Death Spiral
Imperial Cutter "Temeraire" 1C3-DWBlaa Phoe NC-D d12-230 (Death Spiral)16,361 light years from Sol
After a longer than expected break en-route from Polonium fields, we’ve arrived at the next point of interest – the excitingly named “Death Spiral”
I was unprepared for the arrival here – on dropping out of FTL we almost seemed to pass through the class M star in orbit around the white dwarf. It frightened me half to death!
This system has a class V gas giant so close in to the white dwarf primary that it orbits the host every 15 minutes, passing through the jets as it does so. This is definately a temporary arrangement – the gas giant is slowly spiralling down into the star. If it is not torn apart by tidal forces or cremated by the jets it will end its life soon by smashing down into the white dwarf.
Facinated, I started to manoever in closer for better sensor readings, but at this point I realised that something was wrong. Temeraire’s sensors were starting to overload with the radiation flux from the white dwarf, and sensor resolution dropped significantly. I decided that discretion is the better part of valour and moved away from the spiral.
Temeraire’s systems recovered quickly soon after that and after final checks I headed out to the next destination.