Alternis Rekerjiggered Planet Descriptions

Alternis Kerbol Rekerjiggered: Planet Descriptions.

The Sun:
The Sun is a relatively normal orange-yellow main sequence star. It was long thought to be a huge burning mass of coal in the sky, burning an unending supply of the flammable rocks. It is now known that the Sun, and all main sequence stars like it, do not burn fuel as much as they totally annihilate it through a process known as Nuclear Fusion.

Gilly:
Gilly is a skinny little short-period comet orbiting the Sun. When it nears the parts of its orbit close to the sun, it begins to become very volatile, losing material with each pass. The Kerbal Astronomical Society has determined that it will likely only live on for another billion years.

Ike:
Ike is a large, long period comet. It and Gilly were once around the same size when they first formed. However, Ike passes close to the Sun much less often, so it is still fairly large.

Moho:
Moho is the closest planet to the Sun. It is unlikely to have an atmosphere, as any atmosphere would have long since been stripped away by the powerful solar wind. However, The planet's proximity to The Sun may give it active volcanoes to replenish an atmosphere. Some minds at the Kerbal Astronomical Society have thought up ways to start active volcanism in the event that it does not already exist there. Such research has led to exciting new aerospace breakthroughs.

Eve:
Eve is certainly the most yellow[//purple in the classic version] planet in the solar system. Its color has baffled chemists and geologists alike, as the heavily prevalent color is not seen very often on Kerbin. Eve is named because it is the Evening Star, most often seen during the beginning and end of the night. From antiquity until the advent of modern astronomy, Eve was thought to be a sister planet to the moons Kerbin and Laythe. Modern observations suggest that it has a temperature, atmosphere, and geology that is quite a bit less easy to make friendly comparisons about.

Jool:
Jool is the largest object in the Kerbin sky. It is our parent body, around which the local system revolves. It is the only planet made from gas instead of solids, and is the largest planet in the solar system. Its blue bands are known to be rapidly swirling clouds of ammonia and methane, swirled around by the rapid rotational speed of Jool. It is thought that Jool is made up of the gas left over from the formation of the Sun. Jool's magnetic field is surprisingly weak for a planet of its size and spin. It was long thought that Jool was the center of the universe. Embarrassingly recent discoveries on the nature of gravitation were able to determine that, in fact, Jool was only the center of the major moon orbits. In fact, Jool and the other planets orbit the Sun.

Minmus:
Minmus is a small moon orbiting Jool. It is red in color, and very close to our parent planet Jool. It is within one of the hazardous radiation belts of Jool, and since it has no magnetic field of its own, it is one of the most irradiated places in the solar system. Pack your dosimeter. It is the most red-tinted natural object in the solar system, and its actual composition is something of a mystery. Some have argued the surface is a strange sort of ice, others have insisted that it must be an oxygen-rich mineral. One astronomer was quoted as jokingly suggesting that Minmus was made of a cinnamon candy.

Laythe:
Long known as Kerbin's sister moon, Laythe was seeded with life hundreds of millions of years ago when a large asteroid struck Kerbin - catapulting boulders with various life forms into orbit around Jool. Given its proximity to Kerbin, some of this impact debris found its way to Laythe, depositing a precious cargo of microbes and, according to some theories, whole plant seeds. This life quickly spread across the moon, until it became the lush green world we know today. (There are, however, fringe theorists who believe that life started on Laythe and was brought to Kerbin, but that's just absurd.) Laythe is near the dangerous radiation belts of Jool, but since it has its own magnetic field, the radiation hazard is lessened. Still, prolonged exposure to the surface conditions should be augmented with a lead apron.

Mun:
The Mun is a large, grey, spherical moon orbiting Jool. Like all Joolian moons, Mun is tidally locked. This means the Jool-facing side looks different from the far side, as the far side was exposed to hotter conditions for a longer period of time. It is one of the most visible objects in the sky, and along with Laythe it can be seen during night or day (depending on its phase). Telescopic observations of the Mun's surface shows a lot of craters marking what would otherwise be a smooth surface. What causes these craters is still a subject of great controversy in the scientific community. One group believes the Mun's craters are volcanic, while those who see the lack of any volcanic gasses vehemently suggest that the craters are caused by impacts. Whatever they are, they would certainly pose a challenge to land in.

Kerbin:
Kerbin is a large moon orbiting Jool with tall mountains, rolling green plains, sandy brown deserts, and wide blue seas. It was long thought that  Kerbin is the home of all known life, including the Kerbals. The conditions of the surface of Kerbin seem to support a vast and seemingly undepletable population of the competent, though impatient and foresight-lacking creatures. Reaching an orbit around Kerbin is a major achievement. As the saying goes: "Once you're in orbit around Kerbin, you're halfway to anywhere!"

