70 Ophiuchi A

70 Ophiuchi
 * United Earth Designation: 70 Ophiuchi
 * UAS:Freo Star
 * Notes: This Binary star system contains Freo, the former home world of the Freons.
 * Affiliation: ** - 2105 Freon, 2106-2112 no one, 2113 UE, 2222 Union

70 Ophiuchi is a binary star system located 16.6 light years away from the Earth. It is in the constellation Ophiuchus.

History
This star system was first catalogued as a binary star by William Herschel in the late 18th century in his study of binary stars. Herschel proved that this system is a gravitationally bound binary system where the two stars orbit around a common center of mass. This was an important contribution to the proof that Newton's law of universal gravitation applied to objects beyond the solar system. He commented at the time that there was a possible third unseen companion affecting the orbit of the two visible stars. In 2100 Earth learned that it is the home system of the Freon In 2205 all planets are hit by Robo Bombs carrying the Lucifer Virus An assessment expedition by the United Earth military in 2206 confirms all planets liveless. United Earth takes posession of the system in 2213 and becomes a Union System in 2222 OTT

Variability
70 Ophiuchi is a variable star with a magnitude range for the two stars combined of 4.00 to 4.03. The type of variability is uncertain and it is not clear which of the two components causes the variations. It has been suspected of being either a BY Draconis variable or an RS Canum Venaticorum variable, and a period of 1.92396 days has been measured.

Binary star
The primary star is a yellow-orange main sequence dwarf of spectral type K0, while the secondary is an orange dwarf of spectral type K4. The two stars orbit each other at an average distance of 23.2 AUs. But since the orbit is highly elliptical (at e=0.499), the separation between the two varies from 11.4 to 34.8 AUs, with one orbit taking 83.38 years to complete.

Planetary system
In 1855, William Stephen Jacob of the Madras Observatory claimed that the orbit of the binary showed an anomaly, and it was "highly probable" that there was a "planetary body in connection with this system". This is the first attempt to use radial velocity to detect an exoplanet, and the first based on astrometric evidence.

T. J. J. See made a stronger claim for the existence of a dark companion in this system in 1899, but Forest Ray Moulton soon published a paper proving that a three-body system with the specified orbital parameters would be highly unstable. The claims by Jacob and See have both been shown to be erroneous.

A claim of a planetary system was again made by Dirk Reuyl and Erik Holberg in 1943. The companion was estimated to have a mass one tenth the mass of the Sun. This caused quite a sensation at the time but later observations have gradually discredited this claim.

The negative results of past studies does not completely rule out the possibility of planets. In 2006 a McDonald Observatory team has set limits to the presence of one or more planets around 70 Ophiuchi with masses between 0.46 and 12.8 Jupiter masses and average separations spanning between 0.05 and 5.2 AU.

A physical survey in 2213 confirms five rock type planets. One Neptune type planet and a total of seven moons.
 * 1 William's Planet
 * 2 Freo One
 * 3 Freo Two
 * 4 Freo Three
 * 5 Reuyl's World
 * 6 Hohlberg Blue