The Orthogonal Galaxy
Chapter 20

“So, you knew all along!” Kath exclaimed indisbelief, hitting Joram on the shoulder as they approached Professor Zimmer’soffice.

“Not all along,” Joram downplayed hisdiscovery. “In hindsight, I think Zimmerknew even before I did.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Just a hunch. Do you remember the last meeting we had in the conference room atJohnson? The one where we were decidingwhat to do with the last three paddles?”

Kath nodded while looking intently into Joram’sface as the graduate students pressed on down the long hall of the astronomybuilding and stopped abruptly at the professor’s office door.

“I suspect that Zimmer knew what I was thinkingall along, and that is why he pressed me on the matter. I saw a look of surprise when I suggestedramming the beam upstream at full speed, almost as if my thoughts betrayed meto him. At the time, I thought that ifthe paddles were simply disappearing, because they were being driven by thebeam faster than the speed of light, then we might be able to see more of thetrajectory of that paddle as it did an abrupt U-turn towards the downstream anddisappeared. By seeing the negative rateof acceleration, we would be able to ballpark the speed of the particles in thebeam. The bottom line is that I thoughtI read something in his expression that may have indicated he knew what I wasthinking. I’m fairly certain that he hadalready guessed what the beam was doing. He just needed enough evidence to convince himself and the scientificcommunity.”

“But, how did he guess? Why would he guess something sopreposterous? During thousands of yearsof recorded human history, nobody has ever seen anything traveling faster thanthe speed of light. It’s so… so…unrelativistic.”

“I prefer anti-relativistic,” said a familiarraspy voice approaching Kath from behind.

Kath gave a start. “Oh, professor… I didn’t know you werethere.”

“I see you two are right on time,” acknowledgedthe astrophysicist tapping on his wrist watch as he unlocked the door to hisoffice. Looking down the hall in bothdirections, he continued. “But whereis…”

At that moment, Reyd appeared briskly from aroundthe corner of the hall which Zimmer was facing.

“Ah, there is Mr. Eastman now.” He opened the door and invited his researchteam into his office for the appointed meeting which all three students hadbeen eagerly anticipating.

It was Joram’s first time in the hallowed—almostsacred—room. It was much smaller than hewould’ve guessed, and he couldn’t help wonder how some of the brightest ideasof their day could come from such a humble office. If only he could interview the walls, paintedin light beige; the desk, with its three modest stacks of papers; the laptopcomputer, which was turned on, but currently showed a black screen, as if topurposefully veil all of the secrets that were maintained inside.

There were shelves above every counter anddesktop, housing an array of books, many authored or co-authored by Zimmerhimself: “Quantum Forces of Nature”,“Astronomical Phenomena: Current Research on Unsolved Issues in the Universe”,“The Big Bang and Zeta Theory”, “Intergalactic Space and Matter”, “AdvancedParticle Physics.” At the end of theroom was a window with blinds pulled up, revealing a portion of the rooftop ofZimmer’s namesake planetarium. A hint ofsunlight bathed a small corner of the office as the afternoon wore on. There was a slight hum and low tick of a wallclock above the main desk.

Zimmer invited his students to a round white oaktable with four padded chairs. As theysettled in, he grabbed a CalTech coffee mug filled with water, a notepad, and apen before joining the students.

“Let me start with Miss Mirabelle’s question,first.”

“What question, Professor?”

“I think it was something along the lines of…‘How would he have guessed something so absurd?’ Was that the question you just asked outsidemy office, Ms. Mirabelle?”

Kath blushed, while Joram relished this rareoff-guard moment with a smile. Reydlaughed heartily at her gaffe. “Oh, Professor…I’m… I’m sorry. It was impertinent ofme.”

Joram’s smile fell open suddenly. Was that an apology? From Kath Mirabelle? It must’ve been a first, he thought.

“No, no… not at all, Miss Mirabelle. In fact…” his voice trailed off with his thought. He stood up and went to his desk searchingfor something in one of the stacks of papers. “Ah, here it is.”

He returned to the table with a crisp piece ofpaper recently printed out. He placedthe paper in front of Kath and asked her to read the blue-highlighted portionof a news article from the U.S.A. Today website.

