<-- conceptual view - don't let the colors & sizes prejudice you (except for where rockballs vs. gasballs are likely to be)...

Whole page is [tech] info, until we get it all settled... at that point some of the info can go on one of Mike's main Aurora pages. Each current player (player, not nation) may pick a planet -- designated for now as #1 through #10 or so. You can specify that planet's characteristics, name, history of discovery, mythology, whatever, all within what would be believable in the equivalent of earth's 1930's. We'll say you can specify its real characteristics, if they differ from what's visible through a telescope -- we'll put that on the site as a [tech] note if necessary. Example - mars was popularly assumed to have some amount of atmosphere and (at least in fiction) be habitable, even habited. Its real atmosphere is uncomfortably close to a vacuum.... The outer planets are going to be more interesting via their place (or their namesake's place) in mythology and history, rather than by their appearance... "a bright bluish speck barely visible with binoculars or a 50X telescope" or the like might be all our Auroran folks can know just yet. The way some other ImagiNations games do this is for the planets' names to be drawn from players' game-countries' own mythology... a good excuse to *develop* some mythology!

I'll try to keep this updated as people pick planets and describe them.

By way of parameters -- the sun = exactly like earth's sun. Aurora = earth's size, general composition, distance from the sun. Planets fairly close to a primary are figured to be rocky (like Mercury-Mars) or metallic, having lost at least the bulk of their gas to the sun's radiation. Planets farther out might still retain a lot of gas, like Jupiter - Neptune. Orbits uncomfortably close to some large planet's might contain an asteroid belt rather than a single planet -- though the total mass of all the bits might add up to the "missing" planet's. No reason there can't be zero or more than one asteroid belt (though if very far out, Auroran astronomers wouldn't have noticed the bits and pieces yet). No reason outer planets might not be rocky - Pluto is (if you call it a planet - current definitions act like it doesn't deserve the title, like that matters to the majority of the world :-) ... ). No reason big outer planets couldn't have moons as big as some other planets. Rings optional. "Canals", changing ice caps, craters might be visible from Aurora, for close planets. Moons would be visible to astronomers, at least the bigger ones. Remember planets inward from Aurora would be visible not too far from the sun - as "evening or morning stars", but never "rising as the sun sets" like the moon or outer planets could. A planet very close to the sun is pretty hard to observe, so wouldn't necessarily have been known as long as the brighter/ more visible ones.

A nice comparison of earth's neighbors - sizes and distance from sun - is here. Another source which has more data on our neighboring planets than you can shake a stick at, is here (pick "Astrophysics", then "Solar System" from the index). After looking at Jupiter on that site, I'd comment that if you have a bunch of names you want to use, or a detailed mythology that "needs" using, just do a jupiter-kind of planet with a bazillion moons, and name all the moons too!

So pick a planet - designated by orbit # from the sun on this diagram - we'll call Aurora #4. State on-list which you want to name and describe, then in a later message (unless you're quick :-) ) give us the details. Some orbit #s may wind up empty, i.e Aurora might not be the fourth planet. We'll settle orbital distances after which slots are filled becomes apparent.
		Shall we just call it "sun"? -- most Aurorans do, though in their native tongues. As a "proper name" sometimes people will use Tarika, Estelle, Aster, or Alnair.
		#1 ... these are all just placeholder plainplanets... you're on your own for size, color...
		#2: something Lindonarlinese, when Justin gets around to it
		#3: Zeno, after the mythical god of war similar size as Aurora, believed to harbor life   Solomon X-Zavier
		#4: Mike's already got this one under control :-)... unless for some reason we want some inconsequential tiny moons? They wouldn't last long (geologically speaking) - the comparatively huge main moon would perturb their orbits - probably right into spectacular impacts with Aurora (ouch!) or the moon. The moon is usually just "moon" in whatever language an Auroran speaks. If it has a "proper name" two that are sometimes used beyond their origin nations are Ithil and Celina.
		#5: something Shaelic, when Scott gets around to it
		#6 ... any of the orbits could have asteroids instead of a planet, not necessarily this one...
		#7; Valhalla (pro Farlharlah)   Named after the home of the Gods of the early Frankisch tribal legends, & the place where the souls of the warriors slain in battle are believed to reside.
		#8: Nona, or Nyotansiniangavu    In the late 17th century (Anadile dateline), Ntembenu astronomer Macharia MWAWENYENGUVU, working out of the southern colonies near Szerelo, able to see the night sky far more clearly than one can in equatorial Ntembe, confirmed that what the Ntembe had thought was a star for years and years, was, in fact, what appeared to be a bright coloured ball -- a planet. It was Planet #8 for the system. It had been named Nyotansiniangavu by the Ntembe all these years, and that was what he named the planet: "Bright southern star". Colloquially, amongst Astronomers in Ntembe, the planet tends to be referred to by its acronym, NNA, with a necessary inter-consonantal vowel: "Nona (Sayari)".
		#9: Udacha   According to legend, the first ever ruler of Hussia had claimed to see the ninth planet in the night sky the same day that Andrei Sergeivitch Vulcanovi proclaimed himself to be the first leader of Hussia. The self-appointed powerbroker gave himself almost king like powers and stayed a remarkable twenty seven years as ruler. Vulcanovi subsequently claimed that the sighting of the ninth planet gave him unparalleled luck throughout his life. In the first year of his reign, Vulcanovi named the planet "?????" (Udacha), literally meaning 'good luck', which he believed the planet had bestowed upon him on the night that he became the leader of Hussia. - David Lawrie
		#10    ... the sizes of these circles doesn't mean much either. look at the above link for a more realistic idea of the difference in sizes between gasballs and rockballs.
		#11: Mazlis     In 1868 Nyugati Royal Astronomer Jan Hezopachiv discovered the planet Mazlis, 11th from the sun. He named it Mazlis, or "lucky", since as he put it "I was lucky to have even noticed its motion in a series of observations that were actually focused on Zeno". Not much is known about the planet other than its orbital period, size, and distance from the sun. Teknikratioji telescopes have suggested it is greenish or blueish in color.
		#12
		#13: something Osmani or Teknikratiojish... -Andrew Gray