The Orthogonal Galaxy (38 page)

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

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

Everybody understood this
invitation to be more of a command. The time for questioning an
astronomer is during daylight hours. The time for action was
now!

Reyd quickly assumed his
position on the far side of the room, at the computer terminal
where Kath once studied the meteorological 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
search for 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 on programming the mathematics into the computer to simulate
the comet. Joram, Kath, and the professor took measurements,
calculated, took more measurements, calculated some more, and then
took the same measurements and calculated all over. For Reyd’s
model to have the precision that it needed, they had to figure out
the orbit of the comet with the utmost of quality. Otherwise,
deviations in the model would contribute to gross errors in
calculation as the computer calculated the projected location of
the comet backwards for tens and hundreds of thousands of
years.

Towards dawn, the
professor handed Reyd the data to plug into the
computer.

Upon reviewing and
crunching some preliminary numbers, 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 the center of the
galaxy with an orbit of 6.369 years.”

“
Hmmm,” the professor
thought out loud as he rubbed his forehead. “I was quite a bit off
in my estimates. I was thinking just under 5 years. Maybe the orbit
is more elliptical than I had imagined.”

“
No matter, Professor,”
said Reyd in astonishment. “This is simply massive. When and how
did you know it was going so fast?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

“
Yes, sir,” answered Reyd,
spinning around in his seat to face the computer. Typing furiously
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 supercomputers that Zimmer had at his disposal
throughout a university and government intranet. For now, all that
the exhausted students and their mentor could do was wait for the
results.

…

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

Prioritizing the list was
difficult. They knew that they needed to focus on those stars whose
fly-bys of the comet would be closest to reaching Earth, and yet
the list of stars which could possibly be studied in the next
couple of months numbered around fifty. Of those, about a half
dozen appeared prominent among stars which may have had the closest
fly-by. After much deliberation with his team and consideration on
his own, Zimmer selected ZB-5344, a class F9 main sequence star
about 27000 light years from Earth. A fly-by of the comet was
calculated at just 2.3 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 the evening. “We first point our 26 to
ZB-5344 in an effort to find any extrasolar planets orbiting the
star. There is data in the ZB catalog suggesting the possibility of
planets due to minor movements discovered in the star—wobbles that
may indicate orbiting planets, especially those whose brush with
the comet may have been closer than the star itself. If so, we will
certainly want to study those planets for any radiation that may
have ricocheted off of the planet, which might be indicative of the
destructive forces of the comet on Mars. 2.3 million miles will be
an interesting study, but if we can find planets which may have a
closer fly-by, then those planets will be of extreme interest. Once
we’ve detected any spectral data suggesting the location of
planets, 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 the team to work. The pattern of searching for
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 all six or seven
stars on the short list over the weekend, because by the time the
supercomputer 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 outpacing the team’s inadequate efforts
to keep up with the data collection of Reyd’s model.

The team communicated
details noisily throughout the evening.

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

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

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

Effectively, in finding
planets that were 27000 light years from Earth, the team was
looking for a needle in a haystack. Even narrowing down the effort
to just one star, the field of study was immense. The effective
field of view was about 200 Astronomical Units tall by 50 wide.
That represents an area which would be 10
²⁰
times larger than the
visible area of Jupiter. So, if the team were to find a
Jupiter-sized planet in such a large place, the odds of any given
search yielding the location of that planet would be 1 in
10
²⁰
.

Of course, the team would
not simply pick random points within the total possible planetary
field and point the telescope there. They were able to calculate
the presumed plane of the planets in orbit around ZB-5344.
Projecting the orbit of the comet back in time about 27000 years,
they found a point where the orbital line passed through the plane
at the distance of a couple of million miles away from the star.
They could then narrow down the search to an orbit around ZB-5344
which would traverse through the intersection of the plane and the
orbit of the comet.

For a couple of hours, the
team slowly scanned the segment of sky in question. Up. Down. Left.
Right. Orbital motions around the star. The telescope worked its
way around the orbit of interest. At long last, an infrared
detection was discovered, indicating a pinpoint of heat in the
otherwise blackness of space.

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

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

“
Miss Mirabelle, please
run a full spectral analysis.”

“
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 shoulder walked over to Kath’s terminal, with Joram
and Reyd following quickly behind. On Kath’s screen appeared a low
resolution circular shape. Towards the bottom left, the circle was
filled with red, but about a quarter of the circle in the upper
right was filled with a more reddish-purple color, and the upper
right hand edge was nearly blue.

“
Exactly right, Miss
Mirabelle! 5344 sits down here,” Zimmer pointed off the bottom left
side of the screen. “Your temperature distribution demonstrates
that the warm side of our dot faces the star, whereas the cooler
side—this purplish blue color on the fringe—is away from the star.
We have an uncatalogued planet, here, team. Great work—an excellent
discovery.”

“
Actually, it was more a
bit of luck than real work,” Reyd pointed out. “I mean, we just
happened to find a planet exactly in the orbit where we pointed the
telescope. 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’s
five million known extrasolar planets. I’ll contact the Kepler3
team, and they’ll be able to perform a high-optics visual of the
planet to see what we’ve got.”

Zimmer dismissed the team
for a break, since he knew that the moon-orbiting Kepler3 telescope
would require at least an hour of calibration and location tuning
before the first images of planet ZB-5344-P1 would be available for
study. After the break, the team pulled chairs close to a computer
monitor, and lounged around while watching a black screen with red
text that spelled, “Awaiting Kepler3 Imaging.” The text flashed
every few seconds to garner the attention of the
spectators.

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

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

Exhausted and giddy, the
students laughed raucously at Zimmer’s humor. Another wake-up call
occurred in the moments that followed, as Zimmer’s cell phone
chirped loudly throughout the room.

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

“
Professor Zimmer, we’re
shooting the first images your way right now. You’ve got to see
this, 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 an extrasolar planet
before.”

“
Actually, Professor, it’s quite the opposite. 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 image came across, as Zimmer unconsciously dropped
it to the floor with a reverberating thud that nobody
heard.

In shock, Joram slowly
stood from his seat and was the first to complete the sentence of
the Kepler3 team member on the other line. The word was slow,
breathy and nearly inaudible.