We were able to jump through the wormhole after two attempts. Once we arrived in Draco, we found ourselves very close to Valkiria. However, the planet that we were looking for was on the other side of the star. We decided to abort the mission. We tried to make the jump back, but we didn’t go through the wormhole... and as a result of the intense gravity produced during the process, our ship attracted a fair number of asteroids. We escaped by activating the thrust, and then positioned ourselves in the star’s orbit. That’s how we ended up finding the planet Sater. It’s truly very beautiful. If it were located in our solar system, it would be one of the most beautiful planets there. We sent the probe to Sater, and, now, we’re collecting data. We should complete our orbit by tomorrow, at which point we will be close to the point where we arrived. Then, we’ll make the jump back home.
Although I haven’t said anything to the crew, I’m worried about the fragment that hit us when we were escaping from the asteroids. Nothing has gone wrong so far, so it seems like the ship is intact. But it will still take us several days to get back to Earth. If it doesn’t cause problems during our trip home, it will surely will be an issue when it comes time for re-entry.
“Russell, Frank, come over here. Take a look at this. I put together a compilation of what I found most interesting about the planet,” said Allison.
They both hurried over as Allison began to explain her selection: “You see this first photo of the planet’s atmospheric horizon?” she asked. “Can you see that bluish color? That means Sater’s atmosphere is composed of oxygen.”
“How interesting,” said Russell, lost in thought.
“In this set of photos, we can get a good look at the planet’s terrain,” she continued. “I think that, when Valkiria was still a dwarf star, like our sun, there were huge oceans on Sater. In fact, I think the planet was located quite far away from the star, but that the star’s radiation levels were twice as strong as our sun’s, which was enough to keep Sater’s water in liquid form. But, when Valkiria finished consuming all of its hydrogen and started to grow, thus turning into a red giant, Sater fell out of balance. The water evaporated, its volcanoes probably erupted due to a change in gravity, and I think its orbit was probably even altered. Later, however, it looks like the planet was able to come back into balance again, because although the star had grown, it started to emit much less energy than before.”
Frank and Russell looked at the photos, surprised and excited at the same time. They had never seen a planet like this one.
It didn’t have any vegetation, nor any sign of life. Nonetheless, given its terrain, it was clear that it had been covered in oceans long ago. Its icecaps still contained a very small amount of liquid water. The atmosphere was extremely dense. According to data collected by the probe, there was plenty of water in gaseous form, probably a result of past oceans, which continued to exist as water vapor.
They were able to identify very distinct geographies: plains, valleys, mountainous regions, and even channels that had probably once been rivers.
Like Saturn, the planet had rings. Allison tried to imagine what the sunset would look like from that planet: the image that came to mind was a huge, red star with two white rings dancing across the sky. The only thing as beautiful as looking at that planet from space would be looking out into space from that planet.
“Now, let me show you two very interesting things I found. First, look at this,” said Allison, pointing to a set of photos.
“What is that? That seems like a really strange landscape,” said Frank. “Is that some kind of mountain?”
“This photo was taken with the highest zoom on the probe. The planet’s atmosphere is covered in clouds, but we were lucky enough to get this photo, which provides us with a very sharp image of the planet’s ground,” explained the astronomer. “But, no, they don’t seem to be mountains. See, this topography is distributed in an almost mathematical fashion. It makes you think of the ruins of a city, right?”
“Wow! So, aliens live there?” joked Frank.
Allison glanced at her colleague with a disapproving look on her face.
“That really does seem to be a very unique terrain. It looks just like the ruins of a city,” said Russell.
“And what’s the other interesting thing you were talking about, Allison?” asked Frank.
“Well, look at this picture. It was also taken with the probe’s highest zoom. However, unlike the previous photo, there were a few clouds, which blurred the photo a bit... but take a good look. You two have already been to the Space Station, so I’m sure you spent plenty of hours looking down at Earth, right? What does that look like?”
Russell looked at the photo... then Frank... and then they both looked at each other, until Russell said, “I know what you’re trying to say, Allison, but I don’t think that’s what it is.”
“What about you, Frank? What do you think?” she asked.
“Well, yes, they look like pyramids... but, listen, I agree with Russell, I don’t think that’s what they are. We hardly know anything about this planet... the wind might have played a part in shaping this terrain,” he concluded.
“Guys, I’m no climate expert, but I know for sure that there’s no place in the universe where a planet’s wind could sculpt something like this, creating perpendicular sides like those of a quadrilateral, or, in this case, a mathematically accurate tetrahedron,” she argued.
It was hard to argue with the facts in front of them. They had been trained to be skeptical. Photos of a planet with a one-of-a-kind geography, with valleys that could have been a huge ocean, and ruins—or something that looked like ruins—as if they were what was left of a city... and to top it all off, pyramids? Could there really have been another planet in the universe with living beings, or which had once supported life? Or were they just being fooled by their own desire for all of this to be real?
