Long-form features on the astrophysics under Pax Abyssi, with every source cited, from the Pax Abyssi Science Desk. The weekly devlog and news from the studio sit beside them.
In 2000, three astrophysicists predicted how giant planets should look at five temperatures, from cream-banded Jupiters to worlds wrapped in cloud made of rock. A quarter of a century on, telescopes have tested the ladder rung by rung. Pax Abyssi draws its own giants from the same physics, by stirring their clouds with wind.
The sky in Pax Abyssi begins with 119,626 stars that astronomers have measured one by one. A few hundred light years out, that list thins to almost nothing, and the Milky Way's other hundred billion stars have to come from a model. This is how the model is built, and why the measured stars and the modelled ones have to add up.