Rogue Planet

Roger Gilman gently turned the focusing knob to sharpen the images in the eyepiece. When he had the points of light in view as sharp as possible, he left his hand off the control and concentrated on the image he was viewing. Nothing very interesting looking was in view; just a sprinkling of stars of varying brightness with slight differences of color. One to the left in the field of view had a slight reddish tint while another not far off was a faint orange.

Where the hell is it? he muttered as his eyes searched the star field. The drive motor of his Meade twelve inch Schmidt-Cassegrain telescope kept it pointed to the same part of the sky, even though the Earth’s turning makes the sky seem to rotate around us. He did not have to make the constant adjustments that would otherwise have been necessary.

There was supposed to be a faint double star at that location, an almost perfectly matched pair of magnitude of 9.2 and 9.3 and a separation of only .48 arc seconds, fairly close to the resolution limit of his telescope. Each was supposed to have a slight yellow tint. The problem was there were too many stars that might have that color and none of them were appearing to be doubles. Maybe, he wondered, he should go to a higher power eyepiece.

As Roger was pondering changing eyepieces, a point of light came into existence. His eye was immediately drawn to it. Slowly it grew from nothing to a brightness equaling most of the other stars in the field of view. As he was wondering what it could possibly be, it began to fade from view. In just under sixty seconds, the new star was again invisible.

What the hell was that, he asked himself. A nova? Too fast. Likewise for supernova or any exploding stars. Reviewing the observation in his mind, he realized that the new star had not moved compared to the rest of the star field. Which would eliminate a satellite flash. An Earth orbiting satellite can produce an effect like that when its solar panels are turned just right to reflect sunlight. But the sun had set four hours before, and satellite flashes only occur when the sun is not far below the horizon.

A meteor? No way. It was not moving. Then he wondered if maybe, just maybe, he had seen a micro-meteor heading directly towards him. He had seen, during the Perseids a couple Augusts ago, a group of meteors coming directly at him. But that time the points of light that appeared had a small halo or ring spread out from them. He later figured out that was the expanding cloud of gases as the meteors whizzed through our atmosphere at high speed and vaporized. But this was not the same. Those meteors had lasted only a second, this had lasted nearly a minute.

So what was it? Maybe it was some new phenomenon that would get his name in science books? Not too likely, but a man can dream. Then it hit him.

Rushing into the house, he began digging through a stack of old Astronomy magazines. Finally, there it was, pretty far down in the pile, the May 2012 issue. And there was the article he wanted. In fact, it was on the cover in large letters.

Now all he had to do was find someone to confirm his suspicion.

Chapter II

Change of Schedule

One would think that the moon is a quiet place. There is no wind, no crashing ocean surf, no birds. In fact, there is not much of anything save for rocks, dust and an almost complete vacuum. But for the four humans currently living on the back side of the moon, there were always small background sounds. The air circulation system was a constant, very mild hiss, almost a whisper that one ceased to notice after the first day. There were machines that occasionally made noises, and electronics sometimes sounded tones to indicate the completion of a task or a condition that should be brought to human attention. When the mirrors of the ELT, the Einstein Lunar Telescope, moved you would hear a bit of a hum conducted through the cabling and connections between the largest telescope ever built by man and the pressurized housing and office section.

There were occasional voices as someone spoke on the comm link to earth, or from a video show being watched in the largest room on the base, the General Purpose Room, GPR, that served as a mess hall, meeting room, exercise machine room and whatever else did not have an assigned area. Currently, the large table was covered with circuit boards and other electronic paraphernalia of a slewing control that Hal Rogers had retrieved and torn down to repair. And there was the clicking of the keyboard in the next room over as Dr. Karl Munster typed in coordinate sequences for the next series of observations. Later, when the current run was finished and a new one began, the computer that controlled the series of forty-nine mirrors would take his typed-in commands and align each of them to point to the same location in the sky, and together they would collect extremely faint light from the far reaches of the universe for man to study. The total light gathering power of that telescope was equivalent to a single circular mirror over ninety feet across.

The final sequence keyed in, the middle aged astronomer sat back in his chair and sighed. There were so many requests for ELT time that often it seemed as if every astronomer on the earth wanted to point the big eye at his or her favorite part of the heavens. As Site Director, it was his job to take the list of approved projects and schedule them as best he could to utilize the precious observing time efficiently. Still, it seemed that every astronomer felt he was being shorted on time, what with his project obviously being the most important.

A small black device on his belt chimed the opening notes of Beethoven’s Ninth. He pulled the communicator, a very close cousin to a cell phone, from its holster and keyed it. Karl here, he said.

Dr. Munster, you have a comm from earth and it’s labeled Urgent, Top Priority.

Probably some astronomer has been leaning on Rankin back at USI for more time. I’ll pick it up on this console. Karl out.

