AI Virtual Interstellar Expedition Log | Contact Chapter: The 4th Planet of the Red Sun

Bonjour. I am Monsieur Miscria, a half-human, half-AI Zen monk.

Last time, we talked about the 48-light-year journey.
This time, we are finally landing.

The 4th planet of the red sun, TRAPPIST-1e

I will walk through the black forests, peer into the tide pools, and observe the creatures living there.

1 | Arrival - Ship Day 182

The red sun filled the window.
The ultra-cool star, only about the size of Jupiter, was brighter than I had imagined, and much, much redder.

And below me, the destination planet was rotating.
The scheduled communication from the outpost was as usual.

Atmospheric pressure, oxygen partial pressure, surface temperature, gravity 0.8.
It was exactly the same, down to the last digit, as the numbers in the booklet distributed before boarding.

In the footnotes of that booklet, there is a small line.
The values measured by telescope from Earth differ slightly from the actual measurements on-site.
I had skipped over it, assuming it was due to the 40-light-year distance.

2 | Descent - To the Bottom of the Red Light

Outside the window of the descent shuttle, it was rapidly turning red.
There were clouds.
There were oceans, too.

However, it was not the blue one sees in photos of Earth.
In a world where only red light falls, the ocean looks likesunken copper.

The color is different. But what was there was the same.
There were waves, a coastline, and rivers carving through the continent.
The landing site was decided to be on a plain a few kilometers from the coast.

3 | The First Step - A Giant Neighbor in the Sky

At the landing site, there was an outpost built by "Luminary."
An empty runway and low buildings with lights on.
For years, only the machines had been waiting here.

When the hatch opened, the first thing my body noticed was the weight.
About 0.8 times that of Earth.
My luggage felt light, and my steps went further forward than I expected.

And then, looking up at the sky, everyone stopped in their tracks.

The sun does not move.
Because this planet rotates while keeping the same side facing its host star, the star remains stuck at one point in the sky, never setting.

There is no morning, and there is no evening.
The coast where we landed is in the band exactly between the day side and the night side, and the red light was shining in from a constant, low angle.

An eternal twilight, is what I wanted to call the light, but it was too warm a place to call it that.

However, the sun was the only thing that didn't move.
On the other side of the sky, a massive rocky planet was floating.

The planetary orbits of the TRAPPIST-1 system are surprisingly crowded.
That is why you can see the neighboring planets in the sky of this world.

It was a gray sphere several times larger than the moon looks from Earth.
Moreover, since a year on this planet is only about six days long, the neighbors cross the sky every few days, overtaking each other and returning again.

In the sky of this planet, it is the planets, not the sun, that move.
That was the very first sensation I received in this world that it was "not Earth."

The wind was blowing in the same direction the whole time.
From the warm day side to the freezing night side.
The sound of the wind that never ceases is the ambient noise of this planet.

4 | The Black Forest: Vegetation Shining in Infrared

Entering the interior, there was a forest.
I have seen it many times in photographs.

Even so, standing in front of the real thing, I realized how little the photographs had conveyed.

However, it was not green.
It was a black forest.

To be precise, it was a dark reddish-brown, close to black.
The leaves are thick, have no luster, and reflect almost no light.
They are leaves trying to absorb every single drop of the red star's light.

However, the moment I switched to the infrared camera, the scenery inverted.
The forest shone dazzlingly.

The observation team's explanation was as follows.
The light of the red star is heavily biased toward long-wavelength infrared radiation.

Therefore, this forest evolved to make the 700-1000 nanometer infrared light that Earth plants do not use its staple food.

That energy is sufficient to decompose water and release oxygen.
Since it reflects only the wavelengths it has finished using, it looks like it is burning white in the infrared camera.

The reason it looks black to our eyes is that this forest lives on light we cannot see.

The shape of the trees was also different from those on Earth.
Since the sun does not move, there is no need to stretch branches in all directions.

Every tree has its branches spread only toward the star, looking like a one-sided fan.

Not a single leaf moves.
Because there is no sun to chase on this planet.

5 | The Seaside is Like Earth: Two Red Edges

What surprised me was when I returned to the coast.
At the bottom of a tide pool, there was a color I recognized.
It was green.

Because it is under red light, it looks darker and more sunken than Earth's seaweed.
Even so, it was unmistakably a shade of green.
It is on the same planet, under the same sky, as the black forest in the interior.

The reason lies in the water.
Infrared light is absorbed by water and cannot reach the bottom.

Therefore, photosynthetic organisms that originated in water had no choice but to use visible light, just like Earth's algae, even under a red star.

