Ever since her birth in Portland, Oregon, Lucy Fawcett had been steeped in science. Both her parents were scientists who worked for Hewlett Packard’s ink jet printing division in Corvallis, formulating inks for their range of ink jet printers. Yellow, magenta and cyan inks. She’d been amazed when her parents told her that these three coloured inks could produce a staggering 16.7 million different colours, just by mixing them in the correct proportions. At first, she refused to believe them, thinking they were pulling her leg. But it was true. The three subtractive primary colours of yellow, magenta and cyan, the famous YMC trichromat used to print every coloured publication on the planet, can indeed produce 16.7 million colours.
Like her parents, Lucy had an active, enquiring mind and a thirst for knowledge. As a child holidaying in Florida, she preferred the Kennedy Space Center to Disneyworld.
For most children the attractions of Disneyworld are irresistible. The Magic Kingdom, with its famous residents and rides. Exhilarating rides like Thunder Mountain Railway, or tranquil rides like It’s a Small World. There’s something for everyone. And, of course, there’s Epcot, the more educational theme park. Although tempting, the Kennedy Space Center was still Lucy’s favourite.
The size of the Saturn V rocket that carried the first astronauts to the moon took her breath away. She couldn’t believe how something so big and so heavy ever got off the ground, never mind travelled to the moon and back. She stared at the plaque in disbelief.
SATURN V ROCKET
Height:
363 feet (60 feet taller
than the Statue of Liberty)
Weight:
6.2 million pounds (2,768
tons), equivalent to about
650 elephants, of which
2,067 tons is fuel
Power:
160 million horse power
producing a speed of
6,165 miles per hour (40
times faster than a Boeing
747)
Miles per gallon:
5 inches
It was the spark that fired her imagination. Her imagination for space. For the Cosmos. For the Universe. From the moment she first set eyes on that rocket, Lucy Fawcett was determined to become a space scientist. And she did, graduating as an astrophysicist and landing a job at NASA. Now aged 28, she was a clear-thinking, resourceful, likeable young woman who always sought the truth, even when it put her at odds with her colleagues. In a way, she was an American Liz Conway.
The team were disappointed, really disappointed, that they hadn’t discovered the source of the alien probes. NASA had pulled out all the stops, focusing every possible resource in an attempt to locate their source, but to no avail. Despite working round the clock, day and night, for weeks on end, they found nothing. Zilch. It would have been devastating if another team had discovered the source, but they hadn’t. No one had. For that they were thankful. But they’d keep on trying. The probes had to come from somewhere.
Her coffee break over, Lucy returned to the observatory and checked her watch. 5-50 a.m. Simon and Carl would be here in ten minutes. ‘A good job too,’ she thought, trying to stifle a huge yawn. The previous few years had played havoc with her sleeping patterns. She was ready to go home and catch up on some much needed sleep. Just two tasks remained: one, to check the image from an hour ago and two, to take a photograph of the next one at 6-00 a.m. She walked over to the telescope, collected the film, placed it on the glass-topped table and switched on the light. She scanned the illuminated film, making sure it was in focus, and was about to switch off the light when something caught her eye. A tiny, fuzzy, speck of grey. A faint, almost imperceptible, dot at the edge of a cluster of stars. She wasn’t sure if it was real or a fault with the film. An imperfection. She rushed back to the telescope, pressed the button and waited, impatiently, for the image to appear on film. Eagerly, she grabbed the image, ran back to the illuminated table, and placed the new image next to the previous one. The dot was still there! Excitedly, she grabbed a magnifying glass to enlarge the image. It was definitely a dot, albeit a fuzzy, indistinct, grey-black dot, not an imperfection in the film. But where had it come from? It wasn’t on the image she’d taken at 4-00 a.m., just two hours ago. Of that she was certain. It couldn’t have appeared out of nowhere. She was bemused. A knock on the door startled her. ‘Hi, Lucy.’ It was Simon. ‘Managed to stay awake then?’ he said, flashing her a smile.
‘Simon, come and look at this!’ she shouted, her eyes glued to the dot on the illuminated image.
‘Look at what, Lucy?’ said Simon.
‘At this… this dot,’ she said, handing him the magnifying glass. ‘There,’ she pointed. ‘There, at the edge of that star cluster.’
‘Where,’ he said, straining his eyes. ‘At the edge of which star… I can see it!’ he exclaimed. ‘I can see it now,’ he said excitedly. Then, almost as an afterthought, he said, ‘What is it?’
‘I don’t know,’ replied Lucy. ‘I’ve only just seen it myself.’
‘What’s all this excitement,’ said Carl, striding into the room. ‘Have you discovered something exciting?’
‘We don’t know,’ said Lucy, glancing at Simon. ‘An object has just appeared out of nowhere.’
Carl shot her a sceptical look. ‘Out of nowhere?’ he said. ‘Ex nihilo. Come on, you can do better than that. There might be an object but it can’t have materialised out of nowhere. Here, let me have a look.’
Lucy pointed to the faint, very faint, fuzzy dot and Simon handed him the magnifying glass.
Carl studied the image for several minutes before speaking. Studied it intently. ‘You’re right,’ he said, ‘there’s definitely something there. But why do you say it appeared from nowhere?’
‘Because,’ said Lucy, passing him a sheet of film, ‘it wasn’t there two hours ago.’
