Byfa

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Native Species - None

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Moons - None

Byfa is a tidally locked planet in the habitable zone of of the young star Klein. Colonized by the Terallans quickly after the invention of faster-than-light travel, Byfa was the site of the first pleasant contact with the Verna after the nearly catastrophic V'Straki Incident. Its surface and orbital infrastructure was severely damaged by the Void on its final offensive, and much of its population was killed, but it remains habitable and the remaining inhabitants are rebuilding quickly.

Physical Characteristics

Byfa is a tidally locked planet with the only landmasses close to the substellar point, and a massive ice cap on the night side. This makes the night side unbearably cold, and the land of the day side hotter than ideal. It is likely that Byfa is able to sustain plate tectonics, as the sunward desert shows signs of rifting and desert terrain has been found beneath the dark side icecap.

Life

Byfa has no native life due to its young age, and its terraforming suffered many challenges due to Klein's extremely red spectrum and low luminosity. To absorb as much light as possible, genetically engineered plants on the surface have developed a dark red hue. Life also has to make up for the large quantities of sun flares coming from Klein, blasting large amounts of radiation onto the surface. Because of its lower gravity, introduced life from Teralla and other worlds grows to great heights, creating vast megaflora and megafauna unique to the planet.

Orbit and Rotation

Byfa, having to orbit so close to Klein to remain habitable, has a very short orbital period of 6.35 days. It is tidally locked, and so rotates over the same period. It has a very low eccentricity, so it stays at almost exactly the same distance from Klein over all points in its orbit.

Atmosphere

Byfa's atmosphere is mostly comprised of nitrogen, oxygen, and carbon dioxide. The percentage of oxygen here, however, is significantly smaller than that on the homeworld of Teralla. This is because there is considerably less plant life on the surface capable of sustaining the oxygen content like on most habitable planets. The carbon dioxide concentration is comparable to Teralla's at present, but it is worth noting that a large amount of dry ice resides at the anti-stellar point of the planet, so climate swings have historically changed the carbon dioxide concentration by up to 1000 ppm.

Byfa's atmosphere is also considerably thinner than Teralla's. Being about 2/3 the density, it prevents heat from being transferred across the planet efficiently. This causes harsh wind currents to form, creating yet another problem for life to be engineered against.

Climate

Prior to terraforming, Byfa's natural climate unaffected by various mirror systems was driven almost entirely by its tidal locking. The atmosphere wasn't dense enough to allow for heat to be transferred across the planet, and caused massive temperature differences on the two sides of the planet. These massive temperature differences lead to global wind storms across the planet, which, when combined with rising moisture from the ocean, drove long-lasting weather patterns. At first, Byfa was expected to sport a long-lasting hurricane at the substellar point. But due to the continental formations underneath such a storm, no moisture can rise up to feed it.

Now that its climate has been stabilized, most of the planet is relatively temperate with clear skies, lacking the extreme temperature differentials. Its night side ice cap has been slowly thawing for the past century, and controlled release of its water into the oceans is underway.

Surface Features

Byfa's dayside surface is dominated by two similarly-sized continents just to the north of the substellar point. These regions are generally arid, with its "native" life engineered for desert environments, and are extremely mountainous in parts. WIP

Trivia

Byfa is the closest tidally locked planet to the Verda System.
It could be said that Byfa is an analog to Proxima Centauri b.
In an earlier iteration, Byfa was named Biff, and found in the Corbo System.