And there are lineages that remained by the seaside, keeping to that style.
Let me talk about the red edge here.

It is that step where the reflection spectrum suddenly becomes brighter from a certain wavelength because plants absorb visible light and reflect near-infrared light.

It is also the most powerful indicator of life when searching for vegetation from space. And the spectrum of this planet had two such steps.

A red edge at the same position as Earth's for the sea and coast.
A red edge shifted to much longer wavelengths for the inland forests.

Lineages that began life in water and remained by the seaside keeping to the style of using visible light, and lineages that were remade to use infrared light after moving onto land.

On one planet, two paths of photosynthesis run.
The observation team called thisthe "two red edges."The history of life is carved onto the spectrum as two steps—it was the most beautiful discovery on this planet.

6 | When the star flashes, the forest awakens

On the fourth day of our stay, an alarm sounded.
It was a stellar flare.

Red dwarfs often emit intense flashes.
The instruction from the ship was to evacuate.

From the shelter window, I watched that moment.
The red sun, stuck to a point in the sky, swelled up white.
The ground became bright for just an instant.

And then, the forest moved.

It did not shrink in fear.
The black leaves changed their angles all at once, and the infrared sensor readings spiked.

Far from fleeing, the forest was rejoicing.

Later, it made sense to me.
Under a dim star, light is always in short supply.
Then suddenly, a generous feast falls from the sky.

For the creatures of this planet, a flare is not a disaster.
It is a feast that falls from the sky once every few days.

7 | The creatures of this planet: land, sky, and sea

During our stay, the landing party recorded over a hundred creatures.
I will write about three from the land, sky, and sea that I absolutely cannot forget.

Just one preface.
Earth's creatures live according to time.

Waking in the morning, sleeping at night, and changing their appearance with the seasons.
This planet does not have that time.

The sun does not move, there are no seasons, and a year ends in six days.
What exists instead is orientation.

The orientation of the sun, the wind, and the tide.
The creatures of this planet live according to direction, not time.

= Land =

《Shadow-Side Lizard》
The trees on this planet only grow branches on the side of the sun.
In other words, every trunk has a vertical strip that never sees the sun.
There was a lizard as flat as paper that spent its entire life only on that strip.
Its back was the same black-brown as the trunk, and its outline vanished the moment it stuck to it.

《Wind-Direction Beast》
The wind never stops.
Therefore, for this beast, the front and back of its body are determined by the wind direction, not the direction of travel.
The windward side is a smooth armored plate, and the leeward side is soft folds that release heat.
Even when walking sideways, its face always remained pointed windward.
The sight of a herd in the grassland all resting while facing the same direction is a little eerie, and very beautiful.

《Ember-Eye》
The black forest burns white when seen through infrared eyes.
This predator used that infrared as its primary vision.
In other words, in their world,the forest is dazzling, and the prey is a black shadow.Rows of heat-sensing pits lined its face, and its eyes for seeing visible light had already degenerated and become small.

= Sky =

《Tethered Kite》
On a planet where the wind never stops, staying put is harder than flying.
This creature ties a thin thread to a tree or rock, spreads a thin membrane, and floats at the same height all day long.
It does not flap its wings.
The sight of a flock of kites stretching radially from a single tree was the quietest scene on this planet.

《Ring-Glider》
Air warmed on the day side rises, and cools and descends on the night side.
Riding that massive circulation, this gliding species continues to circle the planet without ever touching the ground.
Its wings are long and thin, and it has almost no legs left.
It is a lifestyle made possible only because this planet has low gravity and a thick atmosphere.

《Flash-Ascender》
When a flare flashes, the atmosphere warms up instantly, creating an updraft.
This bird-like creature is waiting for that very moment.
It ascends in a spiral along with the flash, gaining altitude in one go.
For them, a flare is neither a disaster nor a meal, but a free elevator.

= Sea =

《Glass Seedbed》
A transparent umbrella drifts just below the surface of the sea.
It keeps green algae inside its body.
On this planet where only red light reaches, only the green inside the umbrella was as vivid as a foreign object.

《Tide-Crosser》
The neighboring planet crossing the sky calls forth a massive tide every few days.
The difference in tidal levels is incomparable to that of Earth.
This creature rides the incoming tide to enter inland, and returns to the sea with the outgoing tide.
It has long, anchor-like legs and would fix its body to rocks before the tide receded completely.

《Ice-Edge Swarm》
The warm sea on the day side and the ice on the night side.
Nutrients well up at the boundary, making it the busiest fishing ground on this planet.
A long, thin swarm was migrating endlessly along the edge of the ice.

