The Asteroid

by M R Cates

  “Yes, uh, yes Sandra. I will do so.”

  “Great. And I won't forget I owe you a dinner.”

  “Alright.” The young woman was beaming. What a night! “Thank you so much.”

  “Thank you! I'll go now. Good luck.” Sandra hung up. Her mind was locked on that very odd asteroid. She completely forgot about lunch.

  Chapter 7

  At ten o'clock in the evening, the night after her daytime conversation with Françoise Marnier, Sandra Hughes assumed scheduled control of the twin Keck telescopes. The astronomer was in worn jeans, slip-on deck shoes, and a long-sleeved cotton shirt. The shirt was an accommodation for the slightly too-cold air in the climate controlled Keck Control Room. With meticulous care Sandra entered the parameters for the new orbit, taken from the student's work in Spain. Françoise had done well, especially for a student suddenly confronted with a problem that required quick response and action that was far from routine. Sandra's optimized background software was already installed in the software data base, so when she heard the soft click indicating the Kecks were aligned, her display screen lit up with the sharpest image yet of the asteroid. It was not possible to avoid saying, “Wow!” The stony doughnut was still a little fuzzy in outline but, considering its fifteen mile diameter, was remarkably resolved. The open center looked to be about six or seven miles across. Amazing. It must have been, she thought, that it ejected more of the interior material, causing the last orbital shift. But it had to have been blown off, actually, with considerable recoil velocity. Switching to a calculator program on one of the screens, the astronomer ran a quick series of calculations, estimating the amount of material that would have had to be ejected to make the orbital shift they had quantified. She shook her head as she looked at the numbers.

  Sandra had started several different data recorders, simultaneous with the pointing of the Kecks. She would study this asteroid continuously for nearly five hours – an incredible luxury afforded by the Keck resolution study. During that time it should continue toward perigee, getting closer to earth. This would be a very interesting night.

  After getting the system operating “on all cylinders,” as Sandra would put it, the astronomer signaled the student on duty that night, to come manage the controls. She then routed three of the critical data flows into her office and told the young man to call her there if needed. Her office was only two corridors away from the control room. Stopping by the coffee pot she filled her mug and continued on into the more comfortable surroundings. Many nights on the Kecks had gone like this. Sandra could do everything – except reprogram control of the telescopes – as well or better from her office as from the control room. And reprogramming the telescope in fact was what she had just done in the control room. She had introduced an additional feature during the aiming of the matched pair of mirror arrays. As soon as the asteroid's image was established Sandra had activated commands she'd entered into the controlling program to override the tracking sequence – the normal following of the earth's rotation – and lock directly on the image. If more material was ejected, shifting the doughnut's orbit yet again, the twin Kecks would simply go with it, spitting out the new coordinates continuously. Sandra's codes would pick up the changes and calculate the new orbit or orbits basically in real time.

  At her desk, feet propped up on a partly pulled out lower drawer, Sandra could see the asteroid image on her best-resolution monitor and two lower magnifications of it on two other displays. In the first image she left the background routine active, so the screen showed only black and the superimposed doughnut. On the two others she left the star field in view, but kept a dashed-line circle marker imposed around the asteroid. The last screen was reserved for a computer monitor. Sipping coffee, the young scientist watched, occasionally scratching her head. She wasn't sure what to expect next, but her natural patience told her to expect nothing new, nor did she notice any discernible change. Just before midnight Sandra took a break and walked back to the control room to chat with the student. She assured herself that everything was normal, routed herself back toward her office by way of a refrigerator where she had left a mango and some cheese, got them and took the snack back to her desk. She had nearly finished the fruit and was half way through the cheese when she noticed something subtly different about 1744's image. There was a change of some kind that she couldn't quite identify. The slight mottling of the asteroid surface was fluctuating, as if the duller and brighter portions of the image were moving. From her angle of view the toroid continued to appear oblong and her first guess was that perhaps the open circle was twisting slightly, becoming more round in profile. Sandra picked up the phone and called the control room.

  “Rodney,” she said, “are you watching the image right now?”

  “Yes, Dr. Hughes.”

  “What do you see?”

  There was a pause. “Er, well, it does seem a little different , but I ... I'm not sure if it is.”

  “Thanks, Rodney. Listen, watch carefully. I'm watching here, too. I'll call you when you can relax and get back to your book.”

  “Alright,” the student said.

  Sandra, after putting the phone back on the hook, quickly switched one of her lower resolution displays to a readout of the high-resolution image data recorded one minute earlier. These earlier views were obtained from an on-line, high-capacity data recorder that captured every image made by the twin Kecks. At the end of each shift the data would be transferred to an archiving storage bank. With two nearly identical images one minute apart Sandra then captured each image with her computer and subtracted one from the other. She made the subtraction over and over again, automatically, displaying the difference continuously on her third monitor. It was a simple maneuver that let her follow any changes in orientation that were occurring.

