The Orthogonal Galaxy

by Michael L. Lewis

  “In other words, we need to figure out if the dust has only kicked up a few hundred feet from ground level all the way up the slopes of the mountains. If we look at a smaller mountain peak, where the atmosphere is more dense than it is on the upper reaches of Olympus Mons, we might get a clearer idea of how much dust we really have swirling around up there.”

  Wheeling back to the telescope platform, Zimmer announced, “Give me a few minutes to dial in the coordinates and calibrate the surface angle for best imagery. You guys might want to warm up the image database for the Tharsis Mountains. We’ll be performing similar elevation calculations there as well.”

  The professor returned to the telescope and began calculating coordinates for Ascraeus Mons, the tallest mountain in the Tharsis Region, and the second highest peak on Mars.

  Reyd whispered to Joram, “My money is on the professor’s theory, and the dust proves to be a thin layer that’s just being stirred up to low levels all over the planet.”

  “But all of the circumstances have just been bizarre enough so far that I wouldn’t be surprised if we really have a fifty thousand foot tall dust cloud,” Joram rebutted. “Remember that this dust is really just a barrier to the real task at hand here. We need to find out how a group of satellites and a shuttle just disappear into thin air, or thin space. I’m guessing there is a link to the disappearance and the dust… hopefully, if we solve one mystery, we get all of our questions answered.”

  “That’s a good point. Either way, let’s start taking a look at the Tharsis Mountains, shall we?”

  Reyd started negotiating the database menu again, when he stopped suddenly.

  “What’s wrong?” asked Joram looking at his companion.

  “Well, I’m trying to recollect the names of the mountains that the professor needs us to look at… but I’ll just go to the ‘regions’ portion of the database to find the names of the Tharsis mountains. I know I’ve heard them, but I forget now.”

  “Ascraeus, Arsia, and Pavonis,” Joram said.

  “What?” Reyd didn’t grasp that his peer had just named all three Tharsis mountains in two seconds.

  “Oh, I’m sorry… I gave them to you in order of elevation. Did you want them in terms of their geographic alignment. Ascraeus is the northernmost, Arsia is on the south end, and Pavonis sits right between them.”

  Reyd’s jaw dropped as he stared at Joram. “Where did that come from?”

  Joram blushed a bit. He did not intend to condescend, but being caught up in the moment of research, he couldn’t help blurting out a little too much knowledge perhaps. “I’m sorry… I read a book on Martian geography a couple of years ago. The chapter of Martian mountains really left an impression on me, I guess.”

  “Apparently so.” Reyd flushed slightly as he shook his head in amazement and turned back to the console. He got ready to dial into the Ascraeus database in an attempt to beat Zimmer to the punch, while the telescope was quickly zooming towards its new subject. “Ascraeus Mons… there it is.”

  Zimmer called out, “How does she look, Reyd.”

  “It looks great, professor. However, we don’t have quite the same angle on the slope of the mountain, as we did for Olympus. It might be tricky to pick a spot that we’ll want to measure from the digital image.”

  “The lava flows might help us find our spot,” Joram pointed out on the database image. “They extend all the way around the mountain.”

  Joram pointed to the northeast and south sides of the mountain where dark slits cut all the way around the mountain. Larger gashes where those of dried up lava flows at the surface of the mountain.

  “Those are really amazing geologic structures there,” admitted Reyd. “At this zoom level, those flows make the mountain look more like a scratching post than a volcano. It makes for a very distinguishable feature. However, they may be too low in elevation for them to be any use to us. Wow… look at the scar over on the west side of the mountain where it looks like a landslide has left a huge gash in the mountain. Again, that’s way too low to be of use to us, but what about this?”

  Reyd pointed to the east side of the mountain. “These pits here may be caves or perhaps the end of lava tubes opening up on the surface of the mountain. Some of these might be high enough. Otherwise, there isn’t a whole lot of distinguishing features around the mountain to tell where a cloud may end.”

