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138-578: Anarres is located, together with its neighbouring planet Urras, in the solar system of Tau Ceti , a real star at a distance of just under twelve light years from Earth (or Terra, as it is referred to in the novel). Urras is the Old World: state-controlled, hierarchical, patriarchal , unequal but lush, materially rich and beautiful. Anarres is the New World: anarchist , communal , feminist , egalitarian , but arid and ecologically poor. A century and

276-548: A " liturgical framework for the development of local cults", in other words a scheme or structure for Chinese religion, proposed first by the scholar and Taoist initiate Kristofer Schipper in The Taoist Body (1986). Taoshi are comparable to the non-Taoist ritual masters ( 法師 ) of vernacular traditions (the so-called Faism ) within Chinese religion. The term dàojiàotú ( 道教徒 ; 'follower of Dao'), with

414-471: A 10 million year timeframe, and therefore it is extremely unlikely they would have survived for the billions of years that make up the lifetime of the star system. Tau Ceti e is a candidate planet orbiting Tau Ceti that was first proposed in 2012 by statistical analyses of the data of the star's variations in radial velocity that were obtained using HIRES , AAPS , and HARPS . Its possible properties were refined in 2017: if confirmed, it would orbit at

552-485: A Jupiter or super-Jupiter based on a tangential astrometric velocity of around 11.3 m/s. The exact size and position of this conjectured object have not been determined, though it is at most 5 Jupiter masses if it orbits between 3 and 20 AU. A 2020 Astronomical Journal study by astronomers Jamie Dietrich and Daniel Apai analyzed the orbital stability of the known planets and, considering statistical patterns identified from hundreds of other planetary systems, explored

690-503: A Western or Japanese background, who often use distinct interpretive models and techniques. This point of view characterizes the religious and philosophical characteristics of the Taoist tradition as being inseparable. Sinologists such as Isabelle Robinet and Livia Kohn state that "Taoism has never been a unified religion, and has constantly consisted of a combination of teachings based on a variety of original revelations." The distinction

828-456: A balanced society". On Anarres, there is no government, and hence no police force or legal system. Work is produced by interdependent syndicates with workers supplied by DivLab, and the resulting produce is distributed by the PDC. This ensures the separation of the means of distribution from the means of production, akin to Kropotkin's emphasis on decentralization. Hierarchy is ostensibly eliminated in

966-481: A bifurcated 'philosophy' versus 'religion' model. Daojia was a taxonomical category for Taoist texts, that was eventually applied to Taoist movements and priests in the early medieval period. Meanwhile, daojiao was originally used to specifically distinguish Taoist tradition from Buddhism. Thus, daojiao included daojia . Komjathy notes that the earliest Taoist texts also "reveal a religious community composed of master-disciple lineages", and therefore, that "Taoism

1104-515: A contentless and nonconceptual apophatic meditation as a way of achieving union with the Tao. According to Louis Komjathy, their worldview "emphasized the Dao as sacred, and the universe and each individual being as a manifestation of the Dao." These communities were also closely related to and intermixed with the fangshi (method master) communities. Other scholars, like Russell Kirkland, argue that before

1242-462: A damper on the possibility of complex life in the system, because any planets would suffer from large impact events roughly ten times more frequently than present day Earth. Greaves noted at the time of her research that "it is likely that [any planets] will experience constant bombardment from asteroids of the kind believed to have wiped out the dinosaurs ". Such bombardments would inhibit the development of biodiversity between impacts. However, it

1380-530: A detectable biosignature . Few properties of the planet are known other than its orbit and mass. It orbits Tau Ceti at a distance of 1.35 AU (near Mars 's orbit in the Solar System) with an orbital period of 642 days and has a minimum mass of 3.93 Earth masses. However, a reanalysis of the data in 2021 provided an in-depth study of the HARPS spectrograph systematics, showing that the 600-day signal

1518-472: A distance of 0.552 AU (between the orbits of Venus and Mercury in the Solar System ) with an orbital period of 168 days and has a minimum mass of 3.93 Earth masses. If Tau Ceti e possessed an Earth-like atmosphere, the surface temperature would be around 68 °C (154 °F). Based upon the incident flux upon the planet, a study by Güdel et al. (2014) speculated that the planet may lie outside

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1656-438: A half before the novel opens, idealistic revolutionaries from Urras have gone into exile and settled Anarres. The dry satellite planet becomes the setting for a social experiment based on the principles of mutual aid , communalism and social equality . On Anarres, the three great barriers to human freedom as identified by nineteenth-century anarchist thinkers – the state, organised religion and private property – are absent. In

1794-815: A key Taoist work on inner cultivation, the Baopuzi ( Master Embracing Simplicity ). The Six Dynasties (316–589) era saw the rise of two new Taoist traditions, the Shangqing and Lingbao schools. Shangqing was based on a series of revelations by gods and spirits to a certain Yang Xi between 364 and 370. As Livia Kohn writes, these revelations included detailed descriptions of the heavens as well as "specific methods of shamanic travels or ecstatic excursions, visualizations, and alchemical concoctions." The Shangqing revelations also introduced many new Taoist scriptures. Similarly, between 397 and 402, Ge Chaofu compiled

1932-407: A middle-to-low end super-Earth. However, these scenarios aren't necessarily true; since Tau Ceti's debris disk has an inclination of 35 ± 10 , the planets' orbits could be similarly inclined. If the debris disk and f's orbits were assumed to be equal, f would be between 5.56 +1.48 −1.94 and 9.30 +2.48 −3.24 Earth masses, making it slightly more likely to be a mini-Neptune . On top of that,

2070-587: A new set of liturgies, which continue to influence Taoist practice to the present day." This period also saw the development of the Three Pure Ones , which merged the high deities from different Taoist traditions into a common trinity that has remained influential until today. The new Integrated Taoism, now with a united Taoist identity, gained official status in China during the Tang dynasty . This tradition

2208-535: A positive correlation between the presence of planets and a relatively high-metallicity parent star, suggesting that stars with lower metallicity such as Tau Ceti have a lower chance of having planets. On December 19, 2012, evidence was presented that suggested a system of five planets orbiting Tau Ceti. The planets' estimated minimum masses were between 2 and 6  Earth masses , with orbital periods ranging from 14 to 640 days. One of them, Tau Ceti e, appears to orbit about half as far from Tau Ceti as Earth does from

2346-435: A positive philosophy aims for the holistic unification of an individual's reality with everything that is not only real but also valuable, encompassing both the natural world and society. But the earliest references to 'the Tao' per se are largely devoid of liturgical or explicitly supernatural character, used in contexts either of abstract metaphysics or of the ordinary conditions required for human flourishing. This distinction