Carl took the film but didn’t examine it. ‘I see,’ he mused. ‘That’s interesting. Very interesting.’ Suddenly, without any warning, his tone and demeanour changed, as if his whole body had been energised. ‘Right,’ he snapped, ‘let’s get to work.’
They tracked the mysterious object non-stop for the next 48 hours, eating, sleeping, living at the observatory, not daring to leave. Tracking its trajectory. Determining its orbit was the first step in identifying what it was: a planet, a moon, a star or an asteroid. A planet or a moon would have a small – in astronomical terms – well-defined, elliptical orbit. A star or an asteroid most likely wouldn’t.
‘What do you think, Carl?’ asked Lucy, scrutinising the detailed plot on the computer screen, the line of dots displaying the object’s trajectory. ‘Do you think it’s elliptical?’
‘It’s hard to tell,’ replied Carl. ‘We need more data points. Another couple of days of measurements should be enough.’
‘I don’t think it is elliptical,’ said Simon, ‘but, like Carl said, we’ll know for sure in a couple of days.’
Dr Simon Greer shared many of the traits of his boss, Professor Carl Ryan. Both were products of the elite Ivy League university system, both were astrophysicists, both were full of their own importance and both would do anything to get to the top, including trampling over anyone who stood in their way. Simon had one other trait too. He always agreed with Carl, even when he knew he was wrong, because one day, he wanted his job.
‘Do you think anyone else will have discovered the object?’ asked Lucy.
‘I doubt it,’ said Carl. ‘At the moment we’ve got sole access to the Hubble Telescope, the most powerful telescope in the world, so no, I very much doubt that anyone else has detected it. But they will. I reckon we’ve got 24, possibly 48 hours, before other teams detect th
e object. By then, we need to know what it is, how big it is and where it’s heading. I want us to be the first to report it.’
‘Shouldn’t we tell the other teams now?’ said Lucy, ‘so they can be part of the discovery too.’
‘NO!’ barked Carl. ‘Absolutely not. Not until we’ve worked out what it is and where it’s heading.’
‘And whether it poses a threat to Earth,’ added Simon.
‘But it seems so unfair,’ continued Lucy, ‘not to inform them. I’m sure they’d have…’
‘That’s my final decision, Lucy,’ interrupted Carl. ‘And anyway, I’m not sure they would have informed us if they’d discovered it first. They didn’t with the meteorites.’
Lucy let it rest. He wasn’t going to change his mind.
Twenty-four hours later, it was obvious the object wasn’t a planet or a moon. It was either a star or an asteroid. They deliberated for hours before reaching a decision. One thing they all agreed on was that if it was a star, it had to be very far away. And that created a problem. ‘If it is a star,’ said Simon, ‘which is very far away, then it must be moving at an incredibility high velocity to have travelled this distance in just 72 hours,’ he said, jabbing the path travelled by the object with his finger, ‘almost the speed of light, which is highly improbable. It must be an asteroid.’
‘I agree,’ said Lucy. ‘It must be an asteroid which is much closer and moving much slower.’
‘You’re right,’ chipped in Carl, ‘it must be an asteroid. Have we any idea of its size or position?’
‘We’re working on it,’ said Simon looking at Lucy. ‘At this point, we can’t be precise but I’d say it’s pretty large, somewhere between 50 to 750 miles across, probably closer to 250 to 550.’
‘Jesus Christ!’ exclaimed Carl. ‘That’s one huge sonofabitch.’
‘And the distance?’
‘Depends on its velocity,’ said Lucy. ‘It’s difficult to determine accurately because the object, er, asteroid, is fuzzy and indistinct. But if I were to hazard a guess, I’d say it was travelling extremely fast for an asteroid, about 215,000 miles per hour.’
‘Bloody hell,’ said Carl. ‘That is fast. Are you sure?’
‘No, I’m not. As I said, it’s just a best guess.’
‘Well, keep on it. We need to go public in a couple of hours. I’ll start making preparations for the announcement. Focus most of your efforts on its trajectory and whether it poses a direct threat to Earth. That’s what people will want to know. Okay? I’ll see you in a couple of hours.’ With that, he departed to prepare the framework for his announcement and to put on his best suit for the media interviews.
Lucy and Simon toiled tirelessly for the next two hours, Lucy calculating and recalculating the likely trajectory of the asteroid and Simon its size and distance from Earth. Ideally, they’d have liked more data points, but that wasn’t going to happen before Carl gave his announcement. ‘Why?’ thought Lucy, ‘can’t he wait another 48 hours. Just another 48 hours to enable them to calculate, with absolute certainty, the path of the asteroid. But no, that wasn’t his style. He wanted to hog the limelight again. To be the centre of attention. To be the person who discovered the asteroid. They might not have discovered the source of the meteorites, but he wanted the world to know that he was the one who discovered the asteroid.’
While Simon focused on determining the size and velocity of the asteroid, Lucy concentrated on calculating its path through space. Its trajectory. As the results of the final calculations appeared on the screen, Lucy couldn’t believe her eyes. ‘Fucking hell,’ she uttered, surprising herself by her choice language, ‘it’s on a collision course with Earth!’
‘What!’ exclaimed Simon, turning away from his screen to look at Lucy’s. ‘What did you say? Are you sure?’
‘The calculations predict that the asteroid will pass within 50,000 miles of Earth,’ said Lucy. ‘With a mean deviation of plus or minus 75,000 miles, it could miss the