Location: Wesrix's Sector
Claimed by: Dominion

The Lax'Thepat system is an oddity of astronomy - a fluke of gravity with an unknown cause. The system itself consists of a small dwarf star in a binary alignment with a pair of brown dwarfs. The brown dwarfs, sub-stellar objects which emit infra-red radiation but little visible light, have a series of orbiting planets bound to their central point of mass, while an array of larger planets orbit around both the primary star and brown dwarf pair.

Gathering sensor data from the planets close to the brown dwarf pair is difficult, as the twin brown dwarfs each emit powerful and chaotic electromagnetic fields due to their internal convection.

Type: Main Sequence, Subdwarf
Radius: 0.74 Standard
Mass: 0.69 Standard
Black-body Temperature: 4400K

Type: Brown Dwarf
Radius: 0.15 Standard
Mass: 0.0041 Standard
Black-body Temperature: 1860K

The slightly larger of the two brown dwarfs, Lax'Thepat Secondary is anomalously hot given its size and mass.

Type: Brown Dwarf
Radius: 0.14 Standard
Mass: 0.0038 Standard
Black-body Temperature: 1399K

Type: Barren World

A moderately-sized barren world in a figure-8 orbit around the primary star and brown dwarf pair. It has a thin atmosphere of carbon dioxide and nitrogen.

Type: Toxic World
Class: Nitric Acid

Lax'Thepat II orbits the primary star and brown dwarf pair in a figure-8 configuration, variably heating and freezing at different distances from the primary star. The planet is orbited by a Dominion research station, operated by the Greatness In Small Things research group. This station monitors the strange astronomical interactions, as well as the bizarre lifeforms that survive on the planets orbiting the brown dwarf pair.

Type: Tomb World
Class: Unknown
Designation: Hazardous, do not approach

Orbiting the entire system in a perfectly circular orbit at a distance of 80AU, Lax'Thepat III is a dark, forbidding sphere of rock, the surface of which is studded with dome-shaped structures interlined by carved canal-like chasms. Starships attempting to orbit this planet exhibit rapid unexplained energy depletion, and most observations have to be carried out from significant distance.

The majority of planet-sized objects in the system lie within the Lax'Thepat Brown Dwarf Cluster - an arrangement of planets that tightly orbit the brown dwarf pair. The majority of these planets contain life of some kind (mostly micro-organisms), although that life is universally non-compatible with standard carbon-oxygen biology. The planets themselves are arranged in a bizarrely regular orbital arrangement that seems to be impossible for it to have naturally occurred. Combined with the strange structures visible on Lax'Thepat III, it it thought that the Brown Dwarf Cluster is in some ways artificial.

Type: Barren World

A small world closest to the brown dwarf pair, this planet receives the most heat of all the planets in the Cluster. Its thin atmosphere is dominated by carbon monoxide and nitrogen. Almost the entire surface of the planet is covered by a microbial mat, which traps dust and sediment from the few mountainous areas of the planet. The microbial mat is up to a kilometre thick in places.

Type: Toxic World

This large planet is highly tectonically active, and displays the greatest orbital eccentricity of those in the cluster. Its crust is regularly split by volcanoes and rifts, and its atmosphere is mostly hydrogen sulphide and sulphur dioxide. Its lava fields are grazed by a variety of macrofauna, which feed on the bacterial coatings breaking down the rock.

Type: Ice World

A cold world, this planet is mostly covered in water ice, but does have some spots of liquid water. Fungus-like structures pierce the ice sheets in tall spires, and then spread dark spores across the surface which absorb infra-red radiation from the brown dwarf pair.

Type: Ice World

A barren tundra tracked across by huge glaciers of carbon dioxide ice.

Type: Ice World

A rock world covered by a thick water-ice crust. It has a tenuous atmosphere composed primarily of oxygen. Its surface is striated by cracks and streaks, whereas craters are relatively rare. It is thought to have liquid-water seas beneath the ice crust, which have a strange pinkish hue, thought to be the presence of high concentrations of potassium permanganate.

Type: Barren World

A small rock world with a thin atmosphere of hydrogen sulphide, this planet is host to a dizzying array of micro-organisms, which coat the flat rock surface with an array of exotic colours.

Type: Ice World

An icy ammonia world, this planet is covered by solid layer of frozen ammonia up to 1000 kilometres thick in places. In the thinner regions, branching structures have been observed from orbit. These structures are thought to be the fronds of large plant-like organisms, and their slow rippling has been used to track the movement of currents in the liquid ammonia seas beneath the surface.

Type: Toxic World
Class: Carbon dioxide/sulphuric acid

A medium-sized world with an extremely thick atmosphere. This planet's dense carbon dioxide atmosphere traps almost all the heat that enters it in an extremely strong greenhouse effect, with surface temperatures reaching almost 900K. The sulphur component of the atmosphere manifests as dense clouds which race across the planet's upper atmosphere and produce massive lightning storms. The surface of Lax'Thepat Cluster VIII has not been surveyed successfully, as the atmosphere obscures any visuals and probes cannot survive the acidic environment and crushing pressures on the surface.

Type: Barren World

This large planet is a barren rock orbiting at the greatest distance from the brown dwarf pair of all the planets in the cluster. It is surrounded by a ring of fine dust and debris, and is orbited by two small, irregular moons.