  “Well, I'll be damned,” she said aloud. The toroid was obviously twisting, becoming rounder and rounder. Gradually it passed through circularity and resumed a narrowing oval shape. All over a period of fifteen minutes. The screen showing the subtracted image displayed tiny arcs, like new moons, was briefly blank as the object became circular, then repeated the arcs. Rodney had noticed it, too, when she checked back with him. The excitement in the student's voice was clear. Sandra, having all the data, would be able to plot the orientation change accurately to study later on. Her hope was that she'd be able to pick up some of the sloughing off of material. Eventually the differential image showed narrowing arcs, finally becoming completely blank: the twisting had stopped.

  Sandra Hughes was sitting on the forward edge of her desk chair. The unfinished fruit and cheese were forgotten. A hand went to her chin, then to the top of her head. In that moment, a dull orange glow appeared along the inside of the doughnut. It flickered with a period of several seconds, growing slightly redder, then more orange. The tinge of color was so dim that Sandra switched her third display to a captured still image. Studying it closely, she re-convinced herself that the color was there. Fortunately, she'd been using a three-color imaging array – the three colors allowing full-color views of the asteroid. That had been part of the test plan for the resolution study. Sandra's mouth dropped open. What is that red glow? Can that somehow be ejected material? Not moving at high speed, yet glowing. Hot interior of the asteroid? After a moment of gaping amazement, she forced herself back into action. This was an opportunity that would never come again. Sandra quickly double checked all her recording devices, assuring herself that she was getting as much as possible. Then she looked at a sequence of captured images, each separated by half a second – instead of the standard 1/30 of a second video framing rate – and plotted a brightness profile of one particular bright zone on the doughnut’s inside. Sandra's mind was racing. There were many choices to be made. She knew that a lot of analysis could be done after the fact, post-processing the accumulated data, but she wanted to be able to follow the dynamics of whatever might unfold in real time – sensing the possibility of some unpredictable behavior. Nothing abou
t this asteroid had been normal so far. Using the bright zone she'd identified and was following the brightness of, Sandra also pin-pointed its location. The possibility that the bright spot might shift was the motivation here, or that the asteroid itself might rotate to some degree. She plotted that hot-spot location continuously on a second screen, using a hexagonal icon to represent it. As opposed to the oscillating brightness, continuing on its roughly four-second period, the location remained constant. All the while her tracking routine, holding the Kecks on the asteroid target, kept: the asteroid locked dead-center in the mirrors' alignment.

  Again she leaned back and waited. The oscillation of the surface intensity, identified at the specific surface location on 1744, continued to rise and fall. It dawned on her that the total intensity may not be changing as much as the color. Leaning forward, Sandra called the control room.

  “Rodney, do me a favor – listen, are you noticing the color on the asteroid?”

  “I saw it was ... was a little different,” he said, effectively admitting he hadn't been watching all that closely.

  “It's showing fluctuating red on the inside of the doughnut,” she explained. “But, anyway, activate the Carson Spectrometer, will you?”

  “The Carson?” The student had some but not a lot of knowledge of the spectrometer in question.

  “Right. Just throw the power switch and set the programming knob to remote. Then patch the signal – the BNC cable that says 'output' – to 'external.' I can pick it up here.”

  “Okay, Dr. Hughes.” He sounded a little relieved.

  “Thanks, Rodney.”

  Sandra turned back to her observation. At the moment everything about 1744 was as it had been for the last few minutes: the red intensity continued to oscillate and the location selected remained an unmoving hexagon on her second screen. In three minutes or so the spectrometer signal became active. She could – using her computer – divert the Kecks' collected light – at either or both telescope foci – by way of a spinning mirror into a diffraction grating that separated the color spectrum of the image and recorded the intensity of each color with high sensitivity, using a cooled high-gain optical detector array. The Carson Spectrometer system had two gratings, one for each Keck, and a common analysis section, along with coordinated controls. Sandra used both gratings simultaneously, allowing light to strike them five percent of the time – five milliseconds out of each 100 milliseconds. The rate was so fast that it didn't disturb the visual image yet acquired additional data. She used her third screen to display both color spectra, each showing a bell-shaped region centered on a wavelength of 640 nanometers, right in the middle of the red region. The remainder of the spectrum was relatively flat, an indicator of white light – more or less uniform reflection of the sunlight striking the asteroid surface. The readout characteristics were such that the display was refreshed every tenth of a second. Sandra watched the red bump move left to right, the right to left, changing little in peak amplitude but shifting from a center at about 660 nanometers at one extreme to about 610 at the other.

  That's what's causing the fluctuation, she nodded to herself. The inner surface of 1744 was changing its redness, going from more orange to more red on a regular cycle, the four second period she'd noticed in the amplitude. The apparent amplitude change was an artifact arising from the red filter in the three-color imaging system. The filter passed more light near 650 nanometers wavelength than near 610. But Sandra couldn't imagine why the asteroid had gotten red at all, unless there was some kind of heated interior. It may be that it was fluctuating in temperature, through some bizarre tectonic goings-on inside the doughnut. It's far too small for this kind of thing, she concluded to herself, yet it's doing it!

  Sandra leaned back again, emitting a long sigh. This was absolutely incredible. Once more she called Rodney and had him check the status of everything. Assured that the full array of instruments were working properly, she simply waited, watching all screens intently. Waiting was the proper prescription for the moment.