“Let’s wait until we get back to Earth to draw conclusions. These are very important questions, and our findings are in no way trivial. But I’m sure, with years of study and thousands of people analyzing this data, the scientific community will come to the right conclusion, which may just be that these are actually pyramids,” said Russell in closing, thus putting an end to Allison’s analysis.
Image 08 – The planet Sater.
(credits and details on the final page)
Chapter 10
The ship had already gone around much of the star. They had lost contact with the probe some time ago. Allison continued analyzing the data that they had been able to collect, saving the amazement for herself.
Frank tried to get some rest. Russell had decided that he wasn’t going to sleep. He couldn’t risk missing the point where they would have to start up the engines and exit the star’s orbit to go in search of the place where they would then create the wormhole.
For a moment, Russell stared at the star. Then, he looked at Allison. She was looking out at the horizon, pensive. The few beams of light that made their way through the windows’ solar protection lit up her face, giving it a lovely glow.
Russell contemplated the moment for a second, and then asked the astronomer: “Allison, in one of your papers, you say this star is moving, that it’s following a path, right?”
“What? What did you say?” she asked, waking up from her daydream.
“Sorry to bug you,” said Russell. “I was asking about this star following a path...”
“Oh, yeah... I came to the conclusion that a black hole was created, and that, due to its gravity, the system was thrown out of balance and the star was accelerated. But, then, this black hole disappeared, or moved, causing the system to fall back into balance, and thus leaving this star on a path, in movement.”
“And now that you’re here, looking the star up close,” Russell replied, “do you still think that that’s what happened?”
“Yes, that has to be it. Why? There’s no other explanation. Plus,” Allison continued, “the technology this ship uses to jump th
rough wormholes is based on a proven theory that allows us to do just that, to create black holes. And that theory, in turn, was based on studies about this star—and about its current movement.”
“So, you’re saying that a mysterious black hole causing this star to speed up appeared sometime within the last 250,000 years, right?” asked Russell.
“Yes,” she replied.
“And it’s not here anymore, is it?”
“No, I’ve been scanning the space around us since we got here, not only searching for the planet Sater, but for that black hole, as well, and I didn’t find anything.”
“So, in summary,” said Russell, “at some point in the past, over 250,000 years ago, a black hole in this area disappeared. Is that it?”
“Yes, that’s the best theory we’ve been able to come up with so far. And it was published. The scientific community recognized it. But why all these questions? What are you getting at?” asked Allison.
“My point is this: don’t you think it’s strange that a black hole would appear and then disappear out of nowhere?”
“Of course I don’t, Russ. What a crazy thing to say! We’re standing in a spacecraft that does exactly that, don’t you remember? Okay, let’s cut to the chase. What are you thinking?” she asked.
“That’s exactly what I was trying to say,” he concluded, leaving Allison wondering where this conversation was going. “Our ship is capable of doing that, of creating black holes. So, what if a technology similar to ours was once used here, in a very distant past?”
Just then, Frank woke up, forcing Russell to leave his question hanging in the air, as he remembered that they had to start preparing for their return.
They all ate breakfast. Russell performed the main readings for the Orion-II: “Fuel at 60%, oxygen at 70%.” Frank completed the list: “Accelerator rings in position, solar panels stowed, all systems functioning.”
The ship would have to leave the Valkiria star’s orbit and navigate through open space until it arrived at the spot where they would make the jump.
“Prepare for engine activation in three, two, one... ignition,” commanded Russell, as the ship vibrated and started its intense accelerate, exiting Valkiria’s orbit and heading toward the point in space where they thought they had originally arrived.
The trip took them forty minutes, at which point they arrived at the spot where they would create a wormhole to take them back to the solar system.
“Allison, are you sure this is the spot?” asked Frank.
“Yes,” she replied. “This isn’t the exact spot, but it’s close. This is our best bet. We’re definitely closer to where we need to be than we would have been after escaping from the asteroids.”
“Okay. Initiating acceleration process,” said Russell, as he pressed the buttons responsible for activating the ship’s external rings.
At that point, they begin the ten-minute countdown. The rings start to accelerate the dark matter around the ship. An unsettling silence takes hold of the Orion-II. Everyone is apprehensive.
Allison scans the space around them with the telescope, while simultaneously monitoring the cameras to make sure there aren’t any asteroids nearby.
With one minute left before the jump, the gravity outside the ship reaches extremely high levels. The spacecraft starts attracting light, which is then distorted. Once again, Valkiria is nothing more than a blur. The astronauts take a quick look at one another. Russell says, “Allison and Frank, it’s been a pleasure exploring this galaxy with you guys. Let’s head home.”
Outside, in the vast space of Draco, the Orion-II is nothing more than a dot in the middle of nowhere. Nothing makes a sound. Nothing moves. Nothing changes. The Draco Galaxy, particularly at that point in space, looks like a huge cemetery.
