Arcturus is the 6th Interstellar Object and the 3rd Late Stage Star obtained in The Beyond Bubble Universe, which can generate Stardust. (Unlocked at Rank 19)
In-Game Description[]
"Arcturus offers a sneak peek into the Sun’s future. Once a young yellow dwarf, it’s now a geriatric 7.1-billion-year-old red giant. The star’s mass hasn’t changed much, but its girth is 25 times bigger. The surface is brighter than the Sun, but cooler."
Traits[]
Common[]
- Dwarf to Giant (Speed):
"How does a dwarf swell into a giant? The core of Arcturus fuses helium into carbon, pushing hydrogen into a growing outer shell. Some hydrogen is fusing into heavier helium, adding to the core, but the rest rapidly expands, cools, and sheds into space on solar winds."
- Helium Flash (Payout):
"When the core has enough heat and pressure, it ignites in a helium flash. This inner explosion happens in minutes as helium rapidly fuses into carbon. A giant star doesn’t have the mass to fuse carbon, so it collapses, dies, and sheds matter, forming a planetary nebula."
Rare[]
- Late-Stage Star (Payout):
"Once a star’s core is weaned of hydrogen, it matures into a late-stage star. As before, mass dictates size, color, luminosity, and temperature. But now it also determines the manner of death—following a long, gradual decline or in a cataclysmic explosion?"
Epic[]
- Cosmology (Speed):
"The scientific study of the universe asks the very biggest questions. How did it form? What came before? How does it work? Is it infinite? Will it die? All the pieces we observe—comets, moons, planets, stars, galaxies, nebulae, and even voids—provide some answers."
- Dark Matter (Payout):
"Dark matter acts like a superhero. It’s everywhere in space and yet invisible. Its gravity distorts huge objects that we can see. It can even buttress a dwarf galaxy against annihilation by a giant one. The duo of dark matter and dark energy make up 95% of the universe."
- Dark Energy (Discount):
"Little is known about dark energy, except that it’s repulsive. Opposing gravity, this strange force causes matter to scatter rather than attract, pushing our universe to expand faster and faster. Dark energy makes up 68% of the universe’s mass-energy density."
Constellations[]
- Eridanus (1.5x Speed):
"Eridanus, The River, is the longest constellation in the sky. It starts near Rigel and twists and turns all the way to its brightest star, Achernar (“River’s End” in Arabic). It was named after Eridu, an early Sumerian city in the marshes of what is now southern Iraq."
- Orion (2x Speed):
"The hourglass shape of Orion, the Hunter, is so striking that the star pattern figures in many of the world’s oldest cultures, perhaps even those of early humans. It rises seasonally, visible north of the equator for half the year and south for the other half."
System Components[]
Star[]
Arcturus (α Böotis) is a red giant of spectral type K1.5 III Fe−0.5. This star lies on the northern constellation of Böotes, and is the fourth brightest star in the entire night sky. It is also the brightest star in the northern sky.
Achievements[]
- They Can’t Be Giants (Rank 3):
"Not all dwarfs become giants. The cutoff is at about .4 solar masses, the amount needed to fuse helium. Unlike Arcturus, a lightweight star like Proxima Centauri (.12 solar masses) will leave the main sequence and begin a very long, slow decline into a white dwarf."
- Planet Eaters (Rank 6):
"The volatility of late-stage stars puts planets in peril. The Sun will swell into an Arcturus-like red giant in 5 billion years, swallowing Mercury, Venus, and then Earth. In 2023, for the first time, a telescope imaged a distant star eating its own Jupiter-like planet."
Real Image[]
.png "Arcturus (optical).png (328 KB)")
Sources[]
- Arcturus — Arcturus image above taken
