Planet:Epun

From SporeWiki, the knowledge base dedicated to Spore

A planet in the Visum System, this is the home planet for the Agnoculus.

Contents 1 Orbit 2 Seasons 3 Other Astronomical Facts 4 Geography and the Continents 5 Flora and Fauna

[edit] Orbit

The first thing to understand about Epun is its bizarre orbit, as it explains many of the phenomena and characteristics of the planet.

• First of all, Epun is not a normal planet in that does not orbit around its solar system's sun (called Visum), like most other life-bearing planets do. In fact, it orbits around a large gas giant, Defastum, which in turn orbits around Visum.
• The second interesting fact about Epun's orbit is that its orbit plane is nowhere near the same angle as that of the other planets around Visum: It's tilted almost 90 degrees! It is hypothesized that a large planet-sized object must have collided with Defastum during the Visum System's formation, giving it a very unique spin: it seems to "roll", its rotational axis always aligned along its orbit plane, not perpendicular like normal planets (very much like the terran planet Uranus, which has an axial tilt of 98 degrees). To help you visualize, this means that for a quarter of the year, one of Defastrus's poles will always be facing the sun, then for the next quarter-year, the sun rises and sets along the equator normally, and then the next quarter the opposite pole will allways be facing the sun, and so on and so forth...
• This large collision between Defastrus and another mysterious object is also said to have engendered Epun's birth, which orbits around its "mother planet" (defastrus) along its equator (Epun's rotational axis is parallel to defastrum's rotational axis) due to strong tidal pulls much like those between the terran Earth and Moon.

[edit] Seasons

• The most important thing to note about Epun is that most of the heat it recieves comes not from the sun, but from its mother planet! Defastrus, a giant gaseous planet almost six times the size of jupiter, orbits quite far from Visum, and the heat generated by this far-off sun would not have been enough to support life on Epun. Instead, due to its large size and specific chemical components, Defastrus generates enough heat to keep Epun constantly warm:
  • Defastrus's gravity is so great that its inner core is compacted to the point of reaching incredible temperatures, and these diffuse accross the surface and into space (just like the gaseous planets in the terran solar system, especially Jupiter, but to a much higher degree of intensity).
  • Another reason why Defastrus is so warm is explained by the Kelvin-Helmholtz effect, which is when a large planet cools down and in doing so releases heat out into space (Again, the terran gaseous planets also show this effect, but not quite as much as Defastrus)
  • Furthermore, intense tidal effects caused by Defastrum's incredible gravity help to heat Epun's core, giving it higher volcanic activity (in turn causing events like hot geysers, underwater fume vents, etc., which are all very conductive to the formation of life)
  • Because of the incredible apparent size and mass of their mother planet, the Agnoculi living on Epun consider Defastrum a star that never quite made it, hence it's name, which literally means "failed star".
  • (See the "Agnoculus Calendar" section on the Agnoculus page for more specific information on seasons.)

[edit] Other Astronomical Facts

• Defastrus, Epun's mother planet, has such a large magnetic field thanks to the flow and flux of metal hydrogen in its core that its magnetosphere actually shields Epun from the harmful solar winds much better than the planet could on its own.

[edit] Geography and the Continents

[edit] Flora and Fauna