Hypatia and Theon

Published on December 2, 2025 at 5:46 PM

A pair of oxygen-rich gas planets orbit each other in a distant star system, potentially concealing exotic aerial life forms beneath their clouds.

 

Not too much explanation behind this render. Here, I was simply trying out nodes in Blender's Shader Nodes editor, and created a banded texture reminiscent of gas giants, although at an admittedly low resolution, as this texture option was not purpose-built for this application. In any case, these planets orbit each other as binary partners, who together orbit their parent star within the habitable zone. The cloud colors are shades of off-white to indicate the presence of water vapor, while the atmospheric haze is a soft blue, indicating an oxygenated atmosphere. Their names come from the philosopher-mathematicians Hypatia and her father Theon, who lived in Alexandria in the 1st Century and made several notable contributions to the fields of mathematics and astronomy. In this render, Hypatia is in the foreground, with Theon behind it. They are of roughly comparable size, both slightly smaller than Neptune.

 

I reason that the tidal heating between the planets, as well as their temperate orbit and oxygenated atmosphere would allow aerial life to form on at least one, if not both planets. 

 

Fun fact: I came up with the names for these planets before learning about the actual exoplanet known as Hypatia (Iota Draconis b), although in-lore this can likely be chalked up to the discoverers of the planets simply not knowing the proper name of Iota Draconis b, which is understandable given the sheer volume of known exoplanets relatively close to the Solar System, to say nothing of the unknown ones. 

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