“In an announcement which has rattled thescientific community, world-renowned astronomer, Carlton Zimmer issued astatement from the California Institute of Technology theorizing on a discoveryof ‘warp’ed proportions…”

“Ah, yes… I love that statement,” Zimmerinterrupted. With childlike excitement,he thrust a finger at the word ‘warp.’ “Clever, isn’t it? It’s a doubleentendre on the word warp, meaning both faster than the speed of light, andalso implying that I’ve just plain lost my marbles. Please do continue, Miss Mirabelle.”

Stunnedby his careless attitude towards the disrespect of the journalist, Kathcontinued slower than before. “Thecontinually-studied yellow beam, he claims, consists of matter which istraveling faster than the speed of light—a superluminal comet. If his theory proves correct, he’ll haveAlbert Einstein turning in his grave for defusing his heretofore unchallengedTheory of Relativity.”

After a brief pause, Zimmer indicated to Kath,“If you wouldn’t mind, Miss Mirabelle, please read the last paragraph as well.”

“Ironically, it was this same Dr. Zimmerwho—years earlier—was quoted as saying, ‘it would be absurd to assume thatanything could ever travel faster than the speed of light. There is a good reason why we’ve neverobserved such travel—it is because it simply cannot occur.’ Now Zimmer replaces himself in the awkward positionof having to prove Einstein—and himself—wrong.”

“You see, Miss Mirabelle,” Zimmer now got to thepoint. “There is nothing shameful aboutchallenging my position. In fact, theyused the same word that you did, ‘absurd.’ The criticism is coming from everywhere. Am I truly warped? Is my positionpreposterous? Certainly!” Leaning over the table was an effectivemechanism for gaining every bit of attention of his students. “Until I can prove otherwise.” He sat back up, waiting for the questions tobegin.

“Can you?” asked Reyd.

“Easily, Mr. Eastman. The data is very convincing, and once I’vehad a chance to convey it properly in a paper that will be published in theJournal of Astrophysics, some—but not all—of the disbelief will be assuaged.”

“What do you mean by ‘some’, Professor?” askedJoram.

“Mr. Anders, I will be able to show evidence thatthe material that created that beam is traveling faster than the speed oflight. But, I still won’t be able toprove how that is happening. I do have some speculation, but scientistswill continue to live in denial of the claim until they are shown how thisphenomenon occurs.”

“But, how did you solve that, Professor? And what evidence will you list in the paperto prove it?”

Zimmer’s expression clouded over, and Kath slowlyturned her head to assess what the astrophysicist was studying on the wallbehind her. Finding nothing, she turnedback to realize that Zimmer was caught up in a thought, or perhaps a memory,which caused him deep concern.

“A few years ago,” Zimmer began with a slowhoarse whisper, still staring at the wall behind him, “I met someone who—”

All three students leaned in closer to the tablewhen Zimmer paused mid-sentence. Returning from somewhere else, Zimmer blinked, smiled, and looked oneafter the other at the trio of graduate students seated before him. “I met two men who tried to convince me thatHyperwarp travel is feasible. They werevery convincing. I was certain that theyknew it could be done.”

Reyd asked curiously. “Why haven’t they published their replaceings,if they were so convincing?”

“Because… they were silenced.”

Kath gasped as a dark expression clouded Zimmer’sface.

“You mean—they were paid off?” Reyd suggested themost positive meaning for Zimmer’s ambiguity after giving a concerned look inKath’s direction.

Zimmer sighed and shrugged his shoulders. “I never did get a straight answer from them asto what happened, but I have a suspicion that they will come out and shareeverything... it’s a fascinating story.”

Quickly changing the subject, Zimmer stood up,and returned to the topic of their research. “Let me come back to the subject at hand. You asked, Ms. Mirabelle, how I came torealize that we were dealing with a superluminal body. You see, shortly after paddle nine ceasedcommunicating with the USL, there was one final heartbeat received fromit. There were at least three thingsthat didn’t add up. First, the timestampof the final blip indicated a time on the clock that was too early. Relativistic experiments show that the clockof an object approaching the speed of light will slow down. This clock had obviously slowed downsignificantly. Second, the modulatedsignal was recovered at an ultra-low frequency, indicating a huge Dopplershift. The paddle was still alive, butit was booking. Third, the positionalinformation conveyed in that final blip indicated that the paddle had alreadytraveled farther down the beam than it possibly could have in the allowedtime. As a result, I concluded that thebeam had a force that was quickly accelerating the paddles to a velocity approachingthe speed of light, but in order to accelerate an object with significant massto near the speed of light, the material in the beam must have been traveling faster than the speed of light itself.”