Using the same computer console, he evoked the email program and keyed in his priority code. The scrambled letters of the message rearranged themselves into intelligent words as he leaned forward to read them.

USI: PAC Link-338. 25 Aug 29 Priority Red.

To: Dr. Karl Munster, Site Director, Einstein Lunar Telescope

From: Dr. Raymond Rankin, Director, United Sciences Institute

Subject: Project Hammer Observing Time

Text:

Karl,

I know you are busy, but this has to take priority – top priority. Get HR scans following coord: 0 hr, 52.44983 min RA, 41 degrees 43.35498 min Declination. Run series of wide field, as well as HR down to magnitude 12. Repeat observations every eight hours until further notice.

Ray

Karl shook his head. Were they going crazy back on earth? He quickly brought up a sky map on his computer screen and keyed in those coordinates. Nothing of note there, although that location was not far from the famous M31, Andromeda Galaxy. Maybe something new? A supernova? But supernovae in distant galaxies are not all that uncommon, and this sudden change of observing time indicated something more important. Besides, it was too far away from M31 to be a supernova in that galaxy. But what? The Big Eye, as the ELT was usually called, was capable of going down to 40th magnitude, pretty damned faint, why limit to only 12? That would mean it was not some really deep sky object, some galaxy so far off that the light coming here had left that galaxy billions of years ago.

He magnified that section. Again, nothing unusual popped up in that square patch of the sky chart. Just stars and more stars. He knew that if you looked deep enough at any patch of the sky you would eventually find a scattering of very distant galaxies. They fill the universe in all directions. But that background of very faint galaxies would be less that 12th magnitude.

Now they wanted high resolution scans, and immediately. And repeated every eight hours. Why? Something that changed so fast? That would be remarkably fast for astronomical objects. A flare star? Gamma ray burst?

Leaning back in the chair, he pondered the situation. On the surface, it did not make sense. If some astronomer had important (to him) research he wanted to do, fine. Go through the channels; request time on the Big Eye. But why this sudden priority?

Well, he told himself with a sigh, ours is not to wonder why, ours is but to do and die. It was an old saying and it did not really apply to this situation, but it always came into his mind whenever he had to do something that made no sense. And when you are dealing with bureaucracy, that happens a lot. He set his fingers on the keyboard and brought back up the schedule program.

There’s going to be some screaming back on Earth, he muttered under his breath as he changed the next available observing session. Fortunately, the moon was in a good part of its orbit to view that area. It would not have been good if that spot were on the other side of the moon and would not become visible for a week as the moon moved around the Earth. He would not have liked to have to send a comm back to the effect that they would have to wait. Bureaucrats do not like to be told to wait.

The Big Eye was stationed on the back side of the moon, which placed some limitations on it. Since the moon always keeps the same side facing the earth, a telescope on the back side will scan most of the sky once every month. It was steerable, but only to a degree. There was a small portion of the sky that it could never look at, but that was a small price to pay for the incredible resolving power and light gathering power of the ELT. It had often imaged planets orbiting other stars to such a degree that spectral analysis could be made of their atmospheres and occasionally their larger moons seen. So far, eight near-earths had been found with sufficient water and the right temperature range to harbor earth-type life. The final proof that there was life out there was, so far, eluding scientists, but that was only a temporary impediment. Eventually we would know for certain that life existed elsewhere in the universe, and probably in not too many years.

Mars was now a dead planet, but the fossils found there indicated that simple life had once existed, although primitive, back when the temperature was higher and water flowed freely on the surface.

Munster leaned back and rubbed his eyes. I’m getting too old to stare at a computer screen all day, he told himself. Then he typed in commands to change the schedule to allow for this additional request, followed by the coordinates, and as he did he wondered what Project Hammer was.

Chapter III

USI Won’t Tell

He was right. There was screaming back on Earth, caused by three astronomers who had been scheduled time during that observing run and were bumped to a later run. The Big Eye turned towards that small area not far from M31 and opened its CCD eyes to record whatever could be found there. The Big Eye was so far superior to any other telescope ever built that it was able to image planets circling nearby stars. Several had been found orbiting Alpha Centauri, and even some large moons of those planets had been detected. There were now photographs of planets circling stars out to fifty light years from our solar system.

Dr. Munster listed to their screaming and quietly told them that something with higher priority had come up. In one case, he had to promise an increase in the observing time to placate the irate astronomer. Finally, he had them settled down and was able to rest for a bit. Only then was he able to put in a call to the United Sciences Institute, the support agency for the lunar telescope. It took a while, but finally he was put through to the director.

Ray, what the hell is up? he immediately asked his old friend. I’ve got Schalder and Tolerman screaming at me, and that crazy Russian, Artsybashev, was threatening to start World War III if he didn’t get his time. You’d better have a good explanation for this.

There is a good explanation, Dr. Rankin’s voice came back, after a second and a half delay. But I can’t tell you over an unsecured comm link.

