User blog:Owlfeathers0117/Caelmare

Announcement from the SAA:

Several months ago, we at the SAA brought you news of a new planet in the Neo-Solar system, which we have since come to know as Tenelapis. At the time, we also mentioned that a second world had also been discovered in the system. Although certain unforeseen complications prevented us from being able to release this information as early as we had originally intended to, these have since been resolved.

This second new planet we have discovered has been named Caelmare. Caelmare is a cold, hostile world slightly smaller than Earth, with a corresponding lower gravity of around 80% that of Earth. Nearly the entire surface of Caelmare is covered in deep seas of remarkably clear water, lending the world an appearance similar to that of a translucent glass marble. It has a few small areas of mountainous land, and these as well as certain areas of the seabed have been found to be rich in natural resources. Snow falls at a steady rate across most of the planet.

The climate of Caelmare, however, is far from inviting. The average temperature across the planet is around negative twenty eight degrees Celsius, dropping to a chilling negative seventy six near the poles. The oceans are kept from freezing solid only by the strong tides caused by the planet's two moons, which can cause waves large enough to be deadly to surface vessels. Caelmare's sky is perhaps even more hostile than its surface. Storms of wind and ice race across the planet's face at incredible speeds, making flight a hazardous, though not impossible, venture.

Furthermore, in addition to normal Earth-like clouds, Caelmare's atmosphere is filled with solid clouds of some sort of naturally-occurring aerogel. Although seemingly vaporous, these clouds are in fact solid and quite hard, being composed of a material only barely more dense than air. In combination with Caelmare's atmosphere being slightly more dense than that of Earth, these clouds of aerogel are able to float in the sky, carried by the air currents and storms. These pose a significant danger to aerospace vessels attempting to enter Caelmare's atmosphere, as an impact with such a large body as one of the clouds would likely cause considerable damage to any vessel.

The only non-microbial life known so far to reside on Caelmare is a form of edible - and surprisingly nutritious - blue-green algae which grows in large clusters on the surface of the planet's calmer waters. However, we have yet to explore the deepest areas of the world's oceans, and thus cannot speak as to what may exist there - these areas are far deeper than any ocean trenches on Earth, making exploration incredibly difficult due to the immense water pressure. For the same reason however, we would suggest that it is unlikely that any kind of lifeform would be able to survive in such far depths.

Two moons orbit Caelmare, both significantly smaller than Luna. One is a tiny, frozen sphere only 10% of the diameter of Luna, while the other is a ball of rock and ice around six times the size of the former, with an unusually large mass which suggests an extremely dense core, possibly of lead.

-SAA Official News

OOC: RP posts pertaining to Caelmare are to be made here, unless a specific navy's page would be more appropriate. A map of the surface is coming, although I can't make any promises as to exactly when.