Solar System

The Melidoran planetary system lies about 42 light-years away from Terra. It is centered around two stars, Utu and Flamma, that orbit each other at about the distance between Sol and Pluto. Flamma is a G-type star like Sol, though it is slightly hotter and dimmer. Utu, on the other hand, is a K-type orange dwarf star that gives off just half our Sun's brightness and warmth. Although Utu is a dim star, it is much older than Flamma. K-type stars can last for tens of billions of years, as they burn through stellar material very slowly.

Because Utu and Flamma are relatively far apart from each other, it is possible for planets to orbit just one of the two stars, rather than having to orbit both of them. Utu has a solar system consisting of 9 planets.

The inner worlds are called Aureola, Dualis, and Elysia. Aureola and Dualis are tidally-locked, so they only present one hemisphere to Utu at any given time. Because of this, one half of their surface is a baking desert, constantly warmed by Utu. The other half, lying away from Utu, is completely frozen over, trapped in an eternal ice age. Elysia somewhat resembles Mars, except it has an atmosphere and a vast subterranean ocean, which bubbles up to the surface in the form of small lakes.

Melidora is the fourth planet from Utu. It orbits at a distance of 0.9 AU, or about 90% of the distance between Terra and Sol. As Utu is dimmer than our Sun, Melidora's closer orbit ensures that it gets roughly the same amount of heat and light as we do from our Sun. In fact, Melidora lies within Utu's Goldilocks zone, so it is at just the right distance to produce Earth-like conditions on its surface and nurture complex life.

Past Melidora lie three more rocky planets. They are fairly nondescript, barren worlds. The eighth planet from Utu, however, is rather interesting. Nu is entirely covered in liquid water. This might seem highly unusual for an outer world. However, Nu has an extremely dense atmosphere, creating a strong greenhouse effect and keeping its average surface temperature very high. This sort of ocean world does not exist in our solar system, but there is no reason that it could not exist elsewhere. Finally, the last world in the solar system is Eos, a gas giant. It is reddish in color due to high concentrations of ammonia in its upper atmosphere.