Herschel

Herschel
Vessel Profile
Type	JumpShip

History

The ECV Herschel was a JumpShip of unspecified type serving with the Explorer Corps. In 3002 it visited the Sador (Gamma Cygni) system, reportedly located 815 light-years from Terra, on a scientific mission to study its F-class star for six weeks, before moving a short distance away to study the Cygnus X-1 binary star system which is composed of a black hole and a supergiant primary.

Notes

• Gamma Cygni (aka Sador, Sadir or Sadr, from Arabic Sadr al Dedjadjet) and Cygnus X-1 are real stellar objects.
  However, the real, nonfictional Sador is some 1,800 light-years from Earth; the stated distance of 815 light-years in BattleTech may be a clerical error and meant to read 1,815.
  The real Cygnus X-1 system is located ca. 6,070 light years from the Sol system, several thousand light-years farther than even Sador. It could be assumed that the "safe distance" the Herschel had to keep from the Cygnus X-1 black hole/supergiant binary system was measured in astronomical terms, and that the vessel therefore travelled a short distance from Sador to observe Cygnus X-1 from a safe distance that was actually still several thousand light-years away.
• The actual position of either Sador or Cygnus X-1 on the BattleTech starmap are unspecified, though like their real-world counterparts they apparently lie in almost the same direction as seen from Earth.

Bibliography

• Explorer Corps