frobber on 27/12/2012 at 04:15

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FYI --

Of course, Tau Ceti 5 (the fifth planet from the star Tau Ceti) is mentioned often in the System Shock series. Planets and companion stars are actually assigned lower-case letters. The star itself is letter 'a' -- so Tau Ceti 5 is actually Tau Ceti 'f.'

It turns out that Tau Ceti really does have five planets and planet 'e' (the fourth planet from the star) is located in the star's habitable zone where water is likely to be a liquid. Tau Ceti 'f' is in a colder zone, but is a bit bigger and may hold enough atmosphere to keep the planet's surface warm. Check out (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tau_Ceti). Just 11 light years away, and probably one of the first exostellar systems we will explore one day.

-frobber