2484-537: A principled, moral person. Since Taoist thought is syncretic and deeply rooted in Chinese culture for millennia, it is often unclear which denominations should be considered "Taoist". The status of daoshi , or 'Taoist master', is traditionally attributed only to clergy in Taoist organizations, who distinguish between their traditions and others in Chinese folk religion . Though generally lacking motivation for strong hierarchies, Taoist philosophy has often served as

2622-632: A radius of 0.55–1.16  AU , where 1 AU is the average distance from the Earth to the Sun. Primitive life on Tau Ceti's planets may reveal itself through an analysis of atmospheric composition via spectroscopy, if the composition is unlikely to be abiotic, just as oxygen on Earth is indicative of life. The most optimistic search project to date was Project Ozma , which was intended to "search for extraterrestrial intelligence " ( SETI ) by examining selected stars for indications of artificial radio signals. It

2760-481: A separate examination system based on Taoism. Another important Taoist figure of the Tang dynasty was Lu Dongbin , who is considered the founder of the jindan meditation tradition and an influential figure in the development of neidan (internal alchemy) practice. Likewise, several Song dynasty emperors, most notably Huizong , were active in promoting Taoism, collecting Taoist texts, and publishing updated editions of

2898-573: A series of scriptures that later served as the foundation of the Lingbao school , which was most influential during the later Song dynasty (960–1279) and focused on scriptural recitation and the use of talismans for harmony and longevity. The Lingbao school practiced purification rituals called "purgations" in which talismans were empowered. Lingbao also adopted Mahayana Buddhist elements. According to Kohn, they "integrated aspects of Buddhist cosmology , worldview, scriptures, and practices, and created

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3036-505: A similar nature to all other life. Roughly contemporaneously to the Tao Te Ching , some believed the Tao was a force that was the "basis of all existence" and more powerful than the gods, while being a god-like being that was an ancestor and a mother goddess . Early Taoists studied the natural world in attempts to find what they thought were supernatural laws that governed existence. Taoists created scientific principles that were

3174-540: A theoretical foundation for politics, warfare, and Taoist organizations. Taoist secret societies precipitated the Yellow Turban Rebellion during the late Han dynasty , attempting to create what has been characterized as a Taoist theocracy . Today, Taoism is one of five religious doctrines officially recognized by the Chinese government, also having official status in Hong Kong and Macau . It

3312-419: A third the solar abundance. Past measurements have varied from −0.13 to −0.60. This lower abundance of iron indicates that Tau Ceti is almost certainly older than the Sun. Its age had previously been estimated to be 5.8  Gyr , but is now thought to be around 9 Gyr . This compares with 4.57 Gyr for the Sun. However, age estimates for Tau Ceti can range from 4.4 to 12 Gyr , depending on

3450-596: A vast new collection of Taoist texts in close imitation of Buddhist sutras ." Louis Komjathy also notes that they adopted the Mahayana Buddhist universalism in its promotion of "universal salvation" (pudu). During this period, Louguan , the first Taoist monastic institution (influenced by Buddhist monasticism ) was established in the Zhongnan mountains by a local Taoist master named Yin Tong. This tradition

3588-429: A whole. Taoism, also known as Daoism , is a religious and philosophical system which emerged in ancient China. Le Guin translated a seminal work of Taoist philosophy, Tao Te Ching , which is said to have been written by the ancient Chinese philosopher Lao Tzu (also called Laozi ) It is here and elsewhere in her reading of Lao Tzu, that Le Guin was exposed to Taoist thought. To attempt a singular definition of Taoism

3726-444: Is "a coordinating system for all syndicates, federatives and individuals who do productive work. They do not govern persons; they administrate production." Pravic, the rationally devised language of Anarres, makes no distinction between the concepts "work" and "play", but the term "kleggich" refers to drudgery: the kinds of menial or manual labour that most Anarresti volunteer for one day out of every decad (the ten-day cycle which forms

3864-474: Is a controversial feat, as Chad Hansen has discovered. However, Douglas Barbour has noted that the imagery of light intertwining with dark which permeates the stories set in Le Guin's Hainish universe, and the vision they espouse of balance as a way of life, draw on the central tenets of Taoist thought: balance and paradox. Balance is similarly key to the utopian way of life on Anarres, with each individual, and

4002-474: Is a diverse philosophical and religious tradition indigenous to China , emphasizing harmony with the Tao 道 ( pinyin : dào ; Wade–Giles : tao ). With a range of meaning in Chinese philosophy, translations of Tao include 'way', 'road', 'path', or 'technique', generally understood in the Taoist sense as an enigmatic process of transformation ultimately underlying reality . Taoist thought has informed

4140-453: Is a modern Chinese construction largely rooted in earlier Chinese literati, European colonialist, and Protestant missionary interpretations. Contemporaneous Neo-Confucianists, for example, often self-identify as Taoist without partaking in any rituals. In contrast, Komjathy characterizes Taoism as "a unified religious tradition characterized by complexity and diversity", arguing that historically, none of these terms were understood according to

4278-447: Is about 2.5 km/s . The relatively low rotational velocity measurements may indicate that Tau Ceti is being viewed from nearly the direction of its pole. More recently, a 2023 study has estimated a rotation period of 46 ± 4 d and a v eq sin i of 0.1 ± 0.1 km/s , corresponding to a pole-on inclination of 7° ± 7° . The chemical composition of a star provides important clues to its evolutionary history, including

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4416-519: Is about 11 m/s measured over a 5-year time span. This result excludes hot Jupiters and probably excludes any planets with minimal mass greater than or equal to Jupiter's mass and with orbital periods less than 15 years. In addition, a survey of nearby stars by the Hubble Space Telescope 's Wide Field and Planetary Camera was completed in 1999, including a search for faint companions to Tau Ceti; none were discovered to limits of

4554-562: Is considered a major religion in Taiwan , and also has significant populations of adherents throughout the Sinosphere and Southeast Asia. In the West, Taoism has taken on various forms , both those hewing to historical practice, as well as highly synthesized practices variously characterized as new religious movements . "Taoism" and "Daoism" are alternate spellings of the same word. "Tao"

4692-489: Is fraught with hermeneutic difficulties when attempting to categorize different schools, sects, and movements. Russell Kirkland writes that "most scholars who have seriously studied Taoism, both in Asia and in the West" have abandoned this "simplistic dichotomy". Louis Komjathy writes that this is an untenable misconception because "the association of daojia with "thought" ( sixiang ) and of daojiao with "religion" ( zongjiao )

4830-475: Is generally not understood as a variant of Chinese folk religion per se: while the two umbrella terms have considerable cultural overlap, core themes of both also diverge considerably from one another. Traditionally, the Chinese language does not have terms defining lay people adhering to the doctrines or the practices of Taoism, who fall instead within the field of folk religion. Taoist, in Western sinology ,

