Physical Environment – Mammon

PHYSICAL ENVIRONMENT

Mammon, the fourth planet of Zeta Triangulum Australe, a type GOV star slightly larger than Earth’s sun, looks out upon an undistinguished sky. The planet lacks any moons, and its primary is a single star system. Mammon lies far enough from Earth (approximately 39.3 light years) that the constellations familiar to Earth people appear quite distorted when viewed from Mammon’s surface.

Mammon’s physical characteristics present a series of extremes. The smallest of the colony planets, its diameter measures 78 percent of Earth’s, giving the planet about 60 percent of Earth’s surface area and only 41 percent of Earth’s mass. Gravitational attraction at the surface measures only 69 percent of Earth’s, the lowest of any habitable planet. Oceans cover only 52 percent of Mammon’s surface, making it the driest among the new worlds. The small oceans allow Mammon’s land area to almost equal Earth’s, despite the colony’s smaller size.