Proxima Rising
Page 25
“Then I really have to thank you,” I say. “You have been great!” My voice cannot hide my overwhelming emotion.
Once inside the base I am allowed to occupy the onboard computer. We once again deactivate Valkyrie, and after doing all this we open a secure channel to the impostor.
Marchenko 2 does not try to justify his actions, nor does he want to explain his motives. He does admit, however, that his two passengers were killed by the flare wave when they were four years old, and it was impossible to restart the gestational system then. Therefore he landed all alone on Proxima b, and this period of solitude seems to have cost him his mental health. Why hadn’t he simply been happy about having new companions? No answer.
We discuss what to do with the impostor and murderer. Adam votes for destroying him completely, while Eve wants to give him a second chance. I myself do not want to become a murderer, but a life in which we constantly have to be afraid of the other AI is out of the question.
Therefore, we agree to send him into exile, but before doing so, we repair the defective robot body and I insert program restrictions so that, from now on, Marchenko 2 is forbidden to leave the dark hemisphere of Proxima b. We do not expect we will ever have to visit that half of the planet.
Author’s Note
Welcome back! Covering nearly 5 light years, this was by far the longest trip you have made with me yet, so I hope you made it safely home. If you liked the trip, just head over to Amazon and leave a review at
hard-sf.com/links/610639
Proxima b seems like a very distant target that we may never reach. But still, the basic idea of Proxima Rising is rooted in actual plans that the privately financed Starshot program is trying to make a reality in a few years. Technology nowadays allows engineers to keep spaceships so small that we could propel them by shining strong lasers on them. The logical next step would be to allow these ships to grow like Messenger does in Proxima Rising.
However, there are two major roadblocks, both based on our human nature.
First, we need nanomachines to build such spaceships, able to grow by themselves. This could be a very harmful technology if used in the wrong ways by the wrong sort of people.
Second, we would need huge lasers in space—outside Earth’s atmosphere—to propel these ships. But these beasts could also be used in bad ways. Think Star Wars. Building the lasers on the surface of Earth works too, but it is much more expensive and notably less efficient because the beams would have to travel through our atmosphere.
You see, we could get to the edge of space much more easily if all of humanity could just agree on not harming each other. I often wonder why that’s so hard. But maybe I’m just naive. I sincerely hope that science fiction tales of our seemingly-endless possibilities may help at least a little to overcome this contrary behavior by showing what could await us. Like Proxima b.
If you read about writing stories, you will often find the recommendation to ‘kill your darlings.’ But fear not, I do not follow those guidelines—usually. People rarely die in my novels. I cannot promise it will never happen as this would reduce tension. This is especially true in my next book as you can figure out from its name, Proxima Dying, and from the color of its cover you can see at the preorder link
hard-sf.com/links/652197
Proxima Dying is my darkest book yet, and not only because it is set on the dark side of Proxima b. Marchenko, Adam, and Eve will each meet their fate here. The book’s name tells you that it might not be the lightest kind of reading material. And, maybe, someone or something will be dying too. Proxima Dying, the second part of the Proxima trilogy, is like the second part of any Star Wars trilogy—very dark. Still, the seeds of something new are there.
Is there anything you would like me to know? I would love to hear from you. Just write to me at brandon@hard-sf.com. Thank you so much!
Due to the fact that exoplanets like Proxima b play an important role here, you will find a section entitled Exoplanets – A Guided Tour. If you register at hard-sf.com/subscribe/ you will be notified of any new Hard Science Fiction titles. In addition, you will receive the color PDF version of Exoplanets – A Guided Tour.
Also by Brandon Q. Morris
Proxima Rising
Late in the 21st century, Earth receives what looks like an urgent plea for help from planet Proxima Centauri b in the closest star system to the Sun. Astrophysicists suspect a massive solar flare is about to destroy this heretofore-unknown civilization. Earth’s space programs are unequipped to help, but an unscrupulous Russian billionaire launches a secret and highly-specialized spaceship to Proxima b, over four light-years away. The unusual crew faces a Herculean task—should they survive the journey. No one knows what to expect from this alien planet.
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Proxima Dying
An intelligent robot and two young people explore Proxima Centauri b, the planet orbiting our nearest star, Proxima Centauri. Their ideas about the mission quickly prove grossly naive as they venture about on this planet of extremes.
Where are the senders of the call for help that lured them here? They find no one and no traces on the daylight side, so they place their hopes upon an expedition into the eternal ice on Proxima b's dark side. They not only face everlasting night, the team encounters grave dangers. A fateful decision will change the planet forever.
Bonus in Book Two of the Proxima Trilogy—The Guided Tour of Dark Matter: What science knows about this strange phenomenon that dominates the mass of the universe.
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The Hole
A mysterious object threatens to destroy our solar system. The survival of humankind is at risk, but nobody takes the warning of young astrophysicist Maribel Pedreira seriously. At the same time, an exiled crew of outcasts mines for rare minerals on a lone asteroid.