4968-598: Is in the Wade-Giles romanization system, which was predominant in English-speaking countries until the late 20th century, and remains in use for certain terms with strongly established spellings. "Dao" is the spelling in the Hanyu Pinyin system, officially adopted in China in the 1950s, which has largely replaced Wade–Giles. The Standard Chinese pronunciation of both romanizations of the character "Dao"

5106-482: Is organised according to principles of mutual aid, voluntary association and absolute non-coercion. Economic activity is divided into syndicates and federatives, with work postings advertised via an automated system called Divlab: the administration of the division of labour. The network of administration and management is called PDC: Production and Distribution Coordination. This (as Shevek explains to his hosts in Urras)

5244-409: Is possible that a large Jupiter -sized gas giant (such as the proposed planet "i") could deflect comets and asteroids. The debris disk was discovered by measuring the amount of radiation emitted by the system in the far infrared portion of the spectrum . The disk forms a symmetric feature that is centered on the star, and its outer radius averages 55 AU . The lack of infrared radiation from

5382-513: Is premised on ideas of decentralization found in the writings of anarchist thinkers ranging from Lao Tzu to Peter Kropotkin. The economic structure of Anarres is, in part, an application of Kropotkin's theory of anarcho-syndicalism , and Annaresti society follows a philosophical, as opposed to religious, version of Lao Tzu's Taoism . According to Kropotkin's theory of anarcho-syndicalism, workers "enjoy their work, administer and organise themselves, and depend on other syndicates to help them to create

5520-626: Is present in the Solar System. Since December 2012, there has been evidence of at least four planets—all likely super-Earths —orbiting Tau Ceti, and two of these are potentially in the habitable zone . There is evidence of up to an additional four unconfirmed planets, one of which would be a Jovian planet between 3 and 20 AU from the star. Because of its debris disk , any planet orbiting Tau Ceti would face far more impact events than present day Earth. Note that those planetary candidates have been contested recently and recent discoveries about

5658-470: Is still understood in everyday contexts among Chinese people, echoed by early modern scholars of Chinese history and philosophy such as Feng Youlan and Wing-tsit Chan . Use of the term daojia dates to the Western Han c.  100 BCE , referring to the purported authors of the emerging Taoist canon, such as Lao Dan and Zhuang Zhou . Neither the Tao Te Ching and Zhuangzi themselves, or

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5796-573: Is the Bayer designation for this star, established in 1603 as part of German celestial cartographer Johann Bayer 's Uranometria star catalogue: it is "number T" in Bayer's sequence of constellation Cetus. In the catalogue of stars in the Calendarium of Al Achsasi al Mouakket , written at Cairo about 1650, this star was designated Thālith al Naʽāmāt (ثالث النعامات - thālith al-naʽāmāt ), which

5934-486: Is the same; that is, /daʊ/ , much like the English "dow". One authority calls the pronunciation with a <t> as in "tie" to be a "mispronunciation" originally caused by the "clumsy Wade-Giles system," which misled most readers. The word Taoism is used to translate two related but distinct Chinese terms. The distinction between Taoism in philosophy and Taoist religion is an ancient, deeply-rooted one. Taoism as

6072-478: Is traditionally used to translate daoshi /taoshih ( 道士 ; 'master of the Tao';), thus strictly defining the priests of Taoism, ordained clergymen of a Taoist institution who "represent Taoist culture on a professional basis", are experts of Taoist liturgy, and therefore can employ this knowledge and ritual skill for the benefit of a community. This role of Taoist priests reflects the definition of Taoism as

6210-584: Is weak relative to the Sun. Alternatively it has been suggested that the star could be in a low-activity state analogous to a Maunder Minimum —a historical period, associated with the Little Ice Age in Europe, when sunspots became exceedingly rare on the Sun's surface. Spectral line profiles of Tau Ceti are extremely narrow, indicating low turbulence and observed rotation. The star's asteroseismological oscillations have an amplitude about half that of

6348-599: The Daozang . The Song era saw new scriptures and new movements of ritualists and Taoist rites, the most popular of which were the Thunder Rites (leifa). The Thunder rites were protection and exorcism rites that evoked the celestial department of thunder, and they became central to the new Heavenly Heart (Tianxin) tradition as well as for the Youthful Incipience (Tongchu) school. In the 12th century ,

6486-522: The Zhuangzi , and the Tao Te Ching . The Tao Te Ching , attributed to Laozi , is dated by scholars to sometime between the 4th and 6th century BCE. A common tradition holds that Laozi founded Taoism. Laozi's historicity is disputed, with many scholars seeing him as a legendary founding figure. While Taoism is often regarded in the West as arising from Laozi, many Chinese Taoists claim that

6624-465: The Catalog of Nearby Habitable Systems (HabCat) under the auspices of Project Phoenix , another SETI endeavour. The list contained more than 17 000 theoretically habitable systems, approximately 10% of the original sample. The next year, Turnbull would further refine the list to the 30 most promising systems out of 5000 within 100 light-years from the Sun, including Tau Ceti; this will form part of

6762-543: The Chinese name for τ Ceti itself is "the Fifth Star of Square Celestial Granary" (Chinese: 天倉五 ; pinyin: Tiān Cāng wǔ ). The proper motion of a star is its rate of movement across the celestial sphere , determined by comparing its position relative to more distant background objects. Tau Ceti is considered to be a high-proper-motion star, although it only has an annual traverse of just under 2  arc seconds . Thus it will require about 2000 years before

6900-591: The Quanzhen (Complete Perfection) School was founded in Shandong by the sage Wang Chongyang (1113–1170) to compete with religious Taoist traditions that worshipped " ghosts and gods " and largely displaced them. The school focused on inner transformation, mystical experience , monasticism , and asceticism . Quanzhen flourished during the 13th and 14th centuries and during the Yuan dynasty . The Quanzhen school

7038-747: The School of Naturalists (from which Taoism draws its main cosmological ideas, yin and yang and the five phases ), and the Chinese classics , especially the I Ching and the Lüshi Chunqiu . Meanwhile, Isabelle Robinet identifies four components in the emergence of Taoism: the teachings found in the Tao Te Ching and Zhuangzi , techniques for achieving ecstasy, practices for achieving longevity and becoming an immortal ( xian ), and practices for exorcism . Robinet states that some elements of Taoism may be traced to prehistoric folk religions in China. In particular, many Taoist practices drew from

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7176-541: The Solar System , it is a relatively nearby star and the closest solitary G-class star. The star appears stable, with little stellar variation , and is metal-deficient (low in elements other than hydrogen and helium) relative to the Sun. It can be seen with the unaided eye with an apparent magnitude of 3.5. As seen from Tau Ceti, the Sun would be in the northern hemisphere constellation Boötes with an apparent magnitude of about 2.6. Observations have detected more than ten times as much dust surrounding Tau Ceti as