  “Take a look at the live image right there.” A long finger belonging to Professor Zimmer had reached between the pair of students and pointed to the live image on the monitor. Just above the cloud was a distinguishing feature, either a cave, or perhaps a large boulder, but it was easily spotted by the shadows being cast by the afternoon Sun.

  “Let’s see.” Reyd worked quickly to spin and focus on the object. “That’s just north of west on the mountain. Interesting, I didn’t remember noticing many features on that part of the mountain. Could that be a new exposure or perhaps a crater?”

  Silence ensued for a few minutes as the two teams examined both the left and right frames, as if watching a rapid volley at a Wimbledon tennis match.

  “Right here,” Joram pointed on the left side of the screen. “Look at the database image. The lighting isn’t as favorable, but I think there is a slight difference in coloration which may match to the shadow in the live image.”

  Zimmer suggested, “Hey, Reyd… can we scan the remaining images in the database? It would be nice to find an image with similar afternoon lighting in order to pinpoint that structure.”

  “Yes, sir.” Reyd negotiated through the menus quickly to bring up the full catalog of images available. He set the default 3D model to provide a west-side angle.

  The team scanned through image after image for a couple of seconds each. After flipping through more than a dozen pictures, Zimmer shouted, “There!” He pointed at a pinpoint of a black spot, not as large as that of the live image, but certainly in the same location. “It’s a shadow,” Zimmer stated confidently. “It’s not being cast as long in this image, certainly because it was taken earlier in the day, but make no mistake, that’s our spot.”

  With accepting nods from his students, Reyd went quietly to work, clicking and measuring. He leaned back in his chair and clasped his hands behind his head, as the trio of astronomers clearly understood the data they were looking at.

  Professor Zimmer nodded approvingly. “Kath!”

  Kath gave a start and spun around quickly.

  “Kath, do you still have Dr. Avram on the phone?”

  “No, Professor, but I can call him back. What did you find out over there?”

  “Thirty thousand feet, Kath. The cloud is at thirty thousand feet on Ascraeus Mons. On Olympus Mons, it was fifty thousand feet above mean surface level, so it would appear as if the height of the dust cloud is relative to the surface features.”

  “That means there isn’t as much total volume of dust in the atmosphere, right, Professor?” asked Joram buoyantly.

  “Yes that is correct, which means…”

  Kath, the meteorologist, finished his sentence. “…it won’t absorb as much heat, won’t generate as much wind, and will settle out quicker. Maybe we’ll be able to see our astronauts soon!”

  Professor Zimmer looked at his watch. 3:30 AM. He dashed back to the telescope controls. “Reyd, small mountains… give me coordinates to one of the smallest mountains on the planet.”

  Reyd’s eyes opened wide as he grasped Zimmer’s plan.

  “If we find the dust low on a small mountain, then we will know for sure that the dust is not thick. I’ll dial up the list right away.”

  Reyd spun back to the control panel quickly, and worked the menus again. Within moments, a spreadsheet emerged on the screen with a long list that Reyd sorted by ascending elevation.

  “Professor,” Reyd announced abruptly. “Some of these features are below the zero elevation. What elevation should we start our search at?”

  “Reyd,” Joram pointed to the screen. “Can we eliminate
all of the patera from the list? These are usually low-lying craters that won’t benefit us. We need just the mons features that actually project upward from the surrounding surface.”

  “Yes,” Reyd nodded. “Good point. Let me filter farther.”

  While Reyd worked, Joram jumped to his feet, startling his partner at the control panel. He raced towards Zimmer. “Professor! What about Valles Marineris? Rather than iterating on various mountain elevations, we should look at Marineris! The canyon is of varied elevation throughout, and if the cloud is relatively low to the nape of the planet, then we’ll be able to see the canyon walls, and we’ll be able to tell exactly how deep the cloud is inside of the canyon. Besides, Marineris is to the east of Tharsis, where the sun will be setting soon. We’ll have good afternoon shadows to give us perspective of the canyon walls.”

