Lumenna-Súnáris System (9): Inlétanós

I/8. Inlétanós

Class: Melíeréan
Orbit (period): 14.48 au (20,126 T-days/55.14 T-years)
Orbit (ecc.): 0.2
Radius: 47,449 miles
Mass: 2.968 x 10²⁷ kg
Density: 1.59 g/cm³
Cloud-top gravity: 6.69 g

Axial tilt: 16.4°
Rotation period: 11.8 T-hours

Black-body temperature: 69 K

Satellites: 12 close moonlets, spectacular ring. 1 major moon. 5 eccentric moons.

A streaky sphere of pale yellow swirled with green, Inlétanós is the outer system’s kinder, gentler gas giant, best known for its truly spectacular ring system visible from anywhere in the system.

It is a relatively quiet backwater in the future, albeit occasionally used for gravity assist – its lack of major moons didn’t encourage much development here, and being both more distant and having a higher gravity did not encourage more than perfunctory gas mining. Ice mining, on the other hand, was briefly a local industry before the Outer Planets Aesthetic Collective bought the property rights to the ring and stopped it.

Its major population in the future is spread across habitats typically built into its shepherd moons and many other moonlets, both residential and tourist. It does, after all, have some of the most spectacular views in the System.

I/8/a. Lórachan

Class: Thiorastan
Orbit (period): 567,844 miles (1.603 T-days)
Orbit (ecc.): 0.01
Radius: 491.8 miles
Mass: 5.61 x 10²¹ kg
Density: 2.76 g/cm³
Surface gravity: 0.062 g

Axial tilt: 4.8°
Rotation period: 1.603 T-days (tide-locked)

Black-body temperature: 69 K
Surface temperature (avg.): 53 K

Atmosphere: None.
Hydrographic coverage: 0% (except short-lived sulphur pools)

Lórachan is another Io-like moon; not as radiation-thrashed and flux-tube-equipped as Kerasta, both due to its wider orbit and to the relatively benign magnetosphere of Inlétanós vis-a-vis Melíeré, but the tidal effects are still great enough to produce all the sulphur geysers and magmatic outpourings that one could wish for, if not quite as violent as its inner cousin.

Without a powerful flux tube to draw upon, Lórachan has not attracted the same power generation-seekers that Kerasta had, and settlers in the Inlétanós sub-system have generally chosen the more benign environment of the moonlets; minor resource harvesting bases and scientific research are about all that Lórachan has attracted.