After giving the students a chance to digest thisepiphany, he continued. “Then there werepaddles eleven and twelve. Remember howquickly paddle eleven turned downstream and spun out of control? Even Kath’s paddle twelve gained accelerationway too quickly for mission control to handle it. Based on the amount of impact that wascollected by the paddles’ sensors, the acceleration was simply too fast. The material that was powering those paddlesmust have been traveling faster than the speed of light.”

“But we saw the material in the beam… it wasglowing yellow. How would we be able tosee it if it traveled faster than the speed of light?” Kath pointed out with more curiosity thanskepticism.

“Yes, you did see material in the beam, but thatwasn’t the stuff that was propelling the paddles. What powered the acceleration was materialyou could not see. The paddles were ableto detect this matter, but it could not identify it.”

Zimmer turned to look out the window and weighedhis thoughts before turning back to the table. “I trust that all of you have studied at least basic particle physics inyour undergraduate programs?”

All three heads nodded.

“Good… then you are aware that the quantum stateof particles can be altered. Forexample, it is the weak nuclear force that causes radioactive decay, inducingsome of the heavier elements to shed protons and neutrons, thus changing theiratomic structure. At the sub-atomiclevel, fundamental particles can decay into entirely different fundamental particles. I surmise that the superluminal comet whichis currently orbiting the black hole at the center of our Milky Way consists ofa very large clump of quantum material. As the particles on the surface decay, they do so from a state which isable to travel faster than the speed of light to a state which is not able totravel faster than the speed of light. Once they have decayed into this state, they must decelerate quickly,shedding off energy in the form of photons which we are able to see with our veryeyes.”

“But what is the stuff that we can’t see, and howcan it break the rules of relativity to travel faster than the speed of light?”asked Joram.

“Ah that is the question, isn’t it?” Zimmer pointed out. “Scientists, in general, think we know somuch more about the universe than we really do. For example, for all of our observational astrophysics, we really canonly see less than five percent of the universe. The remainder consists of dark matter anddark energy. Thus, for all of ourknowledge about this universe, it may only apply to the five percent we canactually see. Do all of the discovered lawsof physics apply to the other 95%? Forexample, we know that dark matter is subject to gravity. It clearly exerts gravitational forces,because that is how we detected it in the first place. Otherwise, we have no way of explaining thegravitational effects on the universe without introducing the concept of darkmatter. Now, while this unseen substanceis subject to gravity, it does not interact with the photon—the carrier for theelectromagnetic force. If it weresubject to electromagnetism, we would be able to detect its presence on the EMspectrum, but we cannot. Let me definethe term ‘observational physics’ to therefore mean the set of universal lawswhich apply to everything which can beobserved. Traditionally that whichcan be observed is subject to light so that we can see it. Light is nothing more than theelectromagnetic force, demonstrated through its carrier, the photon. The reason that nothing observable can travelfaster than the speed of light is because it is subject to light.”

He paused again. “Let me repeat that. Nothingwhich we can see is able to travel faster than the speed of light because it issubject to light.”

The proverbial light bulb came on for Joram. “Professor! I see what you’re saying. Matterthat can be seen—particularly baryonic matter—must travel no faster than thespeed of light, because it is subject to the properties which constrain lightitself. The corollary to this would bethat if there is matter which is notsubject to light—such as dark matter—then that matter may not be subject to the speed of light.”

“Exactly!”

Joram continued his thought process. “Non-baryonic matter may indeed be travelingaround faster than the speed of light.”

Kath had to interrupt at this point to keep fromgetting lost in the conversation. “Professor, I remember the term baryon, but I forget. Is that the stuff that has the integer spinor half-integer spin?”

“You’re thinking of bosons and fermions, MissMirabelle. So much jargon for one yearof study, I know. When we talk aboutbaryons, we are usually referring to the triple combination of up and downquarks that comprise the neutron and the proton, so really it makes up the bulkof matter that we interact with.”

