Tau Ceti System

Tau Ceti is the nearest single G-class yellow dwarf to the sun. It also is reported to have an extensive asteroid and/or comet field. No planets detected yet though.

Tau Ceti Webpages
Webpages
 * Sol Station
 * Wikipedia
 * Exoplanetn.de
 * Stars
 * Encyclopedia of Astrobiology, Astronomy, and Spaceflight
 * 3D Univers

EV Threads
 * Reasons for a large asteriod belt around Tau Ceti.
 * Asteroid Belt vs. Kuiper Belt

Tau Ceti in the News
Detection of Asteroid/Comet Fields (July 2004)
 * paper
 * http://www.pparc.ac.uk/Nw/Ateroid_alley.asp
 * http://www.astrobiology.com/news/viewpr.html?pid=14513
 * http://www.universetoday.com/forum/index.php?act=ST&f=2&t=3811

Tau Ceti Fun Links

 * Tau Ceti USA - watercrafts
 * Tau Ceti Co-operative Limited - a real corporation with a bunch of geeks in it
 * Tau Ceti Co. - a telescope component company
 * Tau Ceti Band - from Brazil
 * The Sails of Tau Ceti - Novel about a voyage to Tau Ceti
 * Tau Ceti Technologies Spaceflight company
 * The Invasion of Saturn - The tau cetiens are coming, the tau cetians are coming!
 * The Orions Arm
 * Tua/Ceti - Parallel Distributive Computer systems
 * Tau Ceti Video Game - take out the tau nuclear plant
 * What is Tau Ceti? - lots of things
 * Atari Game - You can download the game Tau Ceti here.
 * Tau Ceti in Star Trek - location of Khan's exile. one of its planets blew up, shifting Khan's planet inwards and becoming desolate.  maybe the debris field we see now is the result of a previously exploded planet?
 * More on Tau Ceti and star trek
 * Ages of Man game
 * Encyclopdia Mescelena
 * My Communication With a Man From Tau Ceti - they may be among us
 * Tau Ceti Center
 * Tau Ceti Book available free online
 * Colony Tau Ceti Destroyed - pack your belongings
 * The Quantum Reality - 2023: Extraterrestrial Life Discovered on Tau Ceti

Tau Ceti System Factoids

 * Two unconfirmed exoplanet candidates
 * Much older than the Sun (10 BY)
 * Nearest single star system like the Sun, more sun-like than Epsilon Eridani, but still rather small and cool for a yellow dwarf
 * 19th closest star system to the sun at 11.9 light years.
 * One of the only naked-eye stars less luminous than the Sun.
 * A third magnitude star in the constellation Cetus
 * The Sun would appear as a second magnitude star in the constellation Bootes as seen from Tau Ceti.
 * Travels in the "Thick Disk" of the Milky Way, which is older and has less metal content than the "Thin Disk" we reside in.
 * Has an optical companion not bound to it by gravity, just near its line of site from earth.
 * First target of alien broadcast detection attempts by Frank Drake in "Project Ozma" in 1960
 * Because of its proximity and mature age, it is still one of the most targetted star systems in the search for extrasolar life.
 * A planet would need to orbit 0.7 AU from Star to receive as much energy from Tau Ceti as Earth does from the Sun.

Tau Ceti (Star) Factoids

 * Less enriched in heavy materials, despite large asteroid fields
 * Spectral Type is G8 V. Temperature = 5,344 K
 * Mass is 81% Sun's, Radius is 83% Sun's, Luminosity is 59% Sun's
 * Near twins to Alpha Centauri B in terms of temperature and luminosity.

Tau Ceti Kuiper Belt Factoids

 * Contains at least ten times as much material (1.2 Earth Mass) than the asteroid and kuiper belts in the solar system (0.1 Earth Mass).
 * Extends to about 55 AU, which is similar to the Solar System's Kuiper Belt. First dust disk discovered with a similar extent as most have been much larger.
 * Its extent is similar to the solar systems Kuiper belt, but its mass it ten times as great.
 * Any earth-like planet in the system could not support life due to the frequent massive impacts
 * As the system is very old (10 Billion Years), this is the just a large protoplanetary disk. Something interesting must have made this debris field so large so late in its history.  Or else maybe the solar system is the oddball for having less material.  A star may have passed near the sun, stripping away many of its asteroids and comets.
 * No evidense of planets has been announced at this time.

Tau Ceti b (Unconfirmed) Factoids

 * Inner planet suggested by radial velocity data
 * Period of 19.3 Days
 * Semi-Major Axis of 0.15 AU
 * Minimum Mass of 15 Earth Masses

Tau Ceti c (Unconfirmed) Factoids

 * Outer planet suggested by radial velocity data
 * Period of 61 Days
 * Minimum mass of 19 Earth Masses