7314-819: The Tao Te Ching was to be a topic in the imperial examinations. During the reign of the 7th century Emperor Taizong , the Five Dragons Temple (the first temple at the Wudang Mountains ) was constructed. Wudang would eventually become a major center for Taoism and a home for Taoist martial arts ( Wudang quan ). Emperor Xuanzong (r. 712–755) was also a devoted Taoist who wrote various Taoist works, and according to Livia Kohn , "had frequent meetings with senior masters, ritual specialists, Taoist poets, and official patriarchs, such as Sima Chengzhen." He reorganized imperial rituals based on Taoist forms, sponsored Taoist shrines and monasteries, and introduced

7452-753: The Tao Te Ching were written: the Heshang Gong commentary and the Xiang'er commentary. The first organized form of Taoism was the Way of the Celestial Masters , which developed from the Five Pecks of Rice movement at the end of the 2nd century CE. The latter had been founded by Zhang Daoling , who was said to have had a vision of Laozi in 142 CE and claimed that the world was coming to an end. Zhang sought to teach people to repent and prepare for

7590-614: The Yellow Emperor formulated many of their precepts, including the quest for "long life". Traditionally, the Yellow Emperor's founding of Taoism was said to have been because he "dreamed of an ideal kingdom whose tranquil inhabitants lived in harmonious accord with the natural law and possessed virtues remarkably like those espoused by early Taoism. On waking from his dream, Huangdi sought to" bring about "these virtues in his own kingdom, to ensure order and prosperity among

7728-422: The three treasures of compassion, frugality, and humility. The core of Taoist thought crystallized during the early Warring States period ( c.  450  – c.  300 BCE ), during which the epigrammatic Tao Te Ching and the anecdotal Zhuangzi —widely regarded as the fundamental texts of Taoist philosophy—were largely composed. They form the core of a body of Taoist writings accrued over

7866-608: The " three vehicles " of Buddhism. The three caverns were: Perfection (Dongzhen), associated with the Three Sovereigns ; Mystery (Dongxuan), associated with Lingbao; and Spirit (Dongshen), associated with the Supreme Clarity tradition. Lu Xiujing also used this schema to arrange the Taoist scriptures and Taoist deities. Lu Xiujing worked to compile the first edition of the Daozang (the Taoist Canon), which

8004-729: The "sister-worlds" of Urras and Anarres. The novel begins with Shevek’s departure from the Port of Anarres on board the space freighter Mindful. One plotline concerns his experiences in Urras, where he is feted as a visiting scientist at an eminent university in A-Io (one of three warring powers on this planet: the others are Thu and Benbili). The other narrative strand goes back in time to relate his upbringing and coming of age on Anarres: his education, relationships and his struggle to balance personal initiative with social responsibility. On Anarres, society

8142-662: The Anarresti social body. Shevek sees his quest to re-establish relations with the planet Urras, despite the societal dogma prohibiting this, as his function in the social organism: to remind the Anarresti society, which had grown bureaucratic, of its anarchist origins. As he puts it, "It was our purpose all along—our Syndicate, this journey of mine—to shake up things, to stir up, to break some habits, to make people ask questions. To behave like anarchists!" Anarres has one continuous landmass and three main oceans (the Sorruba Sea,

8280-581: The Council of World Governments gave Anarres to the Odonians in an attempt to appease them. So, about two hundred years after their first ship had landed on Anarres, the Urrasti evacuated the planet, leaving behind a few Thu gold-miners who had chosen to remain. Over the course of twenty years, one million Odonian settlers migrated to begin life anew on Anarres. Formerly known as both Ans Ho and Anarres Town,

8418-555: The Han dynasty, there were no real "Taoists" or "Taoism". Instead, there were various sets of behaviors, practices, and interpretative frameworks (like the ideas of the Yijing , yin-yang thought , as well as Mohist , " Legalist ", and " Confucian " ideas), which were eventually synthesized into the first organized forms of "Taoism". Some of the main early Taoist sources include: the Neiye ,

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8556-527: The Han. As such, they grew and became an influential religion during the Three Kingdoms period, focusing on ritual confession and petition, as well as developing a well-organized religious structure. The Celestial Masters school was officially recognized by the warlord Cao Cao in 215 CE, legitimizing Cao Cao's rise to power in return. Laozi received imperial recognition as a divinity in the mid-2nd century BCE. Another important early Taoist movement

8694-592: The Ming, the legends of the Eight Immortals (the most important of which is Lü Dongbin ) rose to prominence, being part of local plays and folk culture. Ming emperors like the Hongwu Emperor continued to invite Taoists to court and hold Taoist rituals that were believed to enhance the power of the throne. The most important of these were connected with the Taoist deity Xuanwu ("Perfect Warrior"), which

8832-679: The Southeast region are fertile, supporting fishing and farming communities, but beyond the arable coastal strip are the dry plains of the Southwest: an expanse that is largely uninhabited (except for a few isolated mining towns) and known colloquially as the Dust. Flora on Anarres are mainly spiny scrub or semi-desert species like moonthorn. The dominant plant genus is the holum tree, used to make food, textiles and paper. Old World grains and fruit trees have been imported from Urras but grow only in

8970-924: The Sun and a lower mode lifetime. Principal factors driving research interest in Tau Ceti are its proximity, its Sun-like characteristics, and the implications for possible life on its planets. For categorization purposes, Hall and Lockwood report that "the terms 'solarlike star', ' solar analog ', and 'solar twin' [are] progressively restrictive descriptions". Tau Ceti fits the second category, given its similar mass and low variability, but relative lack of metals. The similarities have inspired popular culture references for decades, as well as scientific examination. In 1988, radial-velocity observations ruled out any periodical variations attributable to massive planets around Tau Ceti inside of Jupiter-like distances. Ever more precise measurements continue to rule out such planets, at least until December 2012. The velocity precision reached

9108-471: The Sun and the next-closest spectral class-G star after Alpha Centauri A . The radial velocity of a star is the component of its motion that is toward or away from the Sun. Unlike proper motion, a star's radial velocity cannot be directly observed, but can be determined by measuring its spectrum . Due to the Doppler shift , the absorption lines in the spectrum of a star will be shifted slightly toward

9246-504: The Sun may be the unusual case: one research-team member suggests the Sun may have passed close to another star early in its history and had most of its comets and asteroids stripped away. Stars with large debris disks have changed the way astronomers think about planet formation because debris disk stars, where dust is continually generated by collisions, appear to form planets readily. Tau Ceti's habitable zone —the locations where liquid water could be present on an Earth-sized planet—spans

9384-435: The Sun. With Tau Ceti's luminosity of 52% that of the Sun and a distance from the star of 0.552 AU, the planet would receive 1.71 times as much stellar radiation as Earth does, slightly less than Venus with 1.91 times Earth's. Nevertheless, some research places it within the star's habitable zone. The Planetary Habitability Laboratory has estimated that Tau Ceti f, which receives 28.5% as much starlight as Earth, would be within