“That’s right… sorry about that.” Kath hung her head in embarrassment forhaving to ask the question.

“Mr. Anders, your thought was that thisnon-baryonic matter may travel fasterthan the speed of light, but it might be even more than that. I’ve beenthinking a lot about this, since we left Johnson last weekend. My thought is that the real reason that thismatter is not subject to electromagnetism is because it must be traveling faster than the speed of light. That is, once matter—non-baryonic, orotherwise—escapes the effects of electromagnetism, it is guaranteed to travelfaster than the speed of light. That mysticalconstant, c, which we know to beequal to 299,792,458 meters per second, could be considered the escape velocityof electromagnetism. Once any matter canexceed that velocity, the electromagnetic force no longer applies. So, we cannot see dark matter, nor can we seeour superluminal comet, simply because they are traveling around in theuniverse faster than the speed of light. Thus, they are no longer subject to the force of the photon, which weknow can travel no faster than c, yousee?”

Three eagerly nodding heads indicated that theydid see. Heaving an exhausted sigh,Zimmer sat back in his seat now that he could tell that his researchers werebeginning to comprehend these brand new ideas.

…

Joram Anders sat alone on a bench by a pavedwalkway, watching the sun dip below the top of the pine trees across the largevacant field to the West. A family offour passed through a door after their visit to the Hale Telescope, returned totheir car, and drove off. While open tovisitors during the day, few continued to make the long, windy drive up the mountainto enjoy the history of the aging observatory. Overshadowed by so many newer, larger and more important telescopes,most haven’t even heard of the 200-inch mirror, nor realized the fact that wayback in the 20th century, it was the largest telescope in the worldfor a while.

Distracted by a whirlwind of thoughts, it tookseveral efforts for Kath to get his attention. “Joram. Joram!”

“Oh, Kath… sorry I didn’t see you there.”

“When I didn’t see you in the dormitory, Iassumed you must still be sleeping,” she stated.

“Oh, no… I come out here every evening. I never get tired of watching the sun setfrom up here.”

“I didn’t know this was such a favorite spot ofyours.”

“I suppose you wouldn’t… you usually sleep untilwell after the sun sets,” Joram elbowed Kath playfully as she took a seat nextto him on the bench. Eying hersuspiciously, he asked, “Why are you up so early this evening?”

“I got a phone call with great news,” shebeamed. “The astronauts at Camp Marshave been recovered. They are a sufferingfrom exhaustion, and some mild bumps and bruises, but otherwise, they’re goingto be just fine! The rescue vehicle justlaunched from Mars, and is on the way home.”

Joram took in a deep breath and leaned back onthe bench. “That is great news indeed! It must’ve been a horrifying experience forthem.”

“Yeah, Ican’t wait to hear their story,” Kath stated as she turned her gaze to theWest, Kath observed, “Well, I can see why you enjoy it here. Such a beautiful sunset, and so quiet.” “Sunsetsin Kansas could be pretty spectacular, but the horizon always left something tobe desired. It was so flat. No pine trees, no mountains. Just flat, waving fields of grain.”

Looking at his watch, Joram suggested that it wastime for dinner. The two stood from thebench as the last strong rays of the sun penetrated the atmosphere, bathing theclouds in brilliant yellows, pinks, and oranges, contrasting them to the blueand purple of the sky.

They met Reyd for dinner in the common room ofthe astronomers’ dormitory and the threesome engaged in pleasant small talk,but they were distracted by all that had happened in the last few weeks. The disaster on Mars, the mysterious yellowbeam, the mission at Johnson Space Center, the discovery of the superluminalcomet created a mental overload, and in fact, all three had been dealing withan increase in headaches, insomnia, and fatigue. Even Joram recognized in himself a diminishedambition for the work ahead of them that evening. The mental stress and exhaustion was startingto affect each researcher.

The situation was not much better for CarltonZimmer. Being advanced in years, havingbeen ridiculed for his near-obsessive interest in replaceing a parallel earth, andnow enduring near rejection by the scientific community for theanti-relativistic and heretical proposal that there was an object—right intheir own galaxy—which was traveling around the center of the Milky Way fasterthan the speed of light were each starting to add up and take their toll on therelentless astrophysicist. While hetried to put on his best face, his graduate students were not oblivious to hissuffering.