  The clock on the computer screen showed 1:51 AM. The asteroid's condition had not changed in over an hour. Sandra had collected a file of images and curves, transferring them into a presentation program, gave the ten separate data slides the name “Asteroid 1744 Sighting” and sent it to Reginald Wyler's email. She guessed he'd enjoy looking at the information the next morning and would have some handy viewgraphs to show colleagues. This asteroid was worthy of a news release, too, she figured. Especially with her good images, people everywhere would be properly entertained and amazed by the space doughnut. Space doughnut, she smiled. That's what it'll probably be called. Just as she'd finished that little report her desk phone rang.

  Guessing it was Rodney and hoping nothing was going wrong, she answered rather curtly, “Yes?”

  There was brief pause, then, “Is this Dr. Sandra Hughes?”

  Immediately recognizing Constanza's voice, she responded, “Oh, sorry, Rico. I'm busy watching our asteroid. How are you?”

  “Are you too busy to ... to speak, then?”

  “No. Things are stable at the moment. I guess you saw Françoise's interesting images?” There was a teasing in her tone that carried a little 'I told you so' implication with it.

  “Yes. Quite remarkable. The orbital shift was ... I must say, was very unexpected.”

  “I'll say.” Sandra spoke, but had her eyes glued to her screens. “And it definitely has a hole through the center of it. Rico, the diameter of the opening is something like ten kilometers!”

  “You can actually see ... fully identify ... the ... the opening, then?” He sounded as if he couldn't quite accept the reality of such a peculiarity. Nor could Sandra were she not actually looking at the peculiarity itself.

  “I can. And at the moment the inside of the ... the inside of the toroid is reddish orange. Some kind of heat is leaking out. And the orbital shifts had to have come from ejected material.”

  “You say, 'shifts'? More than one?”

  “I think so. Though I didn't observe the first one directly. I took the catalog numbers for Asteroid 1744 and plugged them in – a few days back – and couldn't find it. Much like you discovered when Françoise plugged in my orbital parameters. When I found it I re-computed the orbit. That's how I guessed the new parameters for Françoise; based them on the degree of change in orbit I'd already measured.”

  “Ah,” he said. “Let me confess, er, Sandra that I ... I had thought you'd made a mistake – earlier that is. I apologize.”

  “Hey, no problem.” Her tone was almost flippant, but her eyes were still locked on target. “This is the damnest thing I've ever seen out there – even including some truly weird galaxies and at least two x-ray sources that I have no inkling about the origin of.” She glanced at her clock. It was 2:16 AM. “Hmm, let's see, it's early afternoon there, right? When will you be able to start picking up images with your ten-meter?”

  “About five more hours, Sandra.”

  “Let me urge you to schedule some time on 1744. It's quite a sight. And it's close to perigee. You should be able to see it better, maybe even the hole in the middle.”

  “We fully intend to do so. One other thing, Sandra, have you ... have you considered a news release on this asteroid?”

  Sandra smiled to herself. He was thinking the same thing she was. “Rico, I sent a report to my boss. He should have read it by the time you're ready to turn on your ten-meter. If he says okay, I say we let people know. In fact, I'll write you an email suggesting what we might say, you clean it up some and add your slant, and we'll release it together. Okay?”

  Dr. Constanza was not sure how to respond. Her offer was more than he had a right to expect. After all, Hughes had been the discoverer of the orbital shift or shifts and had contacted them primarily because of scientific interest in a more continuous observation of the asteroid. That, coupled with the behavior Haim Sieber had shown, would have been more than enough justification for the Keck Observatory to take all th
e credit. Of course he knew that Sandra's boss, Reginald Wyler, might have a different and more parochial idea about any news release.

  “Would Dr. Wyler not expect the ... well, the release to come only from you?”

  “Reggie? Oh, why would he? We'll say we saw 1744 here first, just like we did. But we really need correlation from another observatory to make the story more credible. The damned doughnut is really freaky! My thought is that when you see it again in a few hours, the main features will be well established. And if you see the weird red inside we'll have a really special news release.”

  Constanza couldn't help smiling. This American scientist sounded for all the world like a college girl excited about some trivial thing. Her tone and use of the English language were more informal, even colloquial, than any American he'd ever encountered professionally. Yet he knew he was talking to a scientist of the first magnitude and had the opportunity to establish a collaborative working relationship with her that would be the envy of any number of scientific institutions around the world. “I'll certainly try to observe the asteroid again, as soon as possible,” he said. “And I will be happy to ... our institute would be honored to issue a joint release with Keck Observatory. As long as Dr. Wyler agrees, of course.”

  “Right. Listen, Rico, I have the clearance from Reggie to make a visit over there. So I'll come, if you can fit me into your schedule. Besides, I owe Françoise a dinner.”

  “A dinner?”

  “For tracking down Asteroid 1744. She did a great job.”

  “She's quite a good student.” He wasn't sure what else to say.

  “Oh, another thing, I'll stream you a few images we've taken here, but not till after you've gotten at look at 1744 in a few hours. I don't want to prejudice you yet.”

  “It is probably a good plan,” he agreed.