Star System Fact Check

Apparently, it is. And there's no LV-233 that I've heard of, only LV-223. In Prometheus they don't actually say it clearly, as far as I remember it. But Scott mentions Zeta 2 Reticuli clearly in one of the featurettes. I think it's the one called '30 years in the making'. Hope that helps.

yeah I guess they are close to each other. Would make little sense naming two Planets "LV+number" if they don't belong in the same system or cluster.

In Alien, LV 426 is in the Zeta 2 Reticuli system. In Prometheus and one of the prometheus short documentaries, Ridley clearly states that LV 223 is in Zeta 2 Reticuli system. It doesn't necessarily mean that both Planetoids are orbiting around the same Planet, but they are in the same system.

^^^^^^agree with Necro^^^^^^

That's correct, so they could still be quite far apart. But compared to the distance from Earth to Zeta 2 Reticuli I'd say it's more like a stone throw away...

^^^^agreed with Necro and David^^^^ ...aawww

LOL. What does ^^^^ Mean? That's the biggest question.

well, it means sort of 'see above' (pointing upwards)

I just find it a bit of a coincidence that LV-223 and LV-426 both circle a ringed planet without it being the same ringed planet. It's possible, but not convincing.

@Herc. It is not just possible but very probable that there is more than one Ringed Planet, in that Star System. Considering the Ringed Planet in Alien and the Ringed Planet in Prometheus are different Colours? I'm colour blind, so i didn't see that difference but i've heard alot of other people comment on that paticular difference.

The proximity of the Derelict to LV 223, really shouldn't matter. You can use you're imagination for that, surely! That is where Ambiguity is supposed to be placed! In Prometheus there is too much ambiguity, to the point that it becomes a Crusade, rather than a Fun, entertaining experience with a BIT of Mistery. We don't need everything spelling out for us, but atleast give us what we need to make sense of the Film! Also, the difference in the Colours of the Ringed Planets, isn't just a case of Technological advancement, in my opinion. Ridley is a very Visual Film Maker, as we all know. So i really don't think that he would make any compromise or mistakes on the Colours of the Planets if that is one of the main focuses of the Alien, Prometheus connection.

I would buy it that the planets are different colors simply due to the advancement in special effects from alien to Prometheus. The question about the planetoids and their proximity simply takes me back to the question of where is the derelict in proximity and when did it crash? Yes, I know, we have talked about that one to death. I just can't help but wonder if the derelict is not that old. I posed the question in a thread awhile back about why the Prometheus didn't pick up on the signal from the derelict? After watching alien again, it firms some things up for me. Yes the nostromo crew were in zeta 2 and now because of this thread, yes, the Prometheus crew went to zeta 2. So how did the company know to send the nostromo crew to zeta 2 and to bring back the alien life form, crew expendable. So in the sequel to prometheus(I realize there is another place for prometheus 2 discussions), they must either discover the signal from the derelict or they are responsible for downing it. I am beginning to think that the derelict is not that old and that the appearance of age is simply the result of time exposed to lv426. If downing the derelict predates the experiments we uncover in Prometheus, I could buy that as well, but hope they give us some real meat and potatoes when explaining it.

True........true...

If you want facts then it's going to get ugly. Fact is that Holloway said the system was so far away that it's not visible from Earth. That's not true, the Zeta Reticulae system is visible from the Southern hemisphere with the naked eye. Fact 2 the Zeta Reticulae system is not the furthest that man has ever travelled from Earth. If you examine the website for Weyland Industries, and is this canon? POL-6362 Jacob-Tellis is 3249.1 LY's from Earth while Zeta Reticulae is only 12 parsecs or 39 LY's from Sol. It is called Zeta Reticulae 2 because it is a binary star system.The two stars are located at similar distances from the Sun and share the same motion through space confirming that they are gravitationally bound and form a wide binary star system. They have an angular separation of 309.2 arc seconds (5.2 arc minutes); which is far enough apart to appear as a close pair of separate stars to the naked eye under suitable viewing conditions. The distance between the two stars is at least 3,750 AU, so their orbital period is 170,000 years or more.[1 Both stars share similar physical characteristics to the Sun,[11] so they are considered solar analogs. Their stellar classification is nearly identical to that of the Sun. æ1 has 96% of the Sun's mass and 84% of the Sun's radius. æ2 is slightly larger and more luminous than æ1, with 99% of the Sun's mass and 88% of the Sun's radius.[5][6] The two stars are somewhat deficient in metals, having only 60% of the proportion of elements other than hydrogen and helium as compared to the Sun.[3][14] For reasons that remain uncertain, they have an anomalously low abundance of beryllium.[7] Both stars are considered unusual because they have a lower luminosity than is normal for main sequence stars of their age and surface temperature. That is, they lie below the main sequence curve on the Hertzsprung-Russell diagram for newly formed stars. Most stars will evolve above this curve as they age So for the sake of fictional stellar nomenclature it's possible that LV-223 and LV-426 orbit the opposing stars in the system which would make them relatively close. Also for those of you knocking the Nostromo's apparent lack of technology check your canon. The Nostromo a commercial Tug can cross the distance between Zeta Reticulae and Sol in 10 Months. Prometheus required 2 years to accomplish the same feat if they are in neighboring star systems.