“I’m worried about Zimmer,” Kath said whilepoking at her mashed potatoes. “Have youguys noticed how tired his eyes look, and how pale his complexion is.”

“Yeah,” Reyd agreed. “I’ve been around Zimmer for three years now,and I’ve never seen him look so unhealthy. His whole countenance almost appears sunken, defeated.”

“Which is all the more reason,” Joram realizedout loud, “that he needs our help in piecing all of this together. We need to convince the world that he hisright!”

“But what if he’s not right this time?” askedReyd.

“You don’t believe him?” Kath’s jaw dropped indisappointment of her colleague.

“All I’m saying, Kath, is that there’s still alot of speculation. We can’t exactlytrack down that comet and catch it can we?”

“Actually, we can.” Joram announced flatly.

“What?” Kath and Reyd both turned their attentionto him.

“I overheard Zimmer last week explain that wewere going to continue to study the beam to determine its exact speed andorbital path. That’s what we’re going tostart doing tonight. He suspects thatit’s traveling fast enough to orbit the galaxy once every five years.”

“Five years! Absurd. I mean, if we’re going tosee it five years from now, why didn’t we see it five years ago as well?” Reydshook his head and wrinkled his forehead as he worked the math, mumblingnumbers incoherently. “26000 lightyears… two-pi-r… five years…” And then announcing his results outloud. “You see, the old man may belosing it. He’s not suggesting that thisthing is traveling at 1.2c, or even3.5c. He’s talking tens of thousands of times the speed of light. I really think Zimmer may be losing it. Not that I’m criticizing—he’s been through alot recently. He might just need sometime off.”

“He might just need some students to roll uptheir sleeves and get the work done,” Joram countered with a calm voice and yeta hot look in his eyes. “Let’s just getin there and see what we can discover, ok?”

Too tired and drained to fight, Reyd nodded andcontinued nibbling on his sandwich. “Mmm… this is pretty good,” he said with one cheek full of corned beefand marbled rye, a hint of brown mustard in the corner of his mouth. All three recognized it as a lame, yetgenuine attempt to change the subject. Quietsettled over the table, but their thoughts were still rampant as Zimmer walkedin to escort the group to the 26-inch telescope.

A glimmer of light cast the still treetops into agray silhouette against a violet sky. Joram strained to see the yellow beam, but it had faded so much now thatit was no use attempting to spot it with the naked eye anymore. No matter! He would be using Palomar-26 for the next several hours in order tocontinue to study the trajectory of the comet. Could it really be tens of thousands times the speed of light? Would they really get another fly-by in justfive years? And if so, would they beable to take advantage of it? Even ifNASA was able to inject a probe directly in its path, it would bepulverized. How could they possibly beable to study it and determine its makeup?

So many thoughts, so many questions, so manydistractions. Patience is the properprescription for just such a time. Joramhad his whole life ahead of him to study these exciting and difficultchallenges, and preparing himself under the tutelage of Carlton Zimmer was justthe beginning of a promising lifelong adventure that hopefully could be just asmall bit as fulfilling as Zimmer’s had been.

…

“It might take me a while to develop that model,Professor,” Reyd assessed.

“I understand. Better to get started right away then, Mr. Eastman.”

“And the model may take a while to simulate. With billions of stars being flown by, itwill take an inordinate number of calculations just to get hundreds orthousands of orbits, and I don’t have all of the parameters yet. We still need to know the shape and durationof the orbit.”

“Mr. Anders, Miss Mirabelle, and I will beworking on getting you those parameters as quickly as possible. I trust that you’ll be able to develop themodel with placeholders in the meantime?”

“Yes, sir. But let me make sure I understand the task at hand. You want to know every star which hasencountered a fly-by of about two million miles of the comet in the last 50000years. Is that right?”

“That’s correct.”

“Professor, how will that help us in our study ofthe beam?” Kath inquired earnestly.