9522-524: The Temaenian Sea, the Keran Sea). The seas have not been connected for several million years, and so their life forms have followed insular courses of evolution , with a diverse range of fish and other marine organisms. On land, however, there are few endemic species . The planet’s climate since the settlement of Anarres has been shaped by a millennial era of dust and dryness. The long beaches of

9660-707: The Trade Agreement. According to the Terms of the Closure of the Settlement, nobody from the ships is allowed beyond the wall of the Port of Abbenay. Tau Ceti Tau Ceti , Latinized from τ Ceti , is a single star in the constellation Cetus that is spectrally similar to the Sun , although it has only about 78% of the Sun's mass . At a distance of just under 12 light-years (3.7 parsecs ) from

9798-555: The Warring States era phenomena of the wu ( Chinese shamans ) and the fangshi ("method masters", which probably derived from the "archivist-soothsayers of antiquity"). Both terms were used to designate individuals dedicated to "...magic, medicine, divination,... methods of longevity and to ecstatic wanderings" as well as exorcism. The fangshi were philosophically close to the School of Naturalists and relied greatly on astrological and calendrical speculations in their divinatory activities. Female shamans played an important role in

9936-402: The age at which it formed. The interstellar medium of dust and gas from which stars form is primarily composed of hydrogen and helium with trace amounts of heavier elements. As nearby stars continually evolve and die, they seed the interstellar medium with an increasing portion of heavier elements. Thus younger stars tend to have a higher portion of heavy elements in their atmospheres than do

10074-433: The average distance between Venus and the Sun. The chromosphere of Tau Ceti—the portion of a star's atmosphere just above the light-emitting photosphere —currently displays little or no magnetic activity, indicating a stable star. One 9-year study of temperature, granulation , and the chromosphere showed no systematic variations; Ca II emissions around the H and K infrared bands show a possible 11-year cycle, but this

10212-526: The basis of radio searches with the Allen Telescope Array . She chose Tau Ceti for a final shortlist of just five stars suitable for searches by the (now cancelled) Terrestrial Planet Finder telescope system, commenting that "these are places I'd want to live if God were to put our planet around another star". Daoism Taoism or Daoism ( / ˈ t aʊ . ɪ z əm / , / ˈ d aʊ . ɪ z əm / )

10350-541: The candidate planets have radial velocities as low as 30 cm/s, and the experimental method used in their detection, as it was applied to HARPS, could in theory have detected down to around 20 cm/s. The updated 4-planet model is dynamically packed and potentially stable for billions of years. However, with further refinements, even more candidate planets have been detected. In 2019, a paper published in Astronomy & Astrophysics suggested that Tau Ceti could have

10488-598: The center of Odonian society. Administration technology, the division of labour, the distribution of goods, and the federatives of the syndicates are all here. The only port in Anarres, the Port of Abbenay, is also here, allowing for trade with Urras. Communities in Anarres all follow the same basic structure, consisting of "workshops, factories, domiciles, dormitories, learning centers, meeting halls, distributories, depots, refectories." In Abbenay, buildings dedicated to like industries cluster together around open squares "giving

10626-465: The city a basic cellular structure: it was one subcommunity or neighborhood after another." Ships from Urras arrive in the Port of Abbenay 8 times each year. They bring fossil oils, petroleum, new species of fruit or grain, and electronic equipment and machinery that the Annarresti cannot manufacture for themselves, in exchange for mercury, copper, aluminum, uranium, tin, and gold. This is known as

10764-574: The climate in Ans Ho proved inhospitable, but it was discovered to be rich in the minerals that were scarce on Urras owing to over-extraction in the Urrasti ninth and tenth millenia. As such, an Urrasti mercury mining settlement was founded in Ans Ho near the Nera The mountains. It was re-named Anarres Town but, the narrator cautions: "It was not a town, there were no women. Men signed on for two or three years’ duty as miners or technicians, then went home to

10902-527: The coming cataclysm, after which they would become the seeds of a new era of great peace. It was a mass movement in which men and women could act as libationers and tend to the commoners. A related movement arose in Shandong called the " Way of Great Peace ", seeking to create a new world by replacing the Han dynasty. This movement led to the Yellow Turban Rebellion , and after years of bloody war, they were crushed. The Celestial Masters movement survived this period and did not take part in attempting to replace

11040-410: The development of various practices within the Taoist tradition and beyond, including forms of meditation , astrology , qigong , feng shui , and internal alchemy . A common goal of Taoist practice is self-cultivation , a deeper appreciation of the Tao, and more harmonious existence. Taoist ethics vary, but generally emphasize such virtues as effortless action , naturalness , simplicity , and

11178-436: The early Taoist tradition, which was particularly strong in the southern state of Chu . Early Taoist movements developed their own tradition in contrast to shamanism while also absorbing shamanic elements. During the early period, some Taoists lived as hermits or recluses who did not participate in political life, while others sought to establish a harmonious society based on Taoist principles. Zhuang Zhou (c. 370–290 BCE)

11316-639: The early secondary sources written about them, put forward any particular supernatural ontology. Nonetheless, that religious Taoism emerged from a synthesis of folk religion with philosophical Taoist precepts is clear. The earlier, naturalistic was employed by pre-Han and Han thinkers, and continued to be used well into the Song, including among those who explicitly rejected cults, both private and state-sanctioned, that were often either labeled or self-identified as Taoist. However, this distinction has been challenged or rejected by some scholars of religion, often those from

11454-488: The first Odonian settlement that was established on Anarres is Abbenay, meaning Mind in the Odonian language. In theory, in accordance with Odo's vision, communities on Anarres are to be self-reliant but connected by networks of transport and communication to allow for the free-flow of ideas and goods. This would allow for exchange without social hierarchy: "There was to be no controlling center, no capital, no establishment for

11592-477: The first of their kind in China, and the belief system has been known to merge scientific, philosophical, and religious conceits from close to its beginning. By the Han dynasty (206 BCE–220 CE), the various sources of Taoism had coalesced into a coherent tradition of ritualists in the state of Shu (modern Sichuan ). One of the earliest forms of Taoism was the Han era ( 2nd century BCE ) Huang–Lao movement, which

11730-661: The flea had made it to Anarres. Anarres was settled by the Odonians some 170 years prior to Shevek’s visit to Urras in The Dispossessed . Before then, Urrasti astronomer-priests had admired Anarres from a distance, taking special notice of the region that would later become the Annares town of Abbenay for its greenness. They called it Ans Ho, "the Garden of Mind: the Eden of Anarres". When Urrasti ships later arrived on Anarres,

11868-625: The following centuries, which was assembled by monks into the Daozang canon starting in the 5th century CE. Early Taoism drew upon diverse influences, including the Shang and Zhou state religions, Naturalism , Mohism , Confucianism , various Legalist theories, as well as the I Ching and Spring and Autumn Annals . Although Taoism and Confucianism developed significant differences, they are not seen as mutually incompatible or exclusive. The relationship between Taoism and Buddhism upon

