Planet:Pnolthanus

"The shining jewel in the center of the crown of the Empire"

- Empress Akilla VII

Pnolthanus is the homeworld of the Pnolthane species and the center of the Pnolthane Space Empire, in the heart of Pnolthane Space. It is one of the central planets to the Perseus Coalition of Worlds and is a hub for politics and economic as well as science, culture and the arts.

Astrography
Pnolthanus orbits Karr, a yellow, main-sequence star. Pnolthanus is the fourth planet from Karr and is the furthest out of the inner planets. Although it is 1.63 AU from its parent star, Karr's increased brightness means that the planet receives as much as 94% the sunlight of that of Earth. This orbit takes 669.3 Earth days or 572.05 Pnolthanian Days.

Kayna Tol
Main Article- Kayna Tol

Kayna Tol is the closest and smallest moon of Pnolthanus and was originally an asteroid that fell into Pnolthanus's gravity wall. Due to its small size, it is irregularly shaped. The surface is marked with many craters ranging from between the size of a few meters to the size of tens of kilometers. Because of nickel compounds in the regolith, the ground appears grey-green.

The moon has been heavily colonized by the Pnolthane and in modern times is fully industrialized and supports a full-fledged, self-governed ecumenopolis. It serves as a major center of resource production and industry as well as an important spaceport for the Karr System, making it a mixing-pot of many cultures from Pnolthanus but also many alien cultures as well.

Rekulaar
Main Article- Rekulaar

Rekulaar is the larger of Pnolthanus's two moons and is the furthest away. Like Kayna Tol, it was originally from the Rubble Belt and was drawn into orbit around Pnolthanus in the ancient past. The cratered surface appears red because of iron compounds in the rock, a clear sign that it did not originate from Pnolthanus itself.

Rekulaar is home to a Negforge, a primary source of Exotic Matter for interstellar Pnolthanian activity. Due to the size of this installation and the industrial environment around it, There is not as much of a colonial presence on the moon due to the dangerous nature of the industry there.

The Rings
Pnolthanus is surrounded by a ring system composed of mostly small rocky and icy bodies. These extend from the edge of the upper atmosphere at 10,000 km and the outer boundary of the planet's Roche limit at 17,000 km. The gap in the middle of the rings is caused by gravitational interactions between the individual bodies within the rings and Kayna Tol.

Because of Pnolthanus's axial tilt, during the summer, a narrow strip along the equator is shaded by the rings, causing much dimmer sunlight levels on the ground and much colder temperatures. This shaded band shifts throughout the year until moving to the opposite side of the equator in the winter.

Composition
The internal structure of the planet is layered with a solid core in the center composed of mostly nickel and to a lesser extent iron. The inner core is surrounded by an outer core of molten rock and metals that can reach temperatures of over 5000 °C. Swirling currents of ferromagnetic metals such as nickel in the core create a magnetic field around the planet which shield the surface against the stellar wind from Karr.

The thickest layer of the planet's interior structure is the semi-molten mantle. This is composed of mostly molten rocks and contains most of the planet's mass. The crust is composed of mostly silicate and to a lesser extent alumina compounds with small amounts of nickel oxides and other metal compounds such as lime. Unlike most rocky worlds, nickel is more abundant than iron on Pnolthanus.

Volcanism
Pnolthanus is more tectonically active than most T3 worlds. this results in many mountain ranges on the surface and greater volcanic activity both on land and under the oceans. There are large fissures under the oceans filled with exposed magma. These feed into many hydrothermal vents which are an important source of energy for deep ocean life.

The are very large underground caverns formed by extinct magma current accessible to the surface through large lava tubes. These caverns are large enough to act as a micro-environment with many unique subterranean species.

Composition
The Pnolthanian atmosphere is roughly composed of 74% Nitrogen, 18% Oxygen, 5% Argon, 2.5% Carbon Dioxide and 0.5% Other gasses. Because of the high percentage of Oxygen and Nitrogen, the sky on Pnolthanus does appear blue, streaked with white clouds of water vapor. Due to the higher concentrations of atmospheric Argon, sunlight is absorbed during dawn and dusk, leading to indigo and violet light in sunsets.