  Zimmer smiled at Joram and hopped down from the telescope. “Ok, then… give me coordinates to Marineris and an image of the canyon system. That is one long trench, and we’ll need to figure out where to start looking.”

  Within moments, an elevation-shaded relief map of the deepest canyon in the solar system was portrayed on the full widescreen monitor, replacing both the live and historic images of Ascraeus Mons.

  “Well, let’s start right here in the middle,” the Professor stated.

  “The Candor region,” interjected Joram. “Excellent choice, Professor. We could start here in the Candor Chaos and work our way to its chasm, where the elevation differences are varied, and the walls are more step-like than the main branch of the canyon. We can tell based on which steps are exposed, the elevation of the dust cloud, I believe.”

  Joram didn’t notice that both Reyd and Zimmer were staring intently at him as he focused on the screen.

  Reyd was slowly shaking his head. “How… how do you know all of this?”

  Zimmer’s eyebrows were raised. He wasn’t certain whether to be irritated or impressed with this upstart college kid. “Candor, it is! Coordinates, please!”

  Zimmer bounded back to the telescope and arrived in time for the coordinates from Reyd. He worked rapidly at the controls. “What do you see gentlemen?”

  “A lot of dust,” answered Reyd sharply.

  “Can we side-by-side the current coordinates, Reyd?” asked Joram. “We need a clear reference to see where we’re at here.”

  Once again, the screen was split with the live image on the right and the best database image on the right. Both images were bounded by the same exact coordinates, guaranteeing that the mouse cursor hovered over exactly the same location on both images.

  “Wow!” Joram exclaimed. “Look at that, Reyd.”

  “Professor, can you zoom in on grid cell D6? Joram’s found something interesting here.”

  Both students leaned forward in their chairs.

  “Professor?” called Reyd. “You should come see this.”

  Zimmer scaled down the telescope platform again and met up with his students. He turned to Kath. “Kath, can you come take a look at this?”

  “Absolutely, Professor.” She looked over Reyd’s left shoulder intently. “What exactly am I looking at?”

  The professor briefed her on the discovery. “This, Kath, is Valles Marineris, the longest canyon in the solar system, and if some sources are to be believed…” He cut a glance over at Joram “…we are looking around the Candor region.”

  Joram blushed while shrugging his shoulders almost imperceptibly.

  The Professor continued: “Anyway, look at this billowing cloud of dust. This is down inside the canyon. And right here, you can see the border of the canyon wall. Any ideas what might cause a dust cloud like that to occur?”

  “I’m having a hard time with perspective here. How wide and deep is the canyon here?” asked Kath.

  “About one hundred miles wide and three miles deep,” answered Reyd.

  “Three miles deep? That thing is three miles deep? And I thought the Grand Canyon was impressive… My goodness.”

  Professor Zimmer brought Kath back to the task at hand. “Any ideas about this cloud, Kath?”

  “Well, it looks like it’s bubbling up from the middle. I’d say that there must be wind rushing down both sides and creating a violent turbulence right in the middle.”

  “What could cause that?”

  “A sudden drop in barometric pressure inside the canyon perhaps? That could cause a vacuum-like effect and suck the wind from the plateaus above… or a sudden change in temperature inside the canyon to cause convection… or…”

  “Or…” Joram interrupted while he pushed the mouse cursor along the canyon wall in the database image. “Or… the canyon wall is crumbling.”

  Zimmer couldn’t help chuckle at this suggestion, mainly because of the matter-of-fact nature of Joram’s idea. “What do you mean by that, Joram?”

  “Well, Professor, at first, I thought the images weren’t lined up very well, because look at the cursor here on the south side of the canyon. It is set some distance inside of the live image. But then, if you point the cursor to the north canyon wall, it also looks offset from the canyon wall, but in the opposite direction. Simply put, the width of the canyon is narrower in this satellite photo than it is over here in the live image.”

  Zimmer offered an explanation. “Perhaps the zoom factor is different? Reyd, can you calibrate the two images?”

  “I don’t think so, Professor,” countered Joram. “Look up here in the Candor Chasm. There is a ridge right here. It is inside the rim of the canyon, and yet it overlays perfectly on both images.”

