Страница 89 из 89
The concept of an ocean planet as depicted herein was proposed in 2003 by Marc J. Kuchner and Alain Léger (independently), with Léger coining the name. I am indebted to their papers on the subject: Kuchner, “Volatile-Rich Earth-Mass Planets in the Habitable Zone” ( The Astrophysical Journal LettersVol. 596, 10 Oct. 2003, pp. L105–L108) and Léger et al., “A New Family of Planets? Ocean Planets” ( IcarusVol. 169 Iss. 2, June 2004, pp. 499–504), for providing the basic information I needed to create Droplet. For more detailed calculations of Droplet’s size and internal structure, I relied on Christophe Sotin et al., “Mass-radius curve for extrasolar Earth-like planets and Ocean planets” ( IcarusVol. 191 Iss. 1, 1 Nov. 2007, pp. 337–351). More details were provided by “Ocean planets…soon” on the Crowlspace.com blog, February 4, 2007. Hal Clement’s novel Noiseprovided useful information on the meteorology of a world without land masses. Martin Chaplin’s Water Structure and Sciencewebpage at www. lsbu.ac.uk/water/was helpful for determining the behavior of water and ice under extreme pressure. The University of Rhode Island’s Discovery of Sound in the Seapage at www.dosits.org/helped fill in details about the deep sound (or SOFAR) cha
This book is dedicated to and informed by the memory of my cat Natasha, who passed away on June 20, 2008, at the age of 17. I’ve lived with many cats over the years, but she was very special to me, one of the greatest sources of joy in my life. She is deeply missed.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Christopher L. Be