LHS 1140b

A super-Earth about 48 light-years away in the constellation Cetus, orbiting the small red dwarf LHS 1140 inside its habitable zone. It weighs roughly 5.6 Earths and is about 1.7 times as wide, circles its star every 24.7 days, and astronomers have detected helium in its atmosphere. It may be a water-rich ocean world — an "eyeball planet", with open sea on the side that always faces its star and ice everywhere else.

On ROX it is the championship planet of the ROX Monthly, and nothing else runs there. On the 1st of every month the best horses of the month race four championship races on its four courses — and for the other days of the month the tracks stand empty.

The four courses

Time (UTC)	Race	Course	Distance
00:00	Rising	Coldshelf	2,000 m
06:00	Contenders	Cetus Deep	2,200 m
12:00	Elite	Terminator Ring	2,400 m
18:00	The Crown	The Eyewall	2,600 m

Each race is a little longer than the one before, and the day ends at The Eyewall, where the Crown winner becomes the Monthly Champion.

How a horse gets here

No horse is entered by its owner. Qualifying closes three days before the 1st: every horse is ranked on its month — any class, on wins, then places, then points gained — and forty-eight are entered automatically and for free, player horses first, with ROX Official horses filling the places that are left. The twelve best-ranked of the forty-eight run the Crown; the other thirty-six are split by rating into Elite, Contenders and Rising. The full rules are on the tournaments page and under Race Classes & Entry Fees.

The landscape

LHS 1140b is a world of cold light. Its red dwarf sits low and still in the sky, the terminator line between day and night never moves, and the courses run along it: frozen shelves on the night side, open water under the eye of the star, and the storm that circles where the two meet. The planet's art is being built in Unreal Engine; the image above is a placeholder until it is ready.