Pol:
Pol is a very unique object orbiting Jool. Its comparatively low density suggests that it is a rubble pile, a bundle of rocks that happen to be flying in the same orbit, held together by what is probably fair to say is only partly gravity. It was thought to be a distant planet like Eve or Tylo since antiquity because it was so small in the sky. It was only after someone tried to calculate the orbit of Pol around the sun that they realized it was really going around Jool this whole time. Its surface is a strange muddle of yellows, browns, all in a very confusing and mysterious unknown composition. No one has ever been able to figure out for certain what the darned surface is made of. Three separate studies returned totally different planet-wide surface compositions, ranging from stony to icy to organic composition. The only way to tell for sure what the darned surface is made from would be to retrieve a sample directly.

Bop (Jool Moon):
Bop is a small irregular moon of Jool. It is dark and brown, and because of that it took a long time to discover. Spectral analysis suggests that it is probably a carbon-rich captured asteroid that formed in the asteroid belt just beyond Tylo. In addition to being carbon-rich, it is also rich in ices and stone. When it was first discovered, the scientist in charge did not enter it in the record books because he was not sure if any object like Bop could possible be stable in such an orbit. He had to spend years of calculation before he managed to prove that, in fact, Bop could not possibly exist in the orbit he had observed. Around the same time, another astronomer managed to conclusively prove that Bop would definitely be stable. The problem arose because the former scientist was confusing Bop for a further out moon, Pol. That mistake would go unexplained for half a century.

Bop (Kerbin Subsatellite):
A worthless lump of unusually-dense rock in a hopelessly unstable orbit. Despite the apparent instability, its orbit never seems to change. This merits further investigation... Maybe something very strange iS gOiNg On HeRe.

Tylo:
Tylo is an insanely massive so-called "Superkerbin" planet, the fourth away from the Sun. It is thought to be the core of a failed gas giant like Jool, made from rock and ice. Some have suspected that Tylo may support intelligent life of some strange sort on its crushing surface. However, because of the high escape velocity of the planet, astronomers agree that the chances of anything coming from Tylo are a million to one. With three[//four in the classic version] gees of surface gravity and a thin atmosphere, aerospace engineers fear it. For this reason, Tylo has won the spaceflight engineer's award for "Most Hated Planet and/or Moon." Its atmosphere is so thin that it won't slow you down, but it is so thick that it will burn you up on re-entry. Some Kerbals have even suggested that landing on Tylo is impossible, let alone returning. The Kerbal Astronomical Society claims to give three golden stars to the first kerbal to make the return trip.

Dres:
Dres is a medium sized moon orbiting Tylo. The moon is dark grey with a few spots dotting its lumpy surface. It was notorious among astronomy students and professors alike for being "The most boring thing in the entire sky." Indeed, the Kerbal Astronomical Union came to the same conclusion, and hastily reclassified the moon as a moonlet. Not much is known about its structure or composition because nobody really cares.

Duna:
Duna is a small, butterscotch-colored moon orbiting Tylo. Its red color is thought to be due to an iron-rust rich soil. Its tenuous atmosphere is likely heavy in carbon dioxide and nitrogen, and very very thin. Duna has some small dry-ice and water ice caps, which may hold the potential for simple forms of life. Comparing to Laythe's lush environment and contrasting with Eve's toxic atmosphere, Duna is thought to be the third best planet in the Solar System for supporting life. For this reason, Duna has long been a wonder to Kerbalkind.

Eeloo:
Eeloo is a medium-sized, snowy ice-ball on the edge of the solar system. It is made from ice and dirt and is expected to potentially harbor a thin atmosphere. As the most distant planet in the solar system, it receives very little heat and light from the sun. Spaceflight engineers have proposed the use of atomic energies such as fission to generate power so far away from the sun. Underneath the icy crust of Eeloo may be a vast ocean of liquid water, making it the fourth most potentially habitable planet or moon in the solar system.

Vall:
Vall is a small moon orbiting Eeloo at a very close distance. Its tidal interaction with its parent planet may have given rise to cryovolcanism on both bodies. When Vall was first discovered, it was thought to be almost as massive as Eeloo, and thus the system was classified as a double planet system.  After it was found that Vall was smaller and smaller than expected, and that there may be lots more objects like it, they had to reconsider whether or not it really should be called a planet or not. While the majority of the scientific community agreed that it should be classified as a moon instead, the very vocal public were all very angry at the idea of demoting "Poor Vall," because it seems they had kerbthropomorphized it and made it seem like it was something other than a non-living hunk of ice. In the end, the Kerbal Astronomical Union reclassified Vall as a moon. This is a decision that has made a lot of people unhappy and has been widely regarded as a "bad move."