In Response To: Possible origin of the name "Threshold" (Anton P. Nym (aka Steve))
: I was poking around the Marathon Story Page and stumbled on the Cortana
: Letters. This letter from May 11, 1999, and the commentary afterward,
: gave me an idea for how the planet "Threshold" got its name.
: In that first email "Cortana" tried to spoof her return address to
: look like it came from NASA, and the subject headers of both emails
: referenced papers written by NASA scientists on finding extra-solar
: planets. Nothing new so far, right?
: But have a look at Miguel Chavez's email... it mentions gas giants, yes, but
: also brown dwarfs . These are different from gas giants in a very
: peculiar way. They're too massive to be planets; brown dwarfs have too
: much gravity to reach a stable composition by structural strength or
: material compression. They support their size by internal heat generated
: by compression and friction. However, they're not massive enough to be
: stars; they can't get hot enough to initiate fusion.
: Brown dwarfs sit on the threshold between planets and stars.
: Is Threshold a brown dwarf? It might be... don't let its relatively puny size
: throw you off. (Yes, it's puny. Compared to Jupiter it's a runt... just
: scale the 10,000 km diameter Halo against it.) Brown dwarfs are
: diametrically smaller due to their higher compression. They make up for it
: in density.
: Other supporting evidence is the clear visibility of stars in the daytime sky
: on Halo. (See the level Halo for a really vivid example.) For that to
: happen there must be less atmospheric scatter of incident light than here
: on Earth. There are two ways for this to happen: Halo's atmosphere is
: less dense than Earth's. I don't like that one, because the Marines don't
: have any trouble breathing it and they don't have any supplementary oxygen
: masks on their faces. (Even here on Earth there are a few places at high
: altitudes where that's necessary for most of us... think the Andes and
: Himelayas.)
: Halo gets less sunlight than Earth. This is the one I favour.
: There's a tiny problem with the second option, though; if Halo gets less
: sunlight, then it should be colder than Earth. But Halo has reasonably
: Earthlike climates. This problem goes away if Threshold is a brown dwarf,
: as it will radiate plenty of infrared radiation as it simmers away trying
: to be a star. That could very well make up for a deficit in sunlight as
: far as temperatures are concerned. So the sun can be dimmer or farther
: away, allowing for less upper-atmospheric scatter.
: Also, this name origin explains how the UNSC could have named it without
: having been there first. Remember those NASA papers? It would be fairly
: easy for 26th century scientists to find brown dwarfs telescopically
: without ever having to visit the system. (Basis would be found by minor
: perturbations in Threshold's orbit, using the same techniques.)
: There's one other reason for liking the brown dwarf theory. A galaxy-spanning
: superweapon needs a pretty hefty power source. Having a not-quite-sun
: nearby would be handy, wouldn't it?
: I used Louis' handy-dandy new search feature to check for mentions of
: "brown dwarf" and caught only one other case... which had
: nothing to do with Threshold. That means this is new, right? (Right? Heh
: heh?)
: Anyway, over to you guys. There's probably some holes I need to fill. Start
: poking!
: -- Steve
Not saying you're wrong, but some gas giants emit radiation as well. The planet Jupiter emits more heat than it absorbs from our sun. And Bungie itself has called Threshold a gas giant, with a moon called Basis. Stars don't have "moons", they have planets, asteroids, and comets. Moon is a term generally reserved for satellites of planets.
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