Difference between revisions of "Kerbol"

Revision as of 19:19, 22 October 2012

Kerbol (also known as Kerbin Prime, the Sun, and the Star) is the star at the center of the Kerbol system. It is orbited by five planets: Moho, Eve, Kerbin, Duna and Jool.

Compared to our own Sun, Kerbol is roughly 100 times less massive and has a radius 26 times smaller. Kerbol appears to be a K class main sequence star, but since a proper classification of a star also requires knowledge of its luminosity and temperature, the nature of Kerbol is hard to ascertain.

Reference Frames

	Paid (0.17)	Demo (0.13.3)
Warp	Minimum Altitude
1x	0 m
2x	n/a	0 m
5x	3,270,000 m	3,270,000? m
10x	3,270,000 m	6,540,000 m
50x	6,540,000m	16,350,000 m
100x	13,080,000 m	32,700,000 m
1,000x	26,160,000 m	65,400,000 m
10,000x	52,320,000 m	130,800,000 m
100,000x	65,400,000 m	n/a

All Kerbol orbits are in an inertial reference frame. In the demo, getting close enough to experience the lower maximum time warps results Deep Space Kraken attacks.

Trivia

Between versions 0.7 and 0.10.1, Kerbol was a mere point of light in the skybox
It became possible to reach Kerbol in 0.11
Kerbol gained gravity in 0.12
It is still safe to drop below the 'surface' in 0.13.3, but a ship can break up from the extreme gravity gradients and/or shot outwards at large fractions of c.
Since 0.14, close encounters will result in a collision that destroys the ship and kills all crew members.
The current 'surface' of Kerbol is an invisible, and likely, featureless plateau approximately 4500-4700 km above the nominal radius. There is no known way to land on it, as the Kraken makes all maneuvering difficult, and the gravity reduces the TWR of all engines below 1. One can attempt to place edited parts on the surface, but they bounce erratically at a few hundred to a few thousand m/s if they do not explode.
While Kerbol can be reached from Kerbin's orbit by using a Hohmann transfer orbit, a spacecraft doing so will require a ΔV of about 8 km/s to do so. The most efficient way to reach Kerbol from Kerbin's orbit is to use a Bi-Elliptic transfer. With a sufficiently-distant apoapsis, the required ΔV to sundive can be reduced to under 4 km/s, at the expense of drastically-increased flight time.
The name "Kerbol" was created by forum members and never appears in the game. In the game, the star is referred to as "the Sun".