The contact episode one, p.1
The Contact Episode One, page 1
THE CONTACT
episode one
by
Albert Sartison
Copyright © 2013 by Albert Sartison
Second edition
1.12
Contents
Prologue
Error
Something about the stars
Night
The Doppler Effect
What is to be done?
At the Space Force base
Project: Dawn
Contact
„Our nature consists in movement;
absolute rest is death.“
Blaise Pascal, (1623-1662)
Prologue
The spacecraft reaches Mercury at the intended time and begins sending signals to determine the precise orbit of the planet. The experiment begins that evening. A command is sent to increase the speed of Mercury from the Experiment Control Centre at the moon base. Three hours later, the International Space Station, scientists at the moon station and also many other groups of scientists on Earth, register an increase in the diameter of Mercury’s orbit round the Sun by two percent. Once the experiment is over, Mercury’s orbit is slowed down to its previous level.
Soon after, a Chilean observatory observes a space object moving from outer space which could potentially collide with Earth. Precise calculations of its flight trajectory are not yet possible because it is so far away, and the orbital telescopes, even those in orbit round the gas giants, are currently being used in support of an experiment testing remote manipulation technology. In view of the low speed of the object, the time for it to reach the Earth’s orbit is estimated as hundreds of years, so a low priority is given to clarifying its trajectory. Nevertheless, the instruction is entered into the central computer for a second observation of the object a week later, to confirm the low priority status.
At the next observation session, the object is not detected. The telescope control system probes the space sectors in the region of the assumed location. The unidentified space body is eventually detected, but its actual position differs greatly from that initially assumed. Following its programmed instructions, the telescope computer corrects the calculation data and raises the priority for finally calculating the trajectory. The third observation session is appointed for 24 hours later.
The third observation session reveals an even greater calculation error. The Chilean telescope’s automatic control system has to notify the scientific personnel...
Error
With his dirty trainers up on the table, Steve, a final year astrophysics student working as a junior scientific assistant at the observatory in his spare time, was fast asleep. A relay suddenly clicked, switching on the display of the main monitor, shining a broad ray of bright light oppressively on the sleeping Steve. He half-opened one eye and sleepily looked at the message:
UNIDENTIFIED OBJECT FOUND.
MAY COLLIDE WITH INNER PLANETS.
IMPOSSIBLE TO CALCULATE ITS TRAJECTORY.
In a hoarse voice (due to an excess of cold beer and loud serenades last night), Steve commanded:
“Give additional information.”
Columns of figures floated onto the screen. His head was working slowly, but his gaze automatically picked up the main information: the size of the object, the parameters of its motion, its brightness...
“So what’s the problem?” thought Steve.
He got up and went to pour himself a coffee. Opening the kitchen cupboard door, he discovered, with astonishment, that there was an amulet on his right wrist. It took a full minute for him to recall what had happened after he left the student pub “Minus Alpha” with his friends. They had been to a party there, nothing had come of it. He scratched the back of his neck, fetched a mug, filled it from the percolator and went back to his place.
The main screen was still filled with information about the strange object from the depths of the Universe. Steve sat down, took a gulp of coffee and grimaced, pushing the mug away, and began quickly leafing through the contents of the log file.
First observation more than a week ago. Trajectory... Speed... Direction... Second observation. Trajectory... Speed... Direction... Error correction... Speed correction factor twenty three and five? Somewhat high. Third observation, error correction factor seventy eight?
“Well, that's way too much,” Steve thought.
He reached out for the mug, picked it up, but remembering how vile the contents had tasted, put it back. He had finally woken up.
Speed estimate error of seventy-eight-fold, why so great? The telescope had never made an error before at distances like that. When they measured Mercury’s orbit a fortnight ago, it was accurate to within one hundredth of a permille. But here... Yes, the object was at the edge of the Solar System, but...
Steve started the orbit simulator. The simulation program opened where it had ended last time – on “advanced collision model”. Steve, sitting at the computer, rolled up his eyes and sighed. ‘ADVANCED COLLISION MODEL’, what sort of an idiot would call his degree thesis that? The ACM was the brainchild of Clive, one of his fellow students on the same course, and probably the most famous nerd in the whole space science faculty. Steve remembered him from his very first days at the university. The first-year students, still wet behind the ears, gathered in the lecture hall and were given instructions by the entire teaching staff, including the Dean of the faculty. The Dean’s speech was interrupted by Clive raising his hand. The Dean, Mr. Shelby, well respected by the students for his informal and honest manner, broke off his speech, smiled and asked Clive what he wanted to know. Clive stood up, coughed, quoted a passage from the work of some theoretical astrophysicist and asked Shelby what he thought of it. The grey-haired old man looked round the new students and his colleagues, and then turned back to Clive, who was waiting in silence.
