Starquake.pdf

Ngw* 5. CI»ft-Wort Plant
Upon reversal of the process, they regrow a new, young cheela body to house their brain and nervous
system, which had been unaffected by the transformation. This animal-plant-animal process gives the
cheela a method for rejuvenation of the body.
Another form of plant life is the tri-poster plant shown in Figure 4. It puts out secondary trunks like the
banyan tree on Earth, then grows an interconnected triple trunk system with membranes and tension
fibers completing the structure.
A third form of plant life is the cleft-wort, well-known trademark of the Web Construction Company. It
is found mostly in crevices in rocks in the mountainous areas at the east and west magnetic poles,
although the hardy mountain plant also thrives in the nooks and crannies of the homes and offices in the
cities and towns. As can be seen in Figure 5, the cleft-wort plant uses the rocks and ledges to provide
mechanical support. A taproot at the base of the cleft climbs up the corner of the crevice to the upper
surface where it attaches onto opposite sides of the cleft with broad surface roots. The surface roots then
anchor tension fibers in a pattern similar to that of a spider web in the corner of a room. The web fibers
support a membrane between them. The upper surface of the membrane is highly emissive to allow waste
heat to escape to the cold sky, while the lower surface is silvery to reflect the heat from the hot crust
below.
STARQUAKES
The only "weather" the cheela have on the nearly airless Egg is earthquakes or, more properly,
crustquakes or starquakes, depending upon the magnitude. While a large quake on Earth has a Richter
magnitude of 8 or greater, large starquakes on neutron stars can reach an equivalent Richter magnitude of
16!
Having experienced a starquake at close quarters with a number of different instruments active and
measuring, we now have a better idea of what a large starquake is like. Our present understanding is
summarized in a recently published book by some of the crew members on Dragon Slayer.1Our findings
are not significantly different than the older publications in the field that discussed how the vibrational
energy in the crust gets transferred into the magnetic field and then into the electrons and ions in the
sparse atmosphere,2,3 how the smaller quakes can be used to predict the larges quakes,4and how a
large
quake can trigger a core collapse or starquake. Unfortunately, being able to predict a large quake from
smaller quakes was of little help to us humans who were there. The whole quake sequence takes place in
less than a second.