“Once we figure out the orbit of our comet, MissMirabelle, we will be able to compare it to any interactions of stars orplanets with which the comet has interacted. For example, let’s say that Reyd’s model replaces a star about 10000 lightyears away. If we can project that thecomet came to within a couple of million miles of that star and any planets inits solar system, about 9,998 years ago, then we can be fairly confident thatthe interaction between the comet and that star’s solar system will be observedby us in the next couple of years. Wecan keep an eye out for any and all such systems that might help us understandthe makeup of the comet by determining the type of radiation that is beinggenerated by the material that is shed by the comet as it orbits the galaxy.”

“But we couldn’t even detect the radiation thatoccurred when we were affected a couple of months ago,” Kath posed curiously.

“It is true that we observed a radiation impacthere on Earth as well as on the sun, and that we didn’t determine what itwas. However, we were blind-sided bythat event. We just weren’t prepared forit. Further, don’t forget that NASA isbringing back samples of soil and debris from Mars with the rescue mission, andit could well be that extensive interviews with astronauts O’Ryan and Boronovmight prove useful as well. Since thecomet practically grazed Mars, we might get a lot of answers right there. Ideally, we’ll be positioned to replace a starthat experienced a similar fly-by, which would interact with the star in such amanner as to generate a radiation event to be studied here on Earth in the nearterm. Therefore, we really need Reyd tofocus on programming that model for us, so we know which of the billions of starswe’ll want to focus on to study this phenomenon in the future.”

“Professor,” It was Joram’s turn to join in onthe interrogation. “If this comet hasbeen orbiting the solar system for a long time now, why is this the first timethat we’ve noticed the beam? Yousuggested that it may be orbiting every five years. Why wouldn’t we have seen it five, or ten, orany number of its previous orbits.”

“I think we need to figure out that there is anorbit, and what shape it entails. Remember that it was a fairly thin beam to the naked eye when it wasjust a million miles away. What if itwere ten million or more miles away during its last fly-by. Because our solar system is orbiting thegalaxy, it could well be that our orbits do not coincide very well, but havenow come together close enough to observe it. Again, we won’t know for sure until we get a closer look at the orbitand the speed of the comet.

“Any other questions, or shall we get to it?”

Everybody understood this invitation to be moreof a command. The time for questioningan astronomer is during daylight hours. The time for action was now!

Reyd quickly assumed his position on the far sideof the room, at the computer terminal where Kath once studied themeteorological effects of the wind storm on Mars. Joram and Kath sat down at the main terminal,while Zimmer assumed a position on the telescope platform in order to searchfor the current trajectory of the beam in its orbit. It was a tedious night of work for the team. Reyd worked as quickly as he could onprogramming the mathematics into the computer to simulate the comet. Joram, Kath, and the professor tookmeasurements, calculated, took more measurements, calculated some more, andthen took the same measurements and calculated all over. For Reyd’s model to have the precision that itneeded, they had to figure out the orbit of the comet with the utmost ofquality. Otherwise, deviations in themodel would contribute to gross errors in calculation as the computercalculated the projected location of the comet backwards for tens and hundredsof thousands of years.

Towards dawn, the professor handed Reyd the datato plug into the computer.

Upon reviewing and crunching some preliminarynumbers, Reyd had to admit that he was wrong. “Professor, I just don’t understand how this can be! Based on the absolute magnitude of the beam,and the position of is trajectory, it is in an elliptical orbit around thecenter of the galaxy with an orbit of 6.369 years.”

“Hmmm,” the professor thought out loud as herubbed his forehead. “I was quite a bitoff in my estimates. I was thinking justunder 5 years. Maybe the orbit is moreelliptical than I had imagined.”

“No matter, Professor,” said Reyd inastonishment. “This is simplymassive. When and how did you know itwas going so fast?”

“You all seem surprised that this thing istraveling so fast. I’m guessing thatmeans you all missed the most important clue. Miss Mirabelle, what happens when you are standing on a sidewalk, and alarge truck travels by with immense speed?”

“Well, it’s normally very loud… and it generatesa lot of wind.”

“Exactly! It’s very similar to our comet. When it flew by at approximately 25000c, it expelled a radiation wind that not only devastated Mars, butremember… it also took out all three satellites and the Mars Shuttlesimultaneously. Remember how it was alltimed in exact simultaneity with radiation detection on Earth as well as solaractivity from the Sun? All at the sametime?”