“Very interesting work,” replied Shelby, still smiling. “One of our research groups is studying this question. Ask Dr. Kubinski, he will be glad to answer all your questions.”
Clive, as cool as a cucumber, wrote down the group leader’s name, thanked Shelby and sat down.
Steve, observing from the sidelines, thought Clive’s behaviour was contrived. He thought at that time that he was just showing off to an audience. But over the past few years, having come to know him better, Steve realised that this was not a game. It was in Clive’s nature, he really was like that: rather inept in social relations, but a truly gifted person as far as science was concerned.
Steve’s thoughts returned to the computer. He selected “Solar System”. With its usual deftness, the computer simulated the Sun and the planets. He added the strange object, clarified its parameters and started the simulation. If the speed of the object was the same as for the previous measurement, the object should not be anywhere near where it actually was. Could the computer be in error again? Steve commanded:
“Assume object acceleration.”
The computer altered the parameters of motion of the object and assumed that the object was moving at a constant acceleration.
“Find acceleration value.”
If it was assumed that the object was accelerating, the trajectory anomaly disappeared. That was fine, but this object was not any kind of spacecraft. How could an object of natural origin accelerate so far from high-mass celestial bodies?
So. What could accelerate this object? Ejection of material? Highly unlikely, that could not impart so much force. Judging from its trajectory, it was flying in from outer space, from the direction of the Omega Nebula. The distance – Steve looked it up in the catalogue of celestial bodies – was about five thousand light years. He looked at his reflection in the switched-off monitor to his right and carried on thinking, “The body really is increasing its speed. It doesn’t appear to be an artificial object, though that will have to be checked.”
He waved a finger, and the virtual problem icon appeared on the main monitor. Steve, now under the spell of scientific curiosity, commanded:
“Try to identify object as human made artefact. Go.”
“Failed to identify object as human made artefact.”
Steve looked inquiringly at his reflection on the black display on the right. The reflection declined to comment. Steve absentmindedly took a gulp of coffee and immediately spat it out.
“Ugh, that's vile!”
He tipped the coffee into Clive’s flower vase. The guy would be annoyed, but there was no time to think about that right now. Steve ordered the computer to check if any lost spacecraft could be on the course of the strange object. Taking account of fuel reserve and engine thrust, several craft were theoretically able to carry out the necessary manoeuvre and come onto such a course. Yes, but why? And how?
Four lost craft had the required fuel reserve: two of them were transports, completely automatic interplanetary shuttles. One was used for delivering materials for construction work on Europa, a satellite of Jupiter. The other was transporting fuel. They had both been lost in the vicinity of Mars. Assuming that they had begun this strange manoeuvre at once, there would theoretically have been time for them to become this strange intruder from space. The third lost spacecraft had people on board – a group of tourists, making a tour round the gas giants. The ship entered the shadow of Saturn and was never seen again. Unfortunately, communication with this spacecraft was impossible, because all the communication satellites in orbit round Saturn were out of radio visibility at the time. The fourth spacecraft was a military one. It had been on a routine patrol in the space between the inner and outer planets. All of a sudden it extinguished its position beacons, after which it too was never seen again.
Naturally, they were searched for. The transport shuttles were half-heartedly sought for the insurance companies, and soon written off. A long time was spent searching for the tourists, although anyone who had worked in the space industry realised that it was a hopeless case. Civilian ships have numerous position beacons. If a ship had come out from Saturn’s radio shadow, it would have been recorded at once by the Interplanetary Flight Coordination Centre. But this did not happen. The last pulse had been sent from one of its beacons minutes before it entered the shadow. Its course was known. After a little over three hours, the tracking computer sounded the alarm. Immediately on receiving the signal, the communication satellites were moved into position to probe the space close to the planet in the radio shadow region. But the ship was not found. It could not have emerged without being noticed, therefore it must have fallen onto the gas giant. As for the military patrol vessel, it was virtually impossible to find it without position beacons. Anyway, the search and rescue function was the responsibility of the military, who were well known for saying as little as possible.
His thoughts were interrupted by the wall clock, which beeped briefly, marking the beginning of a new hour. Steve lifted his eyes to the wall, then looked down at his watch, sighed and switched the computer off. It was already getting dark, the Sun was slowly sinking. It was time to go home and make up for the hours of sleep he had lost in the night-time party.
Steve got up, screwing up his left eye a little because of his headache (he really had had too much to drink the previous evening), and set off.
Something about the stars
Clive, the biggest pain in the neck in the astrophysics faculty, was patiently drawing a Hertzsprung-Russell diagram on the board. He could of course simply have called it up on the screen by lightly waving his finger, but no, as Clive liked to put it, food for thought is only digested when it is thoroughly chewed.