12006-443: The guilt of ownership and the burden of economic competition will grow up with the will to do what needs doing and the capacity for joy in doing it. It is useless work that darkens the heart. The delight of the nursing mother, of the scholar, of the successful hunter, of the good cook, of the skillful maker, of anyone doing needed work and doing it well—this durable joy is perhaps the deepest source of human affection, and of sociality as

12144-468: The habitable zone and closer to a Venus-like world. Tau Ceti f is a candidate planet orbiting Tau Ceti that was proposed in 2012 by statistical analyses of the star's variations in radial velocity, and also recovered by further analysis in 2017. It is of interest because its orbit places it in Tau Ceti's extended habitable zone. However, a 2015 study implies that it would have been in the temperate zone for less than one billion years, so there may not be

12282-487: The higher-rainfall regions of Abbenay and the Keran Sea. In terms of terrestrial fauna there are only bacteria (many of them lithophagous) and a few hundred species of worm and crustacean on Anarres. Man fitted himself with care and risk into this narrow ecology. If he fished, but not too greedily, and if he cultivated, using mainly organic wastes for fertilizer, he could fit in. But he could not fit anybody else in. There

12420-409: The inhabitants". Afterwards, Taoism developed and grew into two sects; One is Zhengyi Taoism, which mainly focuses on spells, and the other is Quanzhen Taoism, which mainly focuses on practicing inner alchemy. Overall, traditional Taoist thought, content, and sects are varied, reflecting the ideal of "absorbing everything inside and mixing everything outside". Early Taoism drew on the ideas found in

12558-439: The introduction to a 2017 collection of her Hainish novels and stories, Le Guin describes The Dispossessed as her attempt to write an "anarchist utopia". The Dispossessed tells the story of Shevek, a brilliant Anarresti physicist, who travels to Urras to advance his scientific research. Going against the "Terms of the Settlement" (and against the wishes of many on his home planet), Shevek wishes to re-establish contact between

12696-608: The latter's introduction to China is characterized as one of mutual influence, with long-running discourses shared between Taoists and Buddhists; the distinct Mahayana tradition of Zen that emerged during the Tang dynasty (607–917) incorporates many ideas from Taoism. Many Taoist denominations recognize deities , often ones shared with other traditions, which are venerated as superhuman figures exemplifying Taoist virtues. They can be roughly divided into two categories of "gods" and xian (or "immortals"). Xian were immortal beings with vast supernatural powers, also describing

12834-413: The location of this star shifts by more than a degree. A high proper motion is an indicator of closeness to the Sun. Nearby stars can traverse an angle of arc across the sky more rapidly than the distant background stars and are good candidates for parallax studies. In the case of Tau Ceti, the parallax measurements indicate a distance of 11.9  ly . This makes it one of the closest star systems to

12972-547: The lower the inclination of the planetary orbits the less stable they tend to be over a given time period, as the planets would have greater masses and therefore more gravitational pull which would in turn disturb the orbital stability of neighbouring planets. So, for example, if as estimated in the Korolik et al 2023 study Tau Ceti has a pole-on inclination of around 7 degrees, and the postulated planets do as well, then those planets' orbits would be verging on instability within just

13110-476: The meaning of "Taoist" as "lay member or believer of Taoism", is a modern invention that goes back to the introduction of the Western category of "organized religion" in China in the 20th century, but it has no significance for most of Chinese society in which Taoism continues to be an "order" of the larger body of Chinese religion. Scholars like Harold Roth argue that early Taoism was a series of "inner-cultivation lineages" of master-disciple communities, emphasizing

13248-535: The mind's original purity and clarity (which could become obscured by desires and emotions). Key figures of this school include Xu Xun, Liu Yu, Huang Yuanji, Xu Yi, and Liu Yuanran. Some of these figures taught at the imperial capital and were awarded titles. Their emphasis on practical ethics and self-cultivation in everyday life (rather than ritual or monasticism) made it very popular among the literati class. The Qing dynasty (1644–1912) mainly promoted Buddhism as well as Neo-Confucianism . Thus, during this period,

13386-408: The model adopted. Besides rotation, another factor that can widen the absorption features in the spectrum of a star is pressure broadening . The presence of nearby particles affects the radiation emitted by an individual particle. So the line width is dependent on the surface pressure of the star, which in turn is determined by the temperature and surface gravity. This technique was used to determine

13524-496: The most important figure of the Tang was the court Taoist and writer Du Guangting (850–933). Du wrote numerous works about Taoist rituals, history, myth, and biography. He also reorganized and edited the Taotsang after a period of war and loss. During the Tang, several emperors became patrons of Taoism, inviting priests to court to conduct rituals and enhance the prestige of the sovereign. The Gaozong Emperor even decreed that

13662-524: The motion of the star through space. The space velocity relative to the Sun is 37.2 km/s . This result can then be used to compute an orbital path of Tau Ceti through the Milky Way . It has a mean galacto-centric distance of 9.7 kiloparsecs ( 32 000   ly ) and an orbital eccentricity of 0.22. The Tau Ceti system is believed to have only one stellar component. A dim optical companion has been observed with magnitude 13.1. As of 2000, it

13800-499: The nonviolent anarchist writers such as Peter Kropotkin and Paul Goodman . With them I felt a great, immediate affinity. They made sense to me in the way Lao Tzu did. They enabled me to think about war, peace, politics, how we govern one another and ourselves, the value of failure, and the strength of what is weak. So, when I realised that nobody had yet written an anarchist utopia, I finally began to see what my book might be. The social, economic and political organisation of Anarres

13938-407: The older stars. These heavy elements are termed "metals" by astronomers, and the portion of heavy elements is the metallicity . The amount of metallicity in a star is given in terms of the ratio of iron (Fe), an easily observed heavy element, to hydrogen. A logarithm of the relative iron abundance is compared to the Sun. In the case of Tau Ceti, the atmospheric metallicity is equivalent to about

14076-478: The orbit of the habitable zone. At this distance, the dust belt may be analogous to the Kuiper belt that lies outside the orbit of Neptune in the Solar System. Tau Ceti shows that stars need not lose large disks as they age, and such a thick belt may not be uncommon among Sun-like stars. Tau Ceti's belt is only 1/20 as dense as the belt around its young neighbor, Epsilon Eridani. The relative lack of debris around

14214-431: The orbits in which the presence of additional, yet-undetected planets are most likely. This analysis predicted three planet candidates at orbits coinciding with planet candidates b, c, and d. The close match between the independently predicted planet periods and the periods of the three planet candidates previously identified in radial velocity data supports the genuine planetary nature of candidates b, c, and d. Furthermore,

