Two Tickets to Paradise

As the first part of a series on the planets of the Alien(s) universe, I wanted to cover Origae-6. Believe it or not, locating Origae-6 was the original problem that got me into fictional star mapping a few years ago. It offered the best components of a good mystery – an intriguing story, tantalizing clues laid out in a number of different sources, and a likely real answer. It seemed like the holy grail of star mapping – because, if you could place Origae-6, you could place Planet 4 – and that was the real prize.

Origae-6

First, let me talk about what Origae-6 is, in case you’re not familiar with it.

In the movie Alien: Covenant, the titular vessel is carrying a payload of frozen colonists in hypersleep, destined for the far-flung cradle world of Origae-6. The planet is supposed to be a near approximation of Earthlike attributes, adn as such would be suitable for human life. It is thus far the most distant colony ever established at the time (2104). Of course, the Covenant never make it to Origae-6, instead being damaged by an unexpected neutrino burst and setting course for the nearby Planet 4, which turns out to be the (a?) homeworld of the mysterious Engineers.

Now, there are plenty of clues in the movie Alien: Covenant itself, some in dialogue but mostly buried in UI screenshots from computer screens. It turns out pinning down Origae-6/Planet 4 is a bit of a chicken/egg situation, since clues to the location of both are provided but neither are really complete enough to pin the pair of planets down.

However, the planet’s location has smartly been deduced by Scott Middlebrook over at Alien Timeline:

Regarding the speed and location of Covenant. What we know and what I’ve assumed: It’s 7 years 4 months from current position when the ship is damaged by the neutrino burst. There are 8 more recharges according to Oram and Walter. This would place each recharge every 11 months or so (assuming a final recharge when they reach Origae-6. Using info from the novelisation, it says they’ve been asleep for months (as opposed to years). I have assumed that this is the first recharge, and therefore they launched about 11 months earlier. I originally surmised that if we plot dates and improvements in FTL speeds using Prometheus (0.04 light years per day launching in 2091) as the starting point and Nostromo as the end point (0.13 light years per day as at 2122), this would put Covenant at a speed of 0.08 light years per day in 2104. Of course this is comparing three very different ships and a straight line in the improvements of light-plus engines, but there’s very little to go on. With the advent of the blu-ray, it is possible to see the time and distance numbers from the position of the incident to Planet 4. These numbers however are very ,very difficult to make out. My best guess was 1.249000 (I’m assuming light years) and a travel time of 2 weeks (Ricks says ‘a few weeks’ in the dialogue). Bizarrely this also points to a speed of 0.08 light years per day. A further assumption is based on the name Origae-6. Origae is Latin for Auriga, so I’ve used that as a basis to place Origae in the constellation Auriga. A total travel time of approximate 3011 days would place Covenant some 240 light years from Earth at journey’s end. The best candidate in Auriga for this is Xi Aurigae. It is 238 (+/- 5) ly away and is an A2V type main sequence star with a size and mass around twice that of Sol. It does not currently have any known exoplanets.

So there we have it.

If we set Origae-6 at Xi Auriga with a distance of 238 ly from Sol, we can map the following using our calculation sheet:

Xi Aurigae: RA 05h 54m 50.78082s, Dec 55° 42′ 25.0084″, distance 238 ly

This maps to (relative to Galactic Center):

Location Xly Yly Zly Xi Auriga -88.726 -27212.3764 109.4386

Covenant Emergency Position

Now, to find 16EG14/Main Sequence Star C234/Planet 4/Paradise, we first need to find the position of the Covenant’s emergency with the neutrino burst.

Using Scott Middlebrook’s theory above, with the whole journey from Earth to Origae-6 taking 11 months (time from Earth) + 7 years, 4 months (time remaining in the journey) for a total journey time of 99 months. If we assume a steady pace, then the emergency occurred at (11/99)*238 light years from Earth, or 26.44 light years towards Origae-6.

Since, from Earth, the emergency position would be in the same place in the sky as Origae-6 but only at a distance of 26.44 light years, we can plug it into our calculator and get:

Location Xly Yly Zly Covenant Emergency Position -9.858327789 -27023.59698 55.6472902

Planet 4, aka “Paradise”

Now from here, it gets a little trickier. Finding Paradise, aka Planet 4.

From this screenshot of the Covenant’s projected course toward Oregai-6 and Planet 4’s (here listed as Main Sequence C234) deviation from the flight path, we can approximate by overlaying a circle onto the flight path that Planet 4’s position is approximately 45° to starboard from the emergency position, at a distance (again, per Scott Middlebrook) of 1.249 ly.

I won’t put all of my trigonometry calculations here, but using basic Pythagorean theorem, we can find the angle of Origae-6/emergency position relative to Earth. If we add 45 degrees, we can then use the same theorem to get Planet 4’s position, which works out to:

Location Xly Yly Zly 16EG14/Main Sequence Star C234/Planet 4 -11.01367 -27024.07 55.6427902

In this case, I’m estimating the Z depth by assuming it is roughly on the same plane as the emergency position by virtue of being so close to it.

If we map these together, we get the following galactic map:

On a closer scale to home, we see the following:

LV-223

For those of you playing the home game, you may wonder where Planet 4/Paradise lies in relation to LV-223 (and later LV-426) – both planet(oids) orbiting the gas giant Calpamos around the star Zeta II Reticuli. We will cover the journey of the Nostromo in more depth in a later entry, but for now I will map the two stars Zeta Reticuli and Epsilon Reticuli (Thedus) in relation to our newfound Planet 4 (eagle-eyed Alien fans will note that Thedus/Epsilon Reticuli was the destination from which Nostromo was returning when she set down on LV-426).

Interesting!

I’ll also add that there are other theories out there as to Planet 4/Origae-6’s location. Here’s one from Yutani. Have you found others?

That’s it for now :). Check back soon for more star info!