In that moment, if an outside spectator were to observe the area around the spaceship, they would be able to see the Orion-II, a tiny, shining speck in the middle of the immense darkness, reflecting the star’s rays. They would also see a huge, red sun in the background; and, now very far away, a small, bluish planet called Sater.
A second later, the Orion-II’s brightness would disappear. The wormhole had been created. The spaceship was gone.
Image 09 – Orion-II with Valkiria in the background.
(credits and details on the final page)
Chapter 11
The green light on the dashboard lights up. Inside the Orion-II, the three astronauts begin the standard procedure to pinpoint their location.
It was a euphoric moment; they had completed the jump on their first try, something which they had yet to do before. But their euphoria was followed by intense frustration.
They were not near Earth. The place where they had arrived didn’t look like anything they had every seen before. There was a bright light all around them, as well as lots of stars and a few nebulas. From the moment they arrived, they had felt a strong and constant acceleration. In front of them was a star—or something that, at first glance, looked like a star. It was huge. It was surrounded by light, but its center was dark. It didn’t give off any heat, but their measuring instruments detected extremely high radiation levels.
“Allison, how soon will you be able to tell us where we are?” asked a worried Russell.
“I’m working on it, Russ. I think I’ll need about twenty more minutes for the computer to finish cross-referencing the data. But I don’t have a good feeling about that thing in front of us,” she responded.
“Is that a star?” asked Frank.
“It doesn’t look like a star... I’m pretty sure it’s a black hole. See, its core is dark. That light around it isn’t coming from the hole, but rather, it’s moving toward it. It is also being reflected by that dust spiral, which seems to be moving in the direction of the hole, as well, allowing us see it,” Allison explained.
“That would explain our acceleration,” Russell added. “How much longer until you can confirm it?”
“We could be in the middle of a galaxy. The computer is still cross-referencing data from the telescope, but I’m thinking that we might be at the center of the Milky Way,” she responded with a worried tone in her voice, speeding up the image capture process.
“Allison, we have to make the jump as soon as possible, before we get too far away. We are accelerating toward the black hole. We’re already quite far away from where we first arrived, and the longer we wait, the farther away we’ll get. I’m going to initiate the process,” said Russell.
“But where are we going to end up?” asked Frank. “If we move around too much, who knows where we’ll arrive after the jump.”
“Would you rather stay here and see what happens?” joked Russell.
“I’d rather engage the engines and move backwards, in an attempt to activate the dark matter accelerators and create a singularity closer to the place where we arrived,” responded Frank.
“Frank, right now, we only have half as much fuel as when we left Earth. Even if we were to turn on the engines and burn up all that fuel, we wouldn’t be able to get back to where we arrived. We’ve been accelerating for a long time already, and we don’t know how fast we’ve been going. This singularity’s gravity is huge; we have to make the jump now,” said Russell in closing.
At that moment, the ship’s body creaked. A screech reverberated through the ship, as if something were scraping the outside. It seemed as if something were loose on top of the Orion-II, as if a piece of metal were bending and squeaking, causing the ship to whisper, and reminding the crew just how fragile their situation was.
It wasn’t coming from outside, because sound doesn’t propagate in space. It had to be something that was loose and rubbing against the ship body, which in turn caused them to hear the noise inside of the ship.
Frightened, Allison braced herself. Russell looked around the walls of the Orion-II as the sound got louder and louder inside. Frank followed the reverberation with his eyes in an attempt to figure out where that terrifying squeal could be co
ming from. The tension inside the ship came to a peak... and was following by silence.
They disregarded the noise for the time being. Frank frantically checked the systems. Russell had already activated the jump mechanism and initiated the countdown. Allison began to calm down, adopting a serene demeanor. Sitting in her seat, pressed firmly against her seatbelt, she looked out the window of the Orion-II. The beauty of that moment was unparalleled. The three astronauts were the only people, up until that point, to have had the opportunity to see a black hole up close. Neither Russell nor Frank realized the importance of this moment, as they were both focused on getting out of there before that thing swallowed them up. Allison, on the other hand, knew just how valuable what she was witnessing was, causing her to remain hypnotized and spend those last few minutes in a completely contemplative state.
In the midst of such extreme tension and rushing around, they both noted how calm Allison seemed to be with that singularity in front of her. And, so, they were both suddenly overcome with silence. It was absolute. The image outside of the ship granted them a total and terrifying peace. The landscape appeared static. The darkness at the center of the black hole was larger than anything they had ever seen before. It was impossible to think of it as a spherical figure—which is the traditional way we think about the shape of a black hole—because it made any sense of depth perception impossible. Without the reflection of light, it looked like a huge tunnel.
Their moment of contemplation was interrupted as Allison checked to see if the cameras were catching everything going on outside. The digital material on the ship had become more important than the very astronauts.
Stellarium (Origins): A Space-Time Adventure to the Ends of our Universe Page 6