Here, Zimmer paused to make sure his studentscould see where he was going. “The truthis that those events weren’t exactly synchronized, but when something istraveling at tens of thousands of times the speed of light, you don’t exactlyhave the ability to calculate the timing of the event to as many decimal placesneeded. I’ve been thinking about thetiming mystery for a long time, and the only thought I could come up with wasthat something was traveling a whole lot faster than it should be.”

Heads nodded slowly. A knowing smile came across the face of JoramAnders as if to say, “Why didn’t I think of that?”

Zimmer c, “In the meantime, we need to replace asmany fly-bys that we can study, so get those numbers crunching. When we return here in two weeks, we’ll needto get busy studying those star systems which are closest to delivering a radiationsignature from the comet in the past.”

“Yes, sir,” answered Reyd, spinning around in hisseat to face the computer. Typingfuriously and finishing with an elaborate twist of the wrist on the enter key,Reyd started executing the program on a distributed system of hundreds of supercomputersthat Zimmer had at his disposal throughout a university and governmentintranet. For now, all that theexhausted students and their mentor could do was wait for the results.

…

For Joram, it seemed like the slowest two weeksof his life. The thrill of returning toPalomar for hands-on study of the galaxy was so much more rewarding than thetextbook study of astronomy. It was likethose two weeks leading up to his ninth Christmas where he had asked for thatfirst pair of star goggles. But now, hewas even more excited as the research team consulted with Zimmer over a growinglist of candidate star systems for study. A few possibilities had emerged within a couple of days. With more time the list grew to dozens, andby Friday morning, just before Kath and Joram drove up to Palomar, thousands ofcandidates had emerged.

Prioritizing the list was difficult. They knew that they needed to focus on thosestars whose fly-bys of the comet would be closest to reaching Earth, and yetthe list of stars which could possibly be studied in the next couple of monthsnumbered around fifty. Of those, about ahalf dozen appeared prominent among stars which may have had the closestfly-by. After much deliberation with histeam and consideration on his own, Zimmer selected ZB-5344, a class F9 mainsequence star about 27000 light years from Earth. A fly-by of the comet was calculated at just2.3 million miles, making it a target for intense study by the team.

As the team entered the Palomar-26 observatory,Zimmer briefed his trio of research students on the agenda for theevening. “We first point our 26 toZB-5344 in an effort to replace any extrasolar planets orbiting the star. There is data in the ZB catalog suggestingthe possibility of planets due to minor movements discovered in thestar—wobbles that may indicate orbiting planets, especially those whose brushwith the comet may have been closer than the star itself. If so, we will certainly want to study thoseplanets for any radiation that may have ricocheted off of the planet, whichmight be indicative of the destructive forces of the comet on Mars. 2.3 million miles will be an interestingstudy, but if we can replace planets which may have a closer fly-by, then thoseplanets will be of extreme interest. Once we’ve detected any spectral data suggesting the location ofplanets, we have Kepler3 on standby for further study. I think everyone knows their duties, right?”

All three heads bobbed affirmatively.

“Are there any questions?”

After a moment of silence, Zimmer spurred theteam to work. The pattern of searchingfor planets around the fly-by stars, relaying location information to Kepler3,and continuing throughout the star system would persist all night. They needed to work furiously to cover allsix or seven stars on the short list over the weekend, because by the time thesupercomputer network had an opportunity to crunch two more weeks of numbers,the short list may grow into the dozens or even hundreds of stars, all but outpacingthe team’s inadequate efforts to keep up with the data collection of Reyd’smodel.

The team communicated details noisily throughoutthe evening.

“Professor, the movement of ZB-5344 indicates aplane of planetary activity about 65 degrees to the plane of the galaxy.”

“Kath, can you confirm that from Earth’sperspective, there’s a 12 degree angle, not quite edge-on, but it should narrowdown the field of play.”

“Based on the mass of 5344, it looks like thesystem should have gravitational effect on its planets to about 100 AUs. Can we calculate a field of study for theorbital area of interest, Mr. Anders?”

