Kaveri

Kaveri is the second planet from Aurinko and the most massive terrestrial planet in the system. It has a thick atmosphere of mostly oxygen and nitrogen, allowing for liquid water to exist on its surface. It is also one of two planets that has life existing on the surface, although most lifeforms exists in the oceans of Kaveri as surface temperatures can reach as high as 70°C. Kaveri also has a volcanic moon named Vihaivi with a thick sulphur dioxide atmosphere do to high levels of volcanism.

Nomenclature

Kaveri is Finnish for "buudy", as Kaveri is extremely similar to Selviytyä, suggesting that both planets shared very similar histories.

General characteristics

Kaveri is the largest terrestrial planet in the Aurinko System, with a mean diameter of 12,105 km. Conditions on Kaveri are quite similar to Selviytyä in terms of surface pressure, atmospheric compostion and irradiance, with the only major difference being temperature. Surface temperatures can reach up to 70°C, but ocean temperatures are at a more comfortable 30-50°C. Most lifeforms exist within the oceans for this reason.

Kaveri has a solid crust, a rigid outer mantle, a liquid mantle and solid core. Tectonic activity and volcanism is present on Kaveri due to strong tidal heating from its moon, forming large mountain ranges and valleys. The tallest point on Kaveri is 9237 km above sea level, and the deepest point is 11753 km below sea level. The surface of Kaveri is also very young at around 200-400 million years old.

Much of Kaveri's surface has been shaped by volcanism, with more than 150,000 volcanos identified, 76,000 of which have evidence for eruptions within the past five thousand years. Recent eruptions have been observed, with a notable eruption occuring in 2398, which caused an orbiter's image sensor to become oversaturated due to the shear amount of lava outflow.

Kaveri has a dense atmosphere comprising of mostly nitrogen, oxygen, methane, sulphur dioxide, carbon dioxide and other trace gases, with a surface pressure of around 1.17 bar. Most of the oxygen in the atmosphere likely came from photosythetic life living in the oceans of Kaveri, which helped cool the planet down to more manageable levels, otherwise surface temperatures could likely be near 90°C and even approach the boiling point of water, causing a runaway greenhouse effect. There is high amounts of cloud cover on Kaveri due to high amounts of water vapor in the atmosphere.

Life

Most life on Kaveri is microscopic, however there are a few multicelluar organisms that create sludge-like, orange or red blobs that float on the surface of water. There are also several small cacti-like plants with thick stems and small leaves, mostly located near bodies of water. There has been no observed fauna on the surface of Kaveri.

It has been suggested that life has been on Kaveri since the first two billion years of its formation, but has not evolved further due to several constraints from the envrionment.