  “Joram… this is ludicrous. Mars is not a geologically-active planet. There is no rain to erode the surface features, and there isn’t enough wind to cause landslides like this! For centuries, we have relied on pretty much the same exact look at Mars. Today, you’re telling me that Marineris is growing wider?”

  “Professor, it fits with the billowing cloud. If the walls of the canyon were crumbling, tons of rocks and sand would rush down the slopes, creating a downdraft that would meet in the middle and balloon up from the canyon.”

  The professor buried his head in his hands and rubbed his eyes deeply. He turned away from the students. “How does this happen?” Sarcastically, he offered, “Has somebody just nuked the surface of Mars? That might explain all of the dust, and crumbling canyon walls.”

  “Professor,” Kath interjected. “I would propose in this case that the wind patterns for a nuclear reaction would be too violent for this. We aren’t seeing the kind of wind needed.”

  “Agreed, Kath. It was a ludicrous theory to being with, but it’s just that this is growing more and more frustrating,” he whispered as much to himself as to his students. Turning back, he completed his thought. “Team, what we really need are more answers and fewer questions. It seems that with every turn, this whole mystery grows more and more complicated.”

  Reyd was the first to try to console the professor. “There does appear to be one answer, Professor.”

  Zimmer looked up and gave a half-smile to his student.

  “We now know that the cloud is not deep enough to obscure the entire canyon. We can see some of the walls. The cloud may be a couple of thousand feet thick, but certainly is not fifty thousand feet thick.”

  “We might be able to get a better estimate,” began Joram. “If we scan the telescope along the canyon to the west, it will bring us to the Labyrinth, where we will be able to see various depths of the canyon and whether the cloud fully covers these more shallow regions or not.”

  Without saying a word, the professor scaled the telescope platform again. Slowly guiding the telescope towards the west, they continued to see the occasionally billowing cloud of dust, indicating that the dynamics of the event causing this phenomenon were not local to the Candor region. Where clouds were not billowing, they saw a flat layer of dust hanging off of the valley floor. As they approached the western edge of the canyon, a massively wide expanse ended abruptly into a series of canyon narrow
s which intertwined in a chaotic, mazelike structure known as the Noctis Labyrinthus.

  Joram broke the silence. “The Labyrinth of the Night. Professor, this is wonderful! We are nearing the end of the labyrinth where the canyons get narrower and shallower and yet we are still able to make them out.”

  “What is the depth of the canyon here?” asked the professor turning away from the telescope controls and looking at his trio of helpers intently.

  Reyd clicked the mouse a couple of times and noted the elevation on the plateau above and the floor below. “Twelve hundred feet, Professor!”

  “Twelve hundred feet,” the professor nodded approval. “That sounds much better than fifty thousand feet! Kath, please call Dr. Avram again and let him know of our results. See if you can get him to assess a time frame for when this type of dust will settle out and give us a visual on the camp.”

  “Yes, sir.” Kath raced back to her station and quickly placed the headset on her head.

  “Gentlemen,” proceeded Zimmer. “It is time for us to turn our attention to the satellites. I’d like to get a visual lock on Satellite Four. Could you please calculate its current position and provide me with coordinates? If we can find this satellite, then we’ll be able to tune our telescope accordingly, and spot the remaining satellites in their current locations. Then, we’ll turn our attention to the shuttle, although it might be tougher to calculate its precise location and distance. Looking at my watch, I can see that we only have about an hour of nighttime left, so we’ll still have much to do tomorrow night as well.”

  While Reyd pounded at the keyboard in front of them in an effort to make some very hurried calculations, and while Kath reintroduced herself to Ravid Avram to notify him of their discovery, Joram was beginning to feel a bit more helpful. His knowledge of the Martian terrain and suggestions for where to turn to for answers was proving to be a valuable asset to the team after all. Turning in his chair, he saw Professor Zimmer reclining in a chair with his hands behind his head and his eyes closed.