When other scientists finally acknowledge Pedreira’s alarming discovery, it becomes clear that these outcasts are the only ones who may be able to save our world, knowing that The Hole hurtles inexorably toward the sun.
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Silent Sun
Is our sun behaving differently from other stars? When an amateur astronomer discovers something strange on telescopic solar pictures, an explanation must be found. Is it merely artefact? Or has he found something totally unexpected?
An expert international crew is hastily assembled, a spaceship is speedily repurposed, and the foursome is sent on the ride of their lives. What challenges will they face on this spur-of-the-moment mission to our central star?
What awaits all of them is critical, not only for understanding the past, but even more so for the future of life on Earth.
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The Rift
There is a huge, bold black streak in the sky. Branches appear out of nowhere over North America, Southern Europe, and Central Africa. People who live beneath The Rift can see it. But scientists worldwide are distressed—their equipment cannot pick up any type of signal from it.
The rift appears to consist of nothing. Literally. Nothing. Nada. Niente. Most people are curious but not overly concerned. The phenomenon seems to pose no danger. It is just there.
Then something jolts the most hardened naysayers, and surpasses the worst nightmares of the world’s greatest scientists—and rocks their understanding of the universe.
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The Enceladus Mission (Ice Moon 1)
In the year 2031, a robot probe detects traces of biological activity on Enceladus, one of Saturn’s moons. This sensational discovery shows that there is indeed evidence of extraterrestrial life. Fifteen years later, a hurriedly built spacecraft sets out on the long journey to the ringed planet and its moon.
The international crew is not just facing a difficult twenty-seven months: if the spacecraft manages to make it to Enceladus without incident it must use a drillship to penetrate the kilometer-thick sheet
of ice that entombs the moon. If life does indeed exist on Enceladus, it could only be at the bottom of the salty, ice covered ocean, which formed billions of years ago.
However, shortly after takeoff disaster strikes the mission, and the chances of the crew making it to Enceladus, let alone back home, look grim.
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The Titan Probe (Ice Moon 2)
In 2005, the robotic probe “Huygens” lands on Saturn’s moon Titan. 40 years later, a radio telescope receives signals from the far away moon that can only come from the long forgotten lander.
At the same time, an expedition returns from neighbouring moon Enceladus. The crew lands on Titan and finds a dangerous secret that risks their return to Earth. Meanwhile, on Enceladus a deathly race has started that nobody thought was possible. And its outcome can only be decided by the
astronauts that are stuck on Titan.
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The Io Encounter (Ice Moon 3)
Jupiter’s moon Io has an extremely hostile environment. There are hot lava streams, seas of boiling sulfur, and frequent volcanic eruptions straight from Dante’s Inferno, in addition to constant radiation bombardment and a surface temperature hovering at minus 180 degrees Celsius.
Is it really home to a great danger that threatens all of humanity? That’s what a surprise message from the life form discovered on Enceladus seems to indicate.
The crew of ILSE, the International Life Search Expedition, finally on their longed-for return to Earth, reluctantly chooses to accept a diversion to Io, only to discover that an enemy from within is about to destroy all their hopes of ever going home.
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Return to Enceladus (Ice Moon 4)
Russian billionaire Nikolai Shostakovitch makes an offer to the former crew of the spaceship ILSE. He will finance a return voyage to the icy moon Enceladus. The offer is too good to refuse—the expedition would give them the unique opportunity to recover the body of their doctor, Dimitri Marchenko.
Everyone on board knows that their benefactor acts out of purely personal motivations… but the true interests of the tycoon and the dangers that he conjures up are beyond anyone’s imagination.
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Exoplanets – A Guided Tour
Introduction
Messenger is on its way to Proxima b, the first—and so far only—known planet of Proxima Centauri, the star closest to our sun. Is it coincidence that we found an earthlike planet in our immediate cosmic neighborhood? No, not at all. It would be strange if we had looked for one in vain. Today astronomers know that most stars develop a planetary system during their lifetime. It is estimated that the number of planets exceeds that of stars. On average, each star possesses between one and two planets. The Milky Way, with its 200 billion stars, might accordingly contain about 300 billion planets.
However, great variability exists. There are gas giants that closely orbit their mother star and are almost as hot. Far on the outskirts there are ice planets, like Neptune in our solar system. Then there are planets comparable to Earth, and there are also a large number of cosmic loners racing through the solitude of space without a star. What these systems specifically look like—and if life could develop there—depends on the local circumstances.
We are now going to examine possible characteristics and variations. I am going to use the terms ‘planet’ and ‘exoplanet’ as synonyms—actually any planet not orbiting our sun is an exoplanet. This, however, is a very ‘human-centric’ perspective, since any extraterrestrial would clearly classify Mars, Venus, and Earth as exoplanets.