14352-428: The period of variation measures the time required for the activity sites to complete a full rotation about the star. By this means the rotation period for Tau Ceti is estimated to be 34 d . Due to the Doppler effect , the rotation rate of a star affects the width of the absorption lines in the spectrum (light from the side of the star moving away from the observer will be shifted to a longer wavelength; light from

14490-401: The properties of plants and geology , diviners , early environmentalists , tribal chieftains, court scribes and commoner members of governments, members of the nobility in Chinese states, and the descendants of refugee communities. Significant movements in early Taoism disregarded the existence of gods, and many who believed in gods thought they were subject to the natural law of the Tao, in

14628-490: The radius of the star can be made directly to an accuracy of 0.5%. Through such means, the radius of Tau Ceti has been measured to be 79.3% ± 0.4% of the solar radius . This is about the size that is expected for a star with somewhat lower mass than the Sun. The rotation period for Tau Ceti was measured by periodic variations in the classic H and K absorption lines of singly ionized calcium (Ca II). These lines are closely associated with surface magnetic activity, so

14766-621: The real world." Anarres was then under the rule of the Urrasti Council of World Governments. However, a group of gold miners from the nation of Thu, unbeknownst to the Council of World Governments, lived permanently in secret in the Eastern hemisphere of Anarres with their wives and children. When the government of Thu collapsed, and rebellion by the International Society of Odonians began to threaten governance on Urras,

14904-516: The red (or longer wavelengths) if the star is moving away from the observer, or toward blue (or shorter wavelengths) when it moves toward the observer. In the case of Tau Ceti, the radial velocity is about −17 km/s, with the negative value indicating that it is moving toward the Sun. The star will make its closest approach to the Sun in about 43,000 years, when it comes to within 10.6 ly (3.25 pc). The distance to Tau Ceti, along with its proper motion and radial velocity, together give

15042-624: The religion of the Shang dynasty and the Zhou dynasty , such as their use of divination , ancestor worship , and the idea of Heaven ( Tian ) and its relationship to humanity. According to modern scholars of Taoism, such as Kirkland and Livia Kohn , Taoist philosophy also developed by drawing on numerous schools of thought from the Warring States period (4th to 3rd centuries BCE), including Mohism , Confucianism , Legalist theorists (like Shen Buhai and Han Fei , which speak of wu wei ),

15180-454: The rise of the Xuanxue (Mysterious Learning or Deep Wisdom) tradition, which focused on philosophical inquiry and integrated Confucian teachings with Taoist thought. The movement included scholars like Wang Bi (226–249), He Yan (d. 249), Xiang Xiu (223?–300), Guo Xiang (d. 312), and Pei Wei (267–300). Another later influential figure was the 4th century alchemist Ge Hong , who wrote

15318-434: The self-perpetuating machinery of bureaucracy and the dominance drive of individuals seeking to become captains, bosses, chiefs of state." However, Odo's theory of decentralization was developed with the ecologically-rich Urras as a model. On Anarres, resources are scarce and scattered widely across the planet, rendering self-sufficiency impossible for some communities. So, despite Odo's initial intentions, Abbenay has come to be

15456-400: The side moving towards the observer will be shifted toward a shorter wavelength). By analyzing the width of these lines, the rotational velocity of a star can be estimated. The projected rotation velocity for Tau Ceti is where v eq is the velocity at the equator , and i is the inclination angle of the rotation axis to the line of sight . For a typical G8 star, the rotation velocity

15594-509: The star's habitable zone, albeit narrowly. New results were published in August 2017. They confirmed Tau Ceti e and f as candidates but failed to consistently detect planets b (which may be a false negative ), c (whose weakly defined apparent signal was correlated to stellar rotation), and d (which did not show up in all data sets). Instead, they found two new planetary candidates, g and h, with orbits of 20 and 49 days. The signals detected from

15732-730: The status and influence of Taoism declined. During the 18th century, the Qing imperial library excluded virtually all Taoist books. The Qing era also saw the birth of the Longmen ("Dragon Gate" 龍門 ) school of Wang Kunyang (1552–1641), a branch of Quanzhen from southern China that became established at the White Cloud Temple . Longmen authors like Liu Yiming (1734–1821) and Min Yide (1758–1836) worked to promote and preserve Taoist inner alchemy practices through books like The Secret of

15870-404: The stellar inclination cast doubt about the terrestrial nature of these worlds. Despite this hurdle to habitability , its solar analog (Sun-like) characteristics have led to widespread interest in the star. Given its stability, similarity and relative proximity to the Sun, Tau Ceti is consistently listed as a target for the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI). The name "Tau Ceti"

16008-595: The study also predicts at least one yet-undetected planet between planets e and f, i.e., within the habitable zone. This predicted exoplanet is identified as PxP-4. Since Tau Ceti is likely aligned in such a way that it is nearly pole-on to Earth (as indicated by its rotation), if its planets share this alignment and have nearly face-on orbits, they would be less similar to Earth's mass and more to Neptune , Saturn , or Jupiter . For example, were Tau Ceti f's orbit inclined 70 degrees from being face-on to Earth, its mass would be 4.18 +1.12 −1.46 Earth masses, making it

16146-408: The surface gravity of Tau Ceti. The log g , or logarithm of the star's surface gravity, is about 4.4, very close to the log g = 4.44 for the Sun. The luminosity of Tau Ceti is equal to only 55% of the Sun's luminosity . A terrestrial planet would need to orbit this star at a distance of about 0.7  AU to match the solar insolation level of Earth. This is approximately the same as

16284-410: The syndicate for which they work, held to be serving an essential purpose which keeps society functional. Le Guin uses a bodily analogy to illustrate this system. Odo's text, which provides the foundational philosophy for Anarresti way of life, is titled The Social Organism. As the Anarresti practise Odo's philosophy, each individual in society is likened to an element at the cellular or organic level in

16422-463: The telescope's resolving power. However, these searches only excluded larger brown dwarf bodies and closer orbiting giant planets, so smaller, Earth-like planets in orbit around the star, like those discovered in 2012, were not precluded. If hot Jupiters were to exist in close orbit, they would likely disrupt the star's habitable zone ; their exclusion was thus considered positive for the possibility of Earth-like planets. General research has shown

16560-409: The warmer parts of the disk near Tau Ceti implies an inner cut-off at a radius of 10 AU . By comparison, the Solar System's Kuiper belt extends from 30 to 50 AU . To be maintained over a long period of time, this ring of dust must be constantly replenished through collisions by larger bodies. The bulk of the disk appears to be orbiting Tau Ceti at a distance of 35– 50 AU , well outside

16698-566: The weekly unit on the planet). The portrayal of Anarres is drawn from the author’s wide research in social and political theory. Reflecting on what led her to write The Dispossessed , Le Guin remembered how the novel took shape in the aftermath of protests against the Vietnam War : But, knowing only that I didn’t want to study war no more, I studied peace. I started by reading a whole mess of utopias and learning something about pacifism and Gandhi and nonviolent resistance . This led me to