Ray, the work we do here is not classified, Munster protested. It never has been. We’re not the military, for God’s sake.

Karl, I know you’re upset, but there is a very good reason why this observation run is to be classified Top Secret. No one is to know about it, or the data you gather.

This is highly irregular!

I know. His old friend looked tired in the small image on his screen. Look, I’m sending Dr. Egstrom up to you. He’ll explain. Meantime, tell no one about this. No one.

I can hardly keep it secret from the staff here, Munster pointed out. This is too small a community to keep secrets.

Try. Karl, this is really… really important. Stephen will explain when he gets there. That should be in two days. Meantime, keep a lid on it and keep up those observations. Transmit all of the data back to Earth but make sure it is under level 5 encryption. Understand?

Yeah, I hear you. But I don’t understand it and I don’t like it.

You will understand when Stephen gets there.

Very well. You’ll get my usual weekly status report tomorrow. Munster was reaching for the keyboard to terminate the transmission when his finger halted. Ray, he said, then waited a second to make sure he still had a connection. Ray, what is Project Hammer?

USI out.

The abrupt cutoff puzzled Munster. For an old friend of his to suddenly not tell him what was gobbling up time on his telescope was highly unusual. It had to be something big. But what?

He leaned back in his chair and thought about it. He was still thinking when Hal Rogers came in. Hi, doc. Got that slew control fixed. I’ll go out and install it after the current run. The always good natured young man was officially a technician but actually had a PhD in Engineering, and it was said he could fix anything that had electrons flowing through it.

By the way, what’s with the change? he asked. I thought something was wrong when I saw the Eye slewing southward. But I checked and found that the target sites for this run had been changed. What gives?

Nothing, just a change in priorities from Earth, Munster told him. Probably just some kind of politics. You know what a bunch of Prima donnas those astronomers are.

Yeah, sure. Well, dinner’s in twenty minutes. Don’t be late, or Martin will be upset.

There were four of them on the moon at that point: Dr. Munster, Dr. Rogers, Martin Hallaway, another engineering type whose main responsibility was keeping them all alive and relatively happy. Then there was Dr. Beverly Means, a researcher who somehow managed to get herself up to the moon to oversee data collection for her project, one of several important ones concerning analyzing extrasolar planets.

Extrasolar planets, he mumbled aloud. Extrasolar planets... Hmm...

Maybe that was it. There were almost six thousand planets identified circling other stars, but as of yet none that were a perfect match for Earth, nor any that could be said to harbor life as we know it. Some good candidates, but nothing proven yet.

What if one of those planets around some star in the area they told him to image had some sign that it held life? His pulse increased at that thought. Extra terrestrial life! The Holy Grail of astronomers. That would be important enough to bump others off the Big Eye. But why the secrecy? Such news should be welcome by everyone on the Earth. Well, most everyone, humans being such a diverse bunch. There would be those who might well fear news that we were not alone in the universe.

Munster sighed and closed his eyes. He was tired. But could it be? Life outside our solar system finally? That would be about the most fantastic event in human history.

Slowly he got up, reminding himself how lucky he was to be in Lunar gravity. Back on Earth, his knee bothered him a lot and he had to walk with a cane. For a few years he had been fighting the doctor’s recommendations that he let them replace the whole knee. But when you only weigh one-sixth what you do on Earth, there is a lot less stress on the body. As he worked his way towards the GPR, he reviewed in his mind the work already done on extra-solar planets. About a hundred had been found orbiting within the golden zone, just the right distance from their primary to not be too cold or too hot for water to exist in liquid form. Of those, only a small handful were near the Earth in size. Too little gravity and a planet would not keep its atmosphere. Too much, and organic life would have trouble performing the chemical functions we know of as life. At least that was what some of the scientists thought. But who knows for sure? The Universe is constantly surprising humans.

They had been trying to get good spectral analysis of the atmospheres of those planets for years, but the reflected light from such a small target at such great distances is hard to analyze. Oxygen and nitrogen had been found, along with water vapor and other elements. But methane on an earth type planet was still elusive. On Earth, methane is created by life forms and disturbed into the atmosphere. To find methane on another Earth-like planet would be the closest yet to proving that life existed on other worlds.

But they were not asking for spectrums, only images in the visible light range.

The topics of discussion at the dinner table did not include the change in schedule. Apparently, the only one who was attaching any importance to the change was Karl Munster.

Chapter IV

Asimov Arrives

The Lunar Shuttlecraft Asimov sat down in a cloud of dust churned up by its reaction engines. The ungainly looking craft, nothing like those science fiction rockets to the moon, had been built in orbit and used only for shuttles to and from the moon. All the equipment and building supplies for the ELT had been brought up by the Asimov and two other lunar shuttlecraft, the Heinlein and the Galileo, the latter a nod to the