Barnard's Star

Astronomical Designation: HIP 87937

Type: Red Dwarf (BY Draconis Variable)

Distance: 5.96 LY

Orbits

No 1: Cadmus, terrestrial, tidal locked

No 2: Asteroid Belt

No 3: Nestor, terrestrial, tidal locked

No 4: Aeolus, gas giant, tidal locked - Lazarus is a satellite of Aeolus

No 5: Asteroid Belt

No 6: Boreas, gas giant tidal locked

No 7: Zephyrus, gas giant tidal locked

No Oort Cloud or Kuiper Belt

Named after astronomer Edward Emerson Barnard, in 1916 who had measured its proper motion as 10.3 arc seconds per year relative to the Sun. The star had shown up previously on photographic plates taken by Harvard University in 1888 & in 1890. Yet in 2016 a working group of the International Astronomical Union approved the name Barnard's Star as the official name on Feb 1 2017.

It had been postulated in the 1970s that planets might be orbiting Barnard's Star aka HIP 87937. By the early 21st Century there was confirmation that planetary bodies did orbit this red dwarf star. In 2042 CE astronomers discovered that a satellite orbiting one of the gas giants could potentially support life.

The Soviet American Space Treaty Administration (SASTA) hope to have a viable colony vessel ready and dispatched before anyone else. Sadly they were beaten to the punch by a UN Sino-African effort which managed to launch UNCV Ascension from earth orbit and bound for Barnard's Star.

Since first arriving in system in 2096 CE human efforts have predominantly been focused on Lazarus and its moon; Opal. So far no efforts have been made to look beyond these two celestial bodies and in reality Opal has only been noted but not explored. Ascension's Genius (AI) noted when the vessel entered the system that it seemed to have its own atmosphere but did not bother to examine it too closely, it had more pressing concerns at the time.

Now as the return of UNCV Calypso is imminent and settlement has stablised and entered a natural growth period, the three Geniuses of the colony vessels along with UNPALAZ officials are looking to the wider system in which they now exist. Especially given that at one stage other's inhabited the world that they have now claimed for their own...