Ora

Ora

**Ora** is the 4th planet in the Kelnis System , and the first in the habitable zone of Kelnis.

## In-game Description

"*Unlike Narath, Ora does not possess a dry desert on the day side of the planet. Instead, it possesses a hemispheric ocean dotted with many small islands and archipelagos. The ocean helps spread heat from the substellar point of the planet into the cooler areas, allowing the planet to support life throughout the sunlit hemisphere and not just the terminator. Visitors here can fish for strange creatures in the archipelagos, go sledding on the nightside ice cap, or do anything in between."*

## Physical Characteristics

Ora's tidally locked nature makes it so that the planet has a single large ocean on one hemisphere and a massive icecap on the other. The hemispheric ocean hosts a large number of archipelagos, making Ora an "island planet". Due to the permanently sunlit nature of Ora's hemispheric ocean and the rarity of dry land, large quantities of warm and moist air constantly rises from the surface. This provides fuel for long lasting megastorms that have raged over Ora's substellar point for long stretches of the planet's history. However, the islands help to break up the climate, making it much less predictable. As a result, Ora's storms usually occur in phases, with long periods of storms broken up by short periods of calm weather. As of right now, Ora is in a storm phase, which can last for hundreds of thousands of years.

## Atmosphere

Because of Ora's tidally locked nature, the worldwide air circulation pattern on the surface is more or less constant dry winds rushing from the frigid nightside toward the warm dayside, where the currents pick up moisture and heat from the open ocean and rise up into the stratosphere to race back toward the nightside. As the air currents rise, they typically cool down and release most of their moisture as torrential rain. The constantly rising warm air from the sub-stellar point subsequently fuels massive hurricanes, some of which can last centuries with very short calm periods in between. Occasionally smaller storms branch off the main cyclone and reach the terminator, where they generate blizzards of biblical proportion.

The atmospheric composition of Ora is somewhat Kerbin-like, but has much higher concentrations of carbon dioxide near the surface, making breathing impossible for kerbals on the surface. Near higher elevations, the carbon dioxide is replace with nitrogen, which is the primary component of the upper atmosphere. Ora also has large amounts of oxygen, albeit in much lower percentages than Kerbin's atmosphere. The atmosphere mainly relies on water vapor and methane as greenhouse gases. Due to larger and more intense flares of solar activity on Ora compared to Kerbin, a thicker ozone layer has developed on Ora due to the higher rate of ozone production, helping life on Ora survive radiation doses a little better.

## Life

Life on Ora has grown tough in order to adapt to the ever-changing conditions on a world tidally-locked to a red dwarf star. Because Kelnis can double in brightness or half it's output in mere minutes, plants and animals have to be able to respond to sudden and dramatic changes in climate and weather. On the dark side of Ora, ecosystems thrive around hydro-thermal vent systems deep under the ice.

Land life on Ora is a lot tougher than the life found on Kerbin or even Narath. With Kelnis being a small star, it tends to flare up much more, when, combined with the common transits of the inner planets, can double or half the solar output in just minutes. This means that creatures have to use alternative forms of energy collection instead of relying on photosynthesis alone, which Ora has so gratefully provided. The islands of Ora are almost entirely volcanic, so the plants on Ora have two types of roots, one for water collecting, and one for collecting fertile chemicals typically found in volcanic byproducts (which are recycled by detritivores and soil microbes). As a result, when Kelnis throws a fit, plants on Ora will fold up and use a back-up generator to stay alive.

Animal life on Ora is rather different from those of Narath. Instead of burrowing themselves into the ground or water to prevent themselves from radiation, almost all species are equipped with "leaves" that will dispense heat blasted by Kelnis, like the radiators developed by kerbal scientists.

Ocean life on Ora is mostly centered around the underwater vents supplied from within Ora. This has led to massive reefs, as these vents are very common. There are an abundance of animals around these reefs, just like the reefs found on Kerbin. Most of the ocean life is descended from crustacean-like ancestors, as animal life on Ora first appeared in the ocean's deepest trenches. The same thing applies to land life, as they have developed hard shells to protect more against radiation.

A recent discovery is that many of the animals on Ora will actually thrive on the edges of the ice caps, similar to penguins. They spend most of their lives either in the seas or on the islands, but when they are breeding they will swim to the edge of the ice cap and nest there, raising their brood until they are old enough to live on their own.

Another curious aspect of Ora's life is the breeding season itself. Because Ora is tidally locked, there are no "seasons", meaning that there are no cues for animals to breed. However, groups of animals have been observed at certain times to come together and breed. Some scientists believe it may have to do with the amount of activity with Kelnis, but no real conclusions have been found..

## Biomes

* Lowlands
* Midlands
* Highlands
* Ocean
* Seasonal Ice Cap
* Permanent Ice Cap

## Trivia

* Large amounts of islands may point to very active volcanism and plate tectonics, mainly due to tidal forces from Kelnis.
* Ora's separated landmasses allowed for the rapid diversification of land species (like with Karwin's finches), while the harsh conditions imposed by Kelnis increased the rate of natural selection. The result is that Ora's life is incredibly diverse, and because the entire light side of the planet is habitable (unlike Narath), Ora has just enough biomass and biodiversity to be classified as "on-par" with Kerbin.