Ilethes
Ilethes is one of the outermost planets orbiting the star Dephelis, and has no satellite in its orbit. Instead, it is engaged in mutual orbit with the planet of Valmante. Ilethes is believed to be 6.332 billion years old.
Names
History
- See also Maguera for more information
In the beginning, the planet now known as Ilethes was a swift-moving ball of rock, growing rapidly as it gathered ever more debris on its surface as it moved through space, and occasionally in collisions with asteroids and other assorted cosmophernalia. As the planet grew larger in mass, so concomitantly grew its gravitational pull, which led to what might be called cosmological sedimentation, as increasing amounts of debris, of increasing mass, settled on the surface of the planet, eventually weighing it down enough for it to be pulled into a mutual orbit with the planet Valmante.
In time, the core of Ilethes melted, due to the immense heat generated by the great pressure of cosmic debris and other matter that had accumulated on its surface, and the barren, rocky mass which once could not have supported life now began to decompose, irradiating its surrounding matter, and its riches of minerals seeped into the looser, more permeable outer layers of the planet; at the same time, the melting core emanated large amounts of heat, which diffused outwards and consumed the matter of the planet from the inside, enlarging the molten core and creating currents of molten matter of enormous strength that circulated inside the planet and set it in rotation, occasionally pressing hard enough against the still-solid crust to cause bulges, protrusions and other deformities on the surface. At times, velocity differentials between different currents led to tectonic activity, splitting up the crust into various “plates” that moved at different speeds in different directions, in turn leading to new tectonic landforms such as buckled mountains at convergent plate boundaries, and upsurges of molten material from the core which solidified as they reached the surface forming new crust of significantly decreased thickness and lower altitude. Plate boundaries were, however, not fixed due to the constantly changing directions of the currents; new plates splintered from old as regularly as did old plates coalesce into new.
As the core continued to give off heat, the entire surface of the planet was warmed, and eventually heated up sufficiently that volatile elements and compounds had already escaped some distance from the planet to form its atmosphere, while other less volatile ones had also melted, and formed running streams and rivers, which were found especially often midway up mountains, collecting into lakes and seas of mixed substance where the altitude was lower, especially in depressions. By far, the substance present in the largest quantity had been dihydrogenated oxygen, which quickly evaporated into the atmosphere as the planet heated up, but which also condensed rapidly upon contact with the far colder temperatures further away from Ilethes’ surface, forming an atmospheric zone at the upper extent of which it constantly rained, and at the lower limit of which falling rain constantly evaporated and returned within the zone.
Eventually, however, the currents in the core began to slow as its energy had dissipated in the form of outbound heat, and the planet’s rotation slowed significantly, as temperatures fell and rain began to fall on the surface of Ilethes. With water, the planet’s surface underwent a host of changes—rivers accentuated previously milder landforms such as valleys and lakes, while eroding many once stark features, such as mountains; erosion of the surface resulted in the development of a rich layer of soil, fertilized by minerals both carried in the water and eventually deposited, and held within the ground and brought close to the surface by the water. Repeated cycles of such heating and cooling of the planet gave rise to a host of proto-lifeforms that seasonally alternated between activity and dormancy, surviving on nutrients released by the presence of water and reverting to suspended animation in periods of drought and global freezing. The planet eventually settled around an equilibrium rotation-speed that had currents in the core flowing considerably faster around the “equator” than at the “poles”, leaving temperatures at the equator high with little precipitation, and temperatures at the poles low with most precipitation solidified on the ground.
At this time Ilethes was not an illuminated planet. In its mutual orbit with Valmante neither was able to give off light in the same way that both emitted heat from within; lifeforms on both planets had, significantly, developed strong abilities to “see” in infra-red, while photosensitivity was an area of relative impairment. Yet while the planets maintained constant, stable revolutions around each other, neither drawing nearer nor drifting apart, as a unit they had been in motion, albeit slower than they had been individually, towards a light-emitting star, namely, Dephelis.
