the moon is lit by a second, much brighter and ‘whiter’ star which is below the horizon from our point of view.

In reality, if we’re dealing with a real 3D model here, the star and moon have probably been rendered separately and were combined using photoshop, or the light source representing the Sun has not been placed sufficiently far away in the 3D-space, so a larger part of the moon’s surface is lit by its rays.

Or one third option – could we be seeing (well imagining anyhow) a terraformed *Luna* with Earth in that sky instead? Perhaps those two daylight-visible “stars” are nearby large space stations seen from afar orbiting Earth, Moon or one around each. In which case that object thought to be the “Sun” there might just be a lunar light post on a pole with the pole hidden in a mist brought into an airless world by comets and human ingenuity?

I find your ideas intriguing and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter.

Me too. I found this image ages ago and used it as the wallpaper from my media player. I’m stoked to find the high(er) res picture.

@Messier Tidy Upper,

If you look close, you can see eight “stars.” Three on the left and Five on the right. Perhaps it could be an imagining of the ‘Pale Blue Dot’ family picture as seen from the Pluto/Charon binary?

EDIT: Surface liquids, of course.

digitalblasphemy.com

Shameless plug: Ryan Bliss is a very accomplished digital artist who has been crafting this stuff since the 90′s, and his work only gets better as time goes by. I pay a small price annually to download his wallpapers, and this is not spam as I am a regular here. The man is a master of the digital medium.