Sci-Fi Writers Project
THE HYPNOT CHRONICLES
Being an accumulation of scouting report records for Planet HYPNOT in the star system SHINE, located in an arm of spiral galaxy NGC1300.
The galaxy NGC1300 (also known as “Galaxiki”) is located on the other side of the universe from our own galaxy, the Milky Way. It is a Hubble-type spiral galaxy with two massive spiral arms. The arms extend out more than 4,000 light-years from the center of the galaxy. According to the Big Bang theory, the expansion of space started with a point explosion about 13.7 billion (13,700,000,000) years ago. After a cosmic inflation period of about 400,000 years, the universe steadily expanded and became cooler and less dense. The first stars appeared after about 400 million years. Since then , through their mutual gravity the stars gathered themselves into galaxies, the galaxies into clusters, and the clusters into superclusters. There are more than one hundred billion (100,000,000,000) galaxies in the universe, each containing hundreds of billions of stars. The galaxy NGC1300 is about 8 billion years old and contains more than 100 billion (100,000,000,000) star systems, with uncounted numbers of planets, civilizations, and stories to be told.
One of those stories is the history of the solar system WDB227, named SHINE and located way out on one of the twin spiral arms of galaxy NGC1300. The star SHINE is a very newly discovered solar system. It was discovered by Scout Ship 01 (“Madeline”) from the Exploration Mothership “Kathleen.” SHINE is a mature red dwarf star with 8 planets. Altogether, these 8 planets have 282 moons! Most of the planets and moons are too cold or too hot or too small to support life. Only one of the eight planets, WDB227.1, is capable of hosting lifeforms. WDB227.1 is the innermost of the 8 planets orbiting this star. It has been confirmed that there is indeed life on WDB227.1. What we know so far is that life on this planet is highly developed and carbon-based. WDB227.1 has two unexplored moons, both of which may also be capable of supporting life. The planet WDB227.1 has been named “HYPNOT” by its discoverer, Writing Project Krewe Member, Molly, of Louisiana USA. Although the “t” in HYPNOT is slient (French, pronounced “heep-noe”), it is more often mispronounced by English-speaking astronauts with a “not” instead of “no” on the end (“hip-not”).
Planet HYPNOT has a moderate average temperature (19C), much like that of Earth. The diameter of the planet is also very similar to Earth’s. Approximately 55% of HYPNOT’s surface is land mass, distributed fairly evenly over five continents. Two of these continents are on the polar caps, while the other three are roughly evenly-spaced around the equator. All five of the continents are more elliptical than irregular in shape, although one of the equatorial continents (Etaos) is more elongated that the other two, reaching almost from polar cap to polar cap. Compared to Earth’s 29% land surface, HYPNOT has twice the land area and about 70% of the water surface. HYPNOT’s atmosphere, however, is quite different from Earth’s. It is composed mostly of nitrogen and oxygen, but with much more oxygen. The oxygen concentration is 38%, as opposed to Earth’s 21%. Due to the different content of atmospheric gases and dust, the air and water look green instead of blue. If Earth is the Blue Planet, then HYPNOT is the GREEN PLANET! More importantly, the carbon dioxide level (1.0%) is about 26 times that of Earth’s atmosphere! This has greatly influenced the evolution of carbon-based life on the planet. Oxygen is nourishing to carbon-based animal life, while carbon dioxide is basically plant food. So both animal life and plant life are promoted highly by HYPNOT’s atmosphere, relative to Earth’s air. Metabolic rates on the planet are much higher than on Earth, resulting in a continuous explosion of life. Because of this, the biomass burden of the planet’s surface land and water is very much greater than Earth’s. This intensity of life on HYPNOT can be seen in the extensive array of bizarre lifeforms discovered by our explorers. Life on HYPNOT will undoubtedly be the subject of many future reports in this series.
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