Inari

Inari is the second planet of the Gliese 570 A system.

Characteristics
Inari orbits the dim, orange K-type star Gliese 570 A, the primary member of the four-star Gliese 570 system. With 95% of Earth's mass, it is the second largest and second closest of the four planets in its solar system.

Inari's thick atmosphere has a high concentration of oxygen and carbon dioxide, which allows the planet to stay habitable throughout its exxagerated seasons caused by an extreme axial tilt. Like Earth, Inari is concealed by blankets of white water-ice clouds. It's surface is mostly land, with three major continents: Uzume, Fūjin, and Izanagi.

Life
Inari is at least 1 billion years older than Earth, and sports an Earthlike, but much more evolved biosphere. Because Inari recieves less energy from Gliese 570 A than Earth does from the Sun, Inari is rich with plant life similar in nature to Earthly coniferous plants like Pine and Fir, albeit darker.

Animal life on Inari is as plentiful as that of the Earth's. The dominant species were described by early settlers as "furry lizards" and are mostly peaceful herbivores and omnivores.

Inari is generally considered to have not hosted intelligent life, although there are anomalies indicative of some kind of (at least) semi-intelligent activity in northern Uzume dating back billions of years.

Discovery
Inari was first observed in June 2035 by a Japanese team while testing a telescope. Inari, the second of the four planets in the newly discovered system, was independently confirmed later in the same year.

Although an appreciable number of Earth-like planets had been known of at this point, Gliese 570 Ac (as Inari was officially known until 2040) was one of the closest and most habitable of them all at its time of discovery, being of near earth mass and temperature. Numerous national governments drafted proposals for colonization efforts, although none would actually be realized until decades later.

Settlement
While many nations had a desire to settle the planet during the 21st and 22nd centuries, only Japan and the United States managed to produce ships worthy of the great journey to Gliese 570. JAXA's Amaterasu was launched in 2107, traveling at only 0.2 times the speed of light, and arrived in the system 96 years later in the year 2203. The ICSA Aquarius, a joint effort between NASA and the European Space Agency, left Earth in 2134 and arrived in 2210.