Saturday, 19 January 2019

Tau Ceti II

Tau Ceti II is the second planet of the nineteenth star in the constellation, Cetus. "Tau" is the nineteenth letter in the Greek alphabet and "II," obviously, is the Roman numeral, two.

See Tau Ceti in fiction and on this blog. (Scroll down.) "Tau Ceti II" as a post title means either that the post is about the planet or that it is the second post about the star.

In Poul Anderson's After Doomsday, the sub-arctic region of Tau Ceti II is described as follows:

safe;
rusty dunes;
a few thorn-plants;
a glaring red sun;
hot dry air full of carbon dioxide.

As a habitable planet of a nearby star, Tau Cet II makes sense as a place for the U.S.S. Benjamin Franklin to go after Earth has been destroyed but it plays no role in the rest of the novel. I was surprised to learn how many works of sf feature planets of this star.