Effectively, in replaceing planets that were 27000light years from Earth, the team was looking for a needle in a haystack. Even narrowing down the effort to just onestar, the field of study was immense. The effective field of view was about 200 Astronomical Units tall by 50wide. That represents an area which wouldbe 1020 times larger than the visible area of Jupiter. So, if the team were to replace a Jupiter-sizedplanet in such a large place, the odds of any given search yielding thelocation of that planet would be 1 in 1020.

Of course, the team would not simply pick randompoints within the total possible planetary field and point the telescopethere. They were able to calculate thepresumed plane of the planets in orbit around ZB-5344. Projecting the orbit of the comet back intime about 27000 years, they found a point where the orbital line passedthrough the plane at the distance of a couple of million miles away from thestar. They could then narrow down thesearch to an orbit around ZB-5344 which would traverse through the intersectionof the plane and the orbit of the comet.

For a couple of hours, the team slowly scannedthe segment of sky in question. Up. Down. Left. Right. Orbital motions around the star. The telescope worked its way around the orbitof interest. At long last, an infrareddetection was discovered, indicating a pinpoint of heat in the otherwiseblackness of space.

Zimmer came down from the telescope platform toinspect the data on the monitor. “Let’szoom in on that point Mr. Anders, and please sharpen the visual data, Mr.Eastman.”

The students worked at the computer, each typingaway at his respective keyboard.

“Miss Mirabelle, please run a full spectralanalysis.”

“Yes, professor.”

After a few silent moments, Kath blurted,“Professor, this could be interesting. Come take a look.”

Zimmer, who was standing over Joram’s shoulderwalked over to Kath’s terminal, with Joram and Reyd following quicklybehind. On Kath’s screen appeared a lowresolution circular shape. Towards thebottom left, the circle was filled with red, but about a quarter of the circlein the upper right was filled with a more reddish-purple color, and the upperright hand edge was nearly blue.

“Exactly right, Miss Mirabelle! 5344 sits down here,” Zimmer pointed off thebottom left side of the screen. “Yourtemperature distribution demonstrates that the warm side of our dot faces thestar, whereas the cooler side—this purplish blue color on the fringe—is awayfrom the star. We have an uncataloguedplanet, here, team. Great work—anexcellent discovery.”

“Actually, it was more a bit of luck than realwork,” Reyd pointed out. “I mean, we justhappened to replace a planet exactly in the orbit where we pointed thetelescope. What are the odds of that?”

“In this game, odds don’t matter, Mr.Eastman. It’s the discovery that counts,and you can now add ZB-5344 to the list of known stars harboring the galaxy’sfive million known extrasolar planets. I’ll contact the Kepler3 team, and they’ll be able to perform ahigh-optics visual of the planet to see what we’ve got.”

Zimmer dismissed the team for a break, since heknew that the moon-orbiting Kepler3 telescope would require at least an hour ofcalibration and location tuning before the first images of planet ZB-5344-P1would be available for study. After thebreak, the team pulled chairs close to a computer monitor, and lounged aroundwhile watching a black screen with red text that spelled, “Awaiting Kepler3Imaging.” The text flashed every fewseconds to garner the attention of the spectators.

“Wow… watching telescopes calibrate is likewatching paint dry,” Reyd broke the silence.

“Mr. Eastman, I’m surprised at you,” offered theastrophysicist in mock disgust. “Ipersonally think it’s more like watching grass grow.”

Exhausted and giddy, the students laughedraucously at Zimmer’s humor. Anotherwake-up call occurred in the moments that followed, as Zimmer’s cell phonechirped loudly throughout the room.

Kath jumped instinctively while Joram stoodupright. In the quiet of the room, thestudents were able to hear the hurried voice on the other side.

“Professor Zimmer, we’re shooting the first imagesyour way right now. You’ve got to seethis, Sir—we’re still—well, we’re not sure, but you’ll see.”

“What do you have, Mr. Jefferies? You sound like you’ve never seen anextrasolar planet before.”

“Actually, Professor, it’s quite theopposite. It’s exactly like I have seen this planet before. Why, at a glance it looks just like—”

The cell phone went dead the moment the imagecame across, as Zimmer unconsciously dropped it to the floor with areverberating thud that nobody heard.

In shock, Joram slowly stood from his seat andwas the first to complete the sentence of the Kepler3 team member on the otherline. The word was slow, breathy andnearly inaudible.

“—Earth!”