Starspen

Starspen is a galaxy of the barred spiral form. It includes Canopus system and Arrakis belong.

The galaxy is well up on the galactic evolutionary track, indicating a cosmic age of 12 billion years (middle age).

Rotation
It rotates once every 300,000 years, which is slower than most galaxies of this type.

Appearance
In physical appearance, the galaxy is typical except for dust content and has the form of a barred spiral

Nucleus
Because of the extensive central dust and gas clouds, the nuclear region of the galaxy is totally obscured, penetrable only by energetic microwaves. The physical nature of the nucleus was totally unknown until 15557 AG when Nilen developed the microtronic detector. The central region was found to be dominated by a 100-million-stellarmass white hole.

Secondary trailing spiral arm
This arm is of particular interest since Canopus system is located there at a distance of 129,000 light years from the nucleus. The region occupied by Canopus is relatively sparsely populated. 57 stars lie within a ten-light-year radius (8,000 cubic light years).


 * 44 of these stars are class P0 red dwarfs. Averaging an absolute magnitude of +16, they are intrinsically extremely faint and very old, low-mass stars whose lives will end as cold black dwarfs.
 * 8 are residents of class R4 to R9, average-mass, yellow stars have three or more planets orbiting them with conditions on some suitable for habitation by organic life. The nearest member of this group of stars is 7.76 light years from Canopus.
 * 4 nearest stars are class T and T3 super giant variables. These enormous energy machines undergo not only variations in stellar radius but in color, also. Trios, the least massive of the T3 variables, undergoes a change in color from deep violet to red in 1.35 days. This color variation is accompanied by changes in energy generation.
 * Finally, Canopus B, the white hole companion to Canopus, gravitationally bound and mutually orbit each other every 5.1 days. The ratio of the mass of Canopus to Canopus B is very high, 11520 to 1, with the center of mass of the binary system 79,000 km below the photosphere of Canopus. The mass of Canopus B and mass ratio explain why Canopus B passes within 40 km of the photosphere of Canopus at the near point of the orbit.