Temperature/Humidity
Although far from Karr, the climate on Pnolthanus is temperate. This is due to the levels of Carbon Dioxide in the atmosphere that creates a greenhouse effect, warming the planet. Temperature ranges typically fall between 25 °C in the warmer equatorial regions to -120 °C in the cold polar regions. The planet has a typical humidity allowing for the formation of clouds of water vapor and various form of participation such as rain and snow.

Weather
In the more temperate regions, the weather on Pnolthanus is very similar to that of Earth. However, the winds tend to be slightly weaker than that fo Earth because they are blocked by the increased mountainous terrain.

However, because the temperature can fall so low at the poles, dry-ice frost is reasonably common. Becuase much of the atmospheric carbon dioxide solidifies in these regions, the amount left in the atmosphere is much lower than on other parts of the planet which, along with the cold temperature, seriously restricts the growth of plant life in these regions.

Biochemistry
All life on Pnolthanus contains a genetic code. For simpler lifeforms such as viruses and some bacteroids, this is stored in the form of a long polymer molecule called XNA or Xylonucleic acid. This is composed of a chain of monomers called nucleotides made up of one Phosphate ion, one | Xylose sugar molecule and one of six nitrogenous bases; Adenine, Thymine, Cytosine, Guanine, Wurstine, or Vyroxene. These bond together to form a single strand with the bases exposed.

The genetic code of more complex organisms is contained within a different polymer called dXNA or Deoxyxylonucleic acid. There are two main differences, first is that the sugar incorporated into the backbone is Deoxyxylose instead of Xylose. The second difference is that the exposed side of each nitrogenous base pairs up with another base from a strand opposite through hydrogen bonding. Due to the different numbers of hydrogen bonds each base can form, A only pairs with T, C only pairs with G and W only pairs with V. This forms a double-stranded molecule with a helical shape.

Amongst other genetic information, the XNA or dXNA of a cell contains genes that code for a particular protein. Each pair of bases on a strand of XNA or coding dXNA either codes for one of 22 particular amino acids or acts as a STOP code. These codons are read by the machinery of a cell and interpreted to produce a chain of amino acids according to the order of codons in the gene that then folds into a functional protein when a STOP code is reached. The particular amino acids in the chain, their order and what shape the chain folds into will determine the function of the protein. The code doesn't have a lot of redundancy, with most amino acids being coded for by only one base combination. This means that the impact of mutations will be increased as a change to one codon is more likely to make it code for a different amino acid than if there were four or five possible codons for each amino acid. However, because Pnolthanus is reasonably far away from Karr, high-energy solar radiation is less intense and so mutations occur less frequently.

Cellular composition is typical with a phospholipid bilayer cell membrane enclosing a liquid cytoplasm. The genetic code in most cells is housed in a nucleus with other organelles in the cell surrounding it to carry out vital cell functions such as respiration and protein synthesis.

Energy
Almost all energy that enters into the Pnolthanian biosphere comes from Karr in the form of sunlight. This is turned into useful energy by photosynthetic organisms such as bacteria and phytoplankton as well as more complex organisms like Flora. The most common chemical used in photosynthesis is the green pigment chlorophyll which absorbs light mostly in the red end of the spectrum. However, another reasonably common pigment found in both Flora and Cells is the yellow pigment Xanthophyll which absorbs light in the blue part of the spectrum. This is responsible for the permanent yellow/orange autumnal colors of many species of Flora on Pnolthanus. In the Cell, chlorophyll is housed in photosynthetic organelles called chloroplasts whereas xanthophyll is contained within xanthoplasts. This difference in the wavelength of light absorbed by different Flora reduces interspecific competition and allows growth in greater proximity, leading to unusually dense forests on some parts of the planet.

Energy then enters the rest of the food chain through consumer organisms feeding on these photosynthetic Flora and Cells.