Stellarium (Origins): A Space-Time Adventure to the Ends of our Universe (7 page)

“I’m going to adjust a few
parameters on the computer so the ship will be able to manage the electrical
load generated by the emissions we’re receiving from the star. It shouldn’t
happen again,” says the engineer.

Allison breathes a sigh of
relief.

At that very moment, to the
surprise and fascination of the three astronauts, the first images from the
probe begin to arrive. A beautiful, enigmatic Sater is revealed for the first
time ever.

It would be dawn if they were on
Earth. However, days ago, the basic concepts of night and day had stopped making
sense to them. Over the last few hours, as they orbited the red giant, there
were few external references to give the crew any notion of the time of day.

Frank had realized the Orion-II
was rotating very slowly on its main axis, causing Valkiria to line up with the
center of the ship every six hours. This helped to create a point of reference
which they could call “daytime,” but it was still very far from what they were
used to.

Either way, they all had watches,
and they did their best to stick to a sleep schedule like the one they had on
Earth. To achieve this, they followed a very strict routine: at 10:00 p.m.,
they lowered the lights inside the cabin and didn’t turn them back on until
6:00 in the morning. None of the crewmembers were able to sleep the whole
“night” through, but they came pretty close to doing so.

They also tried to eat three
meals per day. They had to follow this routine as closely as possible, not just
to remain well rested, but to stay somewhat connected with Earth. At
dinnertime, for example, Frank thought about his family
—
his wife and two children sitting at the kitchen table, giving
thanks for their food. He also liked to imagine himself kissing his daughter on
the forehead as he carried her off to bed. Frank pictured himself brushing his
youngest son’s teeth, while the kid swallowed a chunk of toothpaste, smiling at
his dad with the silly face of someone who knows they’re doing something wrong.

Frank had kept up with this
routine since leaving Earth. Because, as exciting as the trip had been so far,
he constantly thought about how hard it was to be so far away from his family.
He hadn’t felt this way during his eight months aboard the International Space
Station. Maybe that was because he had been able to communicate with them via text
messages or streaming video on a semi-regular basis. Or maybe it was because he
could see Earth from the ISS, and he was put at ease knowing that they were
safe down below.

Allison had noticed the tears on
her partner’s face the first night of the trip, when they were still traveling
through the solar system. She, on the other hand, was in a totally different
state of mind. There wasn’t much on Earth for her to miss. And the discoveries
they would make on this mission would have a huge impact on the field of
astronomy. It was a strange and frightening sensation, but orbiting that star
in Draco, more than 250,000 light years away from Earth, felt like
"home" to her. She was at peace.

That "night" in
particular, no one followed their routine. It was 3:00 a.m. and they were
flooded with data from the probe. In a span of just two hours, after completing
a full orbit around Sater, the probe had already sent more than 3,000 photos
and more than one hour of video, in addition to numerical data from its atmospheric
composition measuring instruments. Fully focused, Allison analyzed the
information and took notes. Russell, silent and objective as always,
concentrated on the ship’s orbit. He took advantage of that time to write in
his diary:

Today
we completed day seven of the mission. The launch from Earth was amazing. The
vibration caused by the rings on the Orion-II was much less intense that I had
imagined. The SLS placed the ship very close to the expected path, but I had to
correct the course shortly after the completion of the second stage.

The
first five days of travel were arduous. Frank suggested that NASA send a few
board games along on the next mission, because it was hard to find ways to make
the time pass. He was obviously joking, playing without gravity would be quite
strange. It’s great to have Frank on the team. He’s very intelligent, and he
manages to keep a positive atmosphere, as well. Allison is also amazing; she’s
incredibly determined and has an impressive knowledge of astronomy.

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)

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 through 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.