Completing the curve of the sub-giants, Clive turned to the class. The first-year students, who were already used to his little ways, were calmly copying the clumsy squiggles scribbled on the board by Clive. Earlier, the most daring of them would try to criticise Clive’s methods, but this hubris was soon stilled under the unyielding pressure of the Great Pain in the Neck’s logic. The Great Pain in the Neck possessed one very valuable quality: he knew how to explain even the most difficult material in simple language. It was for this reason that the first-course students preferred his lectures to those of the others, and were willing to put up with his grumbling throughout the entire semester. Their reward for this was outstanding knowledge and, as a rule, a good assessment – Clive was a pain in the neck, but he was an honest one, and if a student knew the subject, no power in the Universe could make Clive give him or her a poor assessment.
“So, we can see from the diagram that most stars are in the so-called main sequence. Stars in this category obtain their energy from nuclear synthesis reactions, converting hydrogen to helium. Now a question for the audience. How did the heavier elements form in the Universe?”
A suppressed whispering went round the hall, but no-one was willing to answer. Clive would not have been an outstanding teacher if he had not judged the mood of his audience correctly. The students had lost interest – heavy elements, light elements, who cared?
“As I can see, the importance of this question has not quite been understood.”
Clive did not mock their lack of knowledge of such elementary matters; after all, students attended his course to gain that very knowledge.
“Let us turn to the beginning of the Universe. We are on the time axis at the point of zero plus an infinitely small space of time. The Universe has just been created by the Big Bang. What do we see? Nothing. Space is opaque, it is filled with energy, seething with radiation. The monstrous temperature prevents the formation of material. All that exists is energy, compressed into an unimaginably small space to an unimaginably high density. And now the Universe begins to expand.” Clive noted with satisfaction that he had recaptured the attention of the hall and was holding it in his firmly clenched hand.
“Let a few instants elapse, allow the Universe to expand, and we find its temperature has fallen to such an extent as the result of its expansion that atoms can form. What is formed first? The simplest elements, naturally – those at the beginning of the periodic table. Hydrogen, my friends, hydrogen! What does a hydrogen atom consist of? This element has the atomic number One, therefore its atom contains only one proton and one electron rotating round it. You couldn’t imagine anything simpler. Free protons, scurrying around hither and thither in the Universe, each pick up one electron and form an atom of a certain substance. This process took place an incalculable number of times in the Universe, and as a result, even today, 14 billion years later, the most widespread substance is still this same hydrogen.
“But look at your hand.”
The students in the hall obediently began looking at their hands as if they had never seen them before.
“What do you see? You see organic material containing carbon, probably the most important building brick of life. Look at your fingers. Some of you will see rings of precious metals, silver, gold, platinum... Where did these elements come from, if initially there was only hydrogen?
“If we look at the diagram I have drawn, we will see that the majority of stars convert hydrogen to helium by nuclear synthesis. These two elements differ in their atomic numbers – One and Two respectively. As I said earlier, a nuclear synthesis process takes place in the cores of stars, as a result of which a new element is born in the periodic table. This is accompanied by the release of energy, thanks to which we can observe the luminosity of the stars. Sooner or later the time comes when a star has synthesised all the hydrogen in its core and turned it into helium. The hydrogen synthesis process still proceeds at the periphery, and the star enters the next stage of evolution. If the star is heavy enough, the process of transition from the first stage continues until all the material of the star has been transformed into iron. That is how the elements up to iron appear.”
At this point, Clive decided that the scientific material had been chewed thoroughly enough. With a wave of his hand, he called up a visualised model of the transformation of a star into a red giant on the big screen in the middle of the hall. Against a black background, a yellow sphere appeared, ejecting impressive splashes of plasma from time to time.
“As we see,” Clive continued, “the star is now precisely in the stage of synthesising helium from hydrogen. Now let us see what happens when only iron remains. In stellar terms, iron is nothing other than ash. That which is left when everything is burned up.”
Clive gestured to the computer to simulate the process. The yellow star began to grow, and its colour changed to dark red.
“We see that the star has increased in size. The outer layers are beginning to move out from the core” – the red sphere on the screen continued to grow – “and to cool down as a result of their expansion. This explains why the colour changes from bright yellow to dark red. I must add that at this moment, the star is leaving the main sequence curve and passing into the giant category. Back to the outer layers. They are continuing to expand, and as a result, fly off into space and...”
The enormous red sphere grew to an incredible size, then the red shell became transparent, ceased to shine and merged into the vastness of space.
“...the star has thrown off its outer shell, and along with it the elements born within itself. The new elements are scattered in every direction throughout the Universe. Some of them eventually collect into a cloud from which planets subsequently formed. The planets then lay the foundation for biological life. And we, you and I, are no exception either. Our bodies consist of stellar ash, born by a star which exploded billions of years ago somewhere in the depths of the infinite Universe.”
Having finished this sentence, Clive fell silent and looked up at the wall clock over the entrance. The second hand had only three divisions to go to the end of the lecture. The bell rang.