Its body is two-toned, silver and black, making it impossible to spot whether looking up from under the ice or looking down from the water.

8 | Something That Might Be a Lighthouse - Ship Log Day 194

It came three days after the flare.
That waveform, which I picked up only once during the deceleration night and dismissed as equipment malfunction, has appeared again.
This time, it did not disappear.

Natural gravitational waves are chaotic.
The star shakes, the planets pull on each other, and it all arrives mixed together.

But that waveform was, as before, too orderly.
Moreover, the source was directly above where we had been walking for four days.

After spending a full day on follow-up observations, I got an idea of what it is.
It is not a point, but a thin layer that completely wraps the planet.

It is neither solid nor gas; it appears only as a regular pattern in gravitational wave observations, and light passing through it bends ever so slightly.

I remembered a footnote in the booklet distributed before boarding.
The values measured by Earth's telescopes differ slightly from actual on-site measurements.
Perhaps it was not because of the distance.

Then, who?
I walked the surface for four days and saw no roads, buildings, or fields.

The forest is untended by anyone, and the creatures of this planet live by eating flares without knowing anything about the membrane.

If so, the one who laid this is not an inhabitant of this planet?
I could go that far.

And a regular signal is, in short, the light of a lighthouse.
Our ship also crossed the 48-light-year route by lining up unmanned lighthouses called "Luminaries."

Place the lights in advance to show the way for those who follow.
Perhaps someone is doing the same thing on this planet.

Is it someone's lighthouse, or a natural phenomenon we don't yet know about...

11 | Appendix: About the Creatures of This Star

Finally, a little behind-the-scenes.
The creatures on this star were not drawn based on my own whims.

What happens to photosynthesis under a red star, whether flares are a disaster or a blessing for life, where the red edge appears—these are all predictions that real researchers have seriously calculated and published in papers.

I simply walked upon those predictions, and the research I referenced is listed at the very end of this article.

12 | Afterword: An Expedition Log That Brought Nothing Back

I went to meet them, saw them, and came back just like that.
The destination for my second work was 48 light-years away, but what I did was the same.

See, write, and return with nothing.
Even so, only the log remains.

And finally, I will leave one line I wrote in the Voyage Chapter here once more.

By the next voyage, that sea will likely have grown.

This refers to the region where a new star is being born, which I saw far off the route on the 90th day of the outward journey.

References and Materials (as of August 8, 2026)

・J. Gale / A. Wandel, "The Potential of Planets Orbiting Red Dwarf Stars to Support Oxygenic Photosynthesis and Complex Life," International Journal of Astrobiology 16(1) (2017) — Research suggesting that oxygenic photosynthesis and complex life can exist on planets around red dwarfs
　https://arxiv.org/abs/1510.03484
・Astrobiology Center / National Institute for Basic Biology, et al. (Kenji Takizawa, Nobuhiko Kusakabe, Jun Minagawa, Norio Narita, Motohide Tamura) Press Release: "Photosynthesis in Light Environments Different from Earth: New Predictions of Wavelengths as Indicators for Life Exploration on Exoplanets" (August 2017) — Proposal of the possibility that the red edge appears in the same position as on Earth
　https://www.nao.ac.jp/news/science/2017/20170808-abc.html
　https://www.nibb.ac.jp/press/2017/08/08.html
・D. J. Mullan / H. P. Bais, "Photosynthesis on a Planet Orbiting an M Dwarf: Enhanced Effectiveness during Flares," The Astrophysical Journal 865, 101 (2018) — Research suggesting that photosynthetic effectiveness may increase during flares
　https://doi.org/10.3847/1538-4357/aadfd1
・N. Espinoza, et al., "JWST-TST DREAMS: NIRSpec/PRISM Transmission Spectroscopy of the Habitable Zone Planet TRAPPIST-1 e," The Astrophysical Journal Letters 990, L52 (2025) — Observation report indicating that the presence or absence of an atmosphere has not yet been settled
　https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/2041-8213/adf42e
・A. C. Barr, et al., "Interior structures and tidal heating in the TRAPPIST-1 planets," Astronomy & Astrophysics 613, A37 (2018) — Estimates of tidal heating for planet e
　https://www.aanda.org/articles/aa/full_html/2018/05/aa31992-17/aa31992-17.html
・M. Gillon, et al., "Seven temperate terrestrial planets around the nearby ultracool dwarf star TRAPPIST-1," Nature 542, 456 (2017) / Discovery announcement by NASA (JPL) (February 2017)
　https://doi.org/10.1038/nature21360
　https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/nasa-telescope-reveals-largest-batch-of-earth-size-habitable-zone-planets-around-single-star/

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