16836-573: The western parts of the Yuan dynasty's land), and Tibetan Buddhism . Under the Ming dynasty (1368–1644), aspects of Confucianism, Taoism, and East Asian Buddhism were consciously synthesized in the Neo-Confucian school, which eventually became Imperial orthodoxy for state bureaucratic purposes. Taoist ideas also influenced Neo-Confucian thinkers like Wang Yangming and Zhan Ruoshui . During

16974-507: The workplace and across Anarresti society as a whole. So, in contrast to a capitalist society like Urras, the motivation for labour on Anarres is not power, nor the pursuit of wealth accumulation and the ownership of property (concepts deemed reprehensible by Anarresti), but pleasure and service to community. Odo, the founder of Anarresti political philosophy, stresses enjoyment and service to others in her writings which are circulated with near-religious reverence on Anarres: A child free from

17112-497: Was 137  arcseconds distant from the primary. It may be gravitationally bound, but it is considered more likely to be a line-of-sight coincidence. Most of what is known about the physical properties of Tau Ceti and its system has been determined through spectroscopic measurements. By comparing the spectrum to computed models of stellar evolution , the age, mass, radius and luminosity of Tau Ceti can be estimated. However, using an astronomical interferometer , measurements of

17250-443: Was Taiqing (Great Clarity), which was a tradition of external alchemy (weidan) that sought immortality through the concoction of elixirs, often using toxic elements like cinnabar , lead , mercury , and realgar , as well as ritual and purificatory practices. After this point, Taoism did not have nearly as significant an effect on the passing of law as the syncretic Confucian - Legalist tradition. The Three Kingdoms period saw

17388-792: Was Zhang Boduan, author of the Wuzhen pian , a classic of internal alchemy, and the founder of the southern branch of Quanzhen. During the Song era, the Zhengyi Dao tradition properly developed in Southern China among Taoists of the Chang clan. This liturgically focused tradition would continue to be supported by later emperors and survives to this day. In the Yuan dynasty, Taoism in Northern China took inspiration from Tibetan cultural practices, Chinese folk religion (often from

17526-502: Was a religious tradition from the beginning." Philosopher Chung-ying Cheng likewise views Taoism as a religion embedded into Chinese history and tradition, while also assuming many different "forms of philosophy and practical wisdom". Chung-ying Cheng also noted that the Taoist view of 'heaven' mainly from "observation and meditation, [though] the teaching of [the Tao] can also include the way of heaven independently of human nature". Taoism

17664-457: Was an influential school of thought at this time. The Huainanzi and the Taipingjing are important sources from this period. An unorganized form of Taoism was popular in the Han dynasty that syncretized many preexisting forms in multiple ways for different groups existed during a rough span of time throughout the 2nd century BCE. Also during the Han, the earliest extant commentaries on

17802-536: Was called the Northern Celestial masters , and their main scripture was the Xisheng jing ( Scripture of Western Ascension ). During the sixth century, Taoists attempted to unify the various traditions into one integrated Taoism that could compete with Buddhism and Confucianism. To do this they adopted the schema known as the "three caverns", first developed by the scholar Lu Xiujing (406–477) based on

17940-440: Was likely a spurious combination of instrumental systematics with a potential 1000-day yet unknown signal. In 2004, a team of UK astronomers led by Jane Greaves discovered that Tau Ceti has more than ten times the amount of cometary and asteroidal material orbiting it than does the Sun. This was determined by measuring the disk of cold dust orbiting the star produced by collisions between such small bodies. This result puts

18078-405: Was no grass for herbivores. There were no herbivores for carnivores. There were no insects to fecundate flowering plants; the imported fruit trees were all hand-fertilized. No animals were introduced from Urras to imperil the delicate balance of life, only the settlers came, and so well scrubbed internally and externally that they brought a minimum of their personal fauna and flora with them. Not even

18216-416: Was published at the behest of the Chinese emperor . Thus, according to Russell Kirkland, "in several important senses, it was really Lu Hsiu-ching who founded Taoism, for it was he who first gained community acceptance for a common canon of texts, which established the boundaries, and contents, of 'the teachings of the Tao' (Tao-chiao). Lu also reconfigured the ritual activities of the tradition, and formulated

18354-496: Was run by the astronomer Frank Drake , who selected Tau Ceti and Epsilon Eridani as the initial targets. Both are located near the Solar System and are physically similar to the Sun. No artificial signals were found despite 200 hours of observations. Subsequent radio searches of this star system have turned up negative. This lack of results has not dampened interest in observing the Tau Ceti system for biosignatures. In 2002, astronomers Margaret Turnbull and Jill Tarter developed

18492-496: Was syncretic, combining elements from Buddhism and Confucianism with Taoist tradition. According to Wang Chongyang, the " three teachings " (Buddhism, Confucianism, Taoism), "when investigated, prove to be but one school". Quanzhen became the largest and most important Taoist school in China when master Qiu Chuji met with Genghis Khan who ended up making him the leader of all Chinese religions as well as exempting Quanzhen institutions from taxation. Another important Quanzhen figure

18630-508: Was termed daojiao (the teaching of the Tao). The Tang was the height of Taoist influence, during which Taoism, led by the Patriarch of Supreme Clarity, was the dominant religion in China. According to Russell Kirkland, this new Taoist synthesis had its main foundation in the Lingbao school's teachings, which was appealing to all classes of society and drew on Mahayana Buddhism. Perhaps

18768-471: Was the main dynastic protector deity of the Ming. The Ming era saw the rise of the Jingming ("Pure Illumination") school to prominence, which merged Taoism with Buddhist and Confucian teachings and focused on "purity, clarity, loyalty and filial piety ". The school derided internal and external alchemy, fasting ( bigu ), and breathwork. Instead, the school focused on using mental cultivation to return to

18906-425: Was the most influential of the Taoist hermits. Some scholars holds that since he lived in the south, he may have been influenced by Chinese shamanism . Zhuang Zhou and his followers insisted they were the heirs of ancient traditions and the ways of life of by-then legendary kingdoms. Pre-Taoist philosophers and mystics whose activities may have influenced Taoism included shamans, naturalists skilled in understanding

19044-543: Was translated into Latin as Tertia Struthionum , meaning the third of the ostriches . This star, along with η Cet (Deneb Algenubi), θ Cet (Thanih Al Naamat), ζ Cet (Baten Kaitos), and υ Cet , were Al Naʽāmāt (النعامات), the Hen Ostriches. In Chinese astronomy , the " Square Celestial Granary " ( Chinese : 天倉 ; pinyin : Tiān Cāng ) refers to an asterism consisting of τ Ceti, ι Ceti , η Ceti , ζ Ceti , θ Ceti and 57 Ceti . Consequently,

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