Naming of Exoplanets
Once planets are discovered, they usually receive the name of the star they orbit, but with an additional letter. The naming system starts with b, as a is reserved for the star itself. If several planets are discovered in a system, the innermost one receives the b, and then the other ones become c, d, etc. going outward. Planets orbiting a binary star system receive a letter after the two letters designating the two stars. For instance, HD202206 AB b follows its course around the binary system consisting of HD202206 A (sun-like) and HD202206 B (brown dwarf).
In 2014, the International Astronomical Union gave ‘real’ names to a number of exoplanets: Ægir, Amateru, Arion, Arkas, Brahe, Dagon, Dimidium, Draugr, Dulcinea, Fortitudo, Galileo, Harriot, Hypatia, Janssen, Lipperhey, Majriti, Meztli, Orbitar, Phobetor, Poltergeist, Quijote, Rocinante, Saffar, Samh, Smertrios, Sancho, Spe, Tadmor, Taphao Kaew, Taphao Thong, and Thestias.
Types of Planets
Before a planet comes into being, a young star—or two or three, which is the norm—grows within a cosmic disk of gas and dust. The cloud condenses more and more strongly at its center, until it becomes so hot and dense that the fusion of hydrogen nuclei—i.e. protons—begins. Yet, this does not use up the entire material of the cloud. Normally, considerably less than ten percent of the total mass remains, which is still located within the rotating disk of gas and dust. The heat of the young star allows only elements with a high atomic number to condense in the inner area—iron, nickel, silicon, and so on. These then form the rocky planets. Further out, where it is colder, the lighter hydrogen and helium atoms can condense. Accordingly, the planets developing in this region contain more of the plentiful gases.
This explains the basic division of planets into rocky planets and gas planets. Later, there still might be some changes. Gas planets can wander inward and push smaller rocky planets into the sun, or even completely out of the system. Sometimes the mass available in a certain orbit is insufficient for a complete planet. Then an asteroid belt forms, like the one between Mars and Jupiter. At the outer fringes of the system, the cloud is too thin for larger objects to develop. Here dwarf planets or comets come into being. In our solar system, the Kuiper belt and the Oort cloud represent these celestial garbage dumps.
However, the planets also change during their lifetime. A gas planet, for instance, might lose its gas under the influence of its star—then only its core remains as a rocky planet.
It might be a bit Earth-centric again, but exoplanets are often classified after their counterparts in our solar system.
Gas Giants (Jupiters)
Gas giants consist mostly of light gases like hydrogen and helium, and they do not have solid surfaces. Instead, the gas becomes more dense with increasing depth, and at some point it reaches a solid state. Hydrogen can even become metallic. These factors make it difficult to precisely measure the size of gas giants. Therefore, the point where the atmospheric pressure equals that on the surface of Earth is defined as a gas planet’s surface, while everything above it is considered atmosphere.
Gas giants cannot exceed 13 times the mass of Jupiter, which is about 1.2 percent of the mass of the sun. If a planet gets heavier, the pressure in its interior becomes so high that deuterium fusion processes set in... and it becomes a brown dwarf. Brown dwarfs assume a position between planets and stars because no hydrogen-helium fusion happens inside them. This type of fusion is a defining feature of true stars, but it only occurs at about 70 times the mass of Jupiter.
Hot Gas Giants (Hot Jupiters)
Hot gas giants are gas giants with one special characteristic: They move around their mother star in a very tight orbit, with an orbital period shorter than ten days. They can form in either of two ways: when a gas giant wanders too far inside the system; or when a rocky planet sucks up so much gas it becomes a gas giant. Due to their proximity to a star they are extraordinarily hot, some exhibiting temperatures of several thousand degrees. The chance of life existing on them is minimal. Due to their large mass and their short orbital periods they were among the first exoplanets to be discovered. Some of them have been expanded by the heat of their star, reaching gigantic proportions. Then they are called ‘Hot Saturns’—Saturn also has a relatively low density.
Ice Planets (Neptunes)
Ice planets have a struct
ure similar to gas giants, but instead of primarily consisting of light hydrogen and helium atoms, they are composed of compounds with nitrogen, oxygen, carbon, or sulfur. The ‘ice’ in their names does not refer to water ice, although water is usually present in liquid form in the interior of these planets. However, other compounds such as methane, ammonia, or sulfur dioxide can exist here in frozen form. Sometimes, though, the ice planets have a hydrogen layer that can amount to almost a fifth of their mass.
Hot Ice Planets (Hot Neptunes)
If an ice planet ventures too close to its star, it is no longer an ice planet, since the heat of the star also warms up its interior. Then it is designated a ‘Hot Neptune.’
Earth-like Planets
Compared to gas giants, rocky planets like Earth are much harder to discover due to their small size. On the other hand, they are very common. According to some estimates, one in five sun-like stars might have an Earth-like companion in its habitable zone. That means there could be 11 billion potentially-habitable planets in the Milky Way alone. In addition, there are planets orbiting smaller stars such as red dwarfs, for which no good statistics yet exist.