Lately, I've been thinking about the Earth-like world of Echo IV, fourth world out from a bright orange dwarf that happens to be orbited by a pulsar less than 90 AU away from the primary.
What happened to Echo IV? Twelve light-hours' distance is presumably far enough for a rocky planet to survive, but it has to have been a huge shock on the primitive world. About the only thing in favour of the world's long-term habitability is the very early time of the supernova: a relatively dim O or a bright B star that ends as a neutron star has a lifespan of only a few tens of millions of years on the main sequence.
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Echo IV as a post-supernova world
Sat, 2013-10-26 04:54
#1
rfmcdonald
Echo IV as a post-supernova world
Sun, 2013-11-17 14:31
#2
Chernoborg
Just brainstorming a scenario
Just brainstorming a scenario that didn't end up with the planets roasted, a capture event is most likely. Since a fully formed system would be severely disrupted by the interactions necessary to create the system as presented a "softer" touch would be required. Most plausible in my mind is one where the pulsar swings through a presolar nebula possibly picking up some matter to kick start its own spin and gaining a companion nebula which then collapses into the Orange star with its planets. The neutron star is the more massive component so it would already have enough gravity to pull in a solar systems worth of mass and it could sweep up more depending on how quickly it moved through the nebula. After that, regular accretion processes take over and produce the system of planets we have now.
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