Epsilon Eridani in Fiction - The Star Epsilon Eridani

The Star Epsilon Eridani

Epsilon Eridani is the fifth brightest star (by apparent magnitude) in the riverine southern constellation of Eridanus. An orange star slightly smaller and less massive than the Sun, and relatively close to the Solar System, it is frequently featured in works of science fiction. It is classified as a type K2 star, with the corresponding suggestion that it has a stable habitable zone and is well suited for life. However, one factor which weakens the case for habitability is its youth—as little as 200 million years old—and consequent high levels of ultraviolet emission (see Implied Spaces by Walter Jon Williams, below).

In 1960 Project Ozma, led by the American astronomer Frank Drake, used the Green Bank radio telescope to conduct a SETI investigation into the stars Epsilon Eridani and Tau Ceti. No signals of intelligent extraterrestrial origin were ever detected, but for years following the heavily publicized experiment Epsilon Eridani appeared in science fiction literature and television as a proposed destination for interstellar travel.

Epsilon Eridani is the second closest star to the Sun known to host a planet (as of the discovery of Alpha Centauri Bb on October 16, 2012). In the year 2000 a team of astronomers announced that they had used radial velocity measurements to confirm the existence of the gas giant exoplanet Epsilon Eridani b (see graphic). The star's system further boasts two asteroid belts (see Implied Spaces by Walter Jon Williams, below) and a proposed second planet Epsilon Eridani c (see "The Boyfriend Complexity" below).

As only the fifth brightest star in the meandering course of the constellation Eridanus, and having an apparent magnitude of just 3.73, Epsilon is not particularly prominent in the sky, although it is the third closest to the Sun of the individual stars or star systems visible to the unaided eye, and the tenth closest overall.

The name Epsilon Eridani comes from the star's Bayer designation, with epsilon being the fifth letter of the Greek alphabet, and from the ancient Greek name Eridanus (Ηριδανός) for the Po River in northern Italy (the same constellation was also depicted as a river in Sanskrit). In Greek myth, the youth Phaëton took over the reins of his father Helios' sky chariot (the Sun) but couldn't control it, and so veered wildly in different directions, scorching both earth and heaven, and tracing the twisting path of the sky-stream (see Virtuality, created by Ronald D. Moore, below).