Star System (2004)
In the original series, the twelve tribes settled on twelve different planets in the fictional Cyrannus galaxy within a 12 light-year distance from Earth. Since Earth is also in this galaxy, it is clearly the Milky Way galaxy.
The 2004 series has never clarified their relative positions in space; however, Executive Producer Ronald D. Moore has stated that all the colony planets are in the same star system, as described in the original series. This was also hinted at several times in the pilot episode.
Tweets from Serge Graystone, SyFy's official Twitter site for Daniel Graystone's robot Serge indicate that all 12 colonies are on planets within a cluster of 4 stars.
In the re-imagined series, the Cyrannus Star System is actually a stellar cluster: two pairs of binary stars that orbit a common barycenter at a distance of .16 light year from binary barycenter to binary barycenter. Kobol is located 2000 light years away.
The first pair is "Helios Alpha" and "Helios Beta", orbiting the barycenter at 63 astronomical units.
- Helios Alpha: Spectral Class G2V, Mass 1.0.
- Planets: Icarus, Picon, Caprica & Gemenon (binary planets orbiting a barycenter), Tauron (moon: Minos), the Erebos asteroid belt, the gas giant Zeus (74 moons, including Hebe and Nike), and Persephone.
- Helios Beta: Spectral Class K1V, Mass 0.79.
- Planets: Troy, Leonis, the Ouranos asteroid belt, Virgon (moon: Hibernia), the gas giant Hera (29 moons, including Iris and Euboea), and Pallas.
The second pair is "Helios Delta" and "Helios Gamma", orbiting the barycenter at 70 astronomical units. The gas giant Ragnar (moon: Sigurd) orbits the binary system about the barycenter at 110 astronomical units.
- Helios Delta: Spectral Class K2V, Mass 0.74.
- Planets: Phoebe, the Aeolus asteroid belt, the gas giant Hestia (17 moons, including binaries Rhea and Kronos) with Canceron & Aerilon at Hestia's L4 and L5, Aquaria, and Styx.
- Helios Gamma: Spectral Class G9V, Mass 0.89.
- Planets: Thanatos, the Acheron asteroid belt, Scorpia, Saggitaron, Libran (moons: Herse and Pandrossos), and the gas giant Ophion (14 moons).
Read more about this topic: Twelve Colonies
Famous quotes containing the words star and/or system:
“And tell so readily, he knoweth well
How ev’ry star by proper name to call?”
—Bible: Hebrew Psalm CXLVII (Paraphrased by The Countess of Pembroke)
“For us necessity is not as of old an image without us, with whom we can do warfare; it is a magic web woven through and through us, like that magnetic system of which modern science speaks, penetrating us with a network subtler than our subtlest nerves, yet bearing in it the central forces of the world.”
—Walter Pater (1839–1894)