Haha. Wow Ghost. Thanx :-))

I like the ugly facts...thanks ghost! Very interesting.

During the briefing on the Prometheus you can clearly see LV-426 in the hologram of the planet and it's 2 moons. But it isn't labelled............. So they clearly are in the same system, and each of the 2 moons has a ship of the same type crashed on it................ See the problem that creates for people? Either the Engineers/Space Jockeys/Shaw (I bet you that's who the Space Jockey ends up being) are REALLY bad drivers or they don't pay much attention to their weapons and they get loose all the damn time annihilating them at every turn . So it's no wonder they ended up extinct............. Man, I really am liking this less and less the more I think about it :-(

So how come the star map on the Prometheus shows the system somewhere north west of Orion? That's the other side of the sky to Reticulum.

I'd say that's due either to galactic drift OR the camera swapping the image from the right side of the screen to the left :-P

Nope. Proper motion of stars takes millennia before the effects can be seen visually. The star map on Prometheus shows Orion in the correct orientation as seen from Earth. What makes you think you can see LV-426 in the hologram if it isn't labelled?

^^^^^What HAL 9000 said^^^^^^ ehehe, cheers bro.

Well, I guess you can all look forward to the blu-ray release, freeze-framing the Prometheus star map and finding out for yourselves that LV-223 is nowhere near Reticulum (Zeta Reticuli) at all, if you know anything about astronomy.

@zzplural. Ridley clearly states, in one of the featurettes, that LV 223 is in the Zeta 2 Reticuli system, so how did you come to that conclusion? Can you give us a Link that shows that it is not in that System?

@necronom4: Not to argue, but in order for it to be "very probable", there would have to be recorded many instances of systems with more than one ringed planet. Granted, our own system has more than one planet with rings, I'm talking about planets with overly obvious rings, such as Saturn. I'm going to stick with it being possible, but not probable. As for the planets in the two films being of different colors, a lot of that can be chalked up to good old continuity error. I know you defended this by Ridley Scott being a perfectionist and having a great eye for detail, but he might not have cared that deeply for matching the colors. Although I'm going along with what Ghost had said, it's still strange that, save for color, LV-223 and LV-426 circle similar planets in different systems with roughly the same amount of moons circling as well.

@Herc. Ok, i see what you mean. But the Ringed Planet in Alien as 3 moons? Or is it more? (I must watch it again!) The ringed Planet in Prometheus as Two Moons. So do you think that is a continuity error? I'm just askin.

Necronom 4, the star map shown by Holloway and Shaw to the crew of the Prometheus clearly shows the Engineer's system as being approximately north west of the constellation of Orion. Reticulum (where Zeta Reticuli is) is a southern constellation almost as far as you can get from Orion. Whatever Ridley said, LV-223 is not anywhere near Zeta Reticuli.

Er N4, the only ascertainable features of the planet in Alien 3 is that it has two suns and is in a completely different system to that in Alien and Aliens and Prometheus, methinks your getting your films mixed up the gas giant in Alien/Aliens Galampos or something like that has three moons, one of which is Acheron LV-426, the gas giant in Prometheus was only shown to have two moons, one being LV-223

@zzplural. Science Fiction doesn't always fit in with reality or known facts. Since it's a Film i think we have to take Ridleys comments onboard.

@Snorks. That's what i said in my Comment. That the Ringed planet in Alien as three moons and the Ringed planet in Prometheus as two. I didn't say anything about Alien 3!

My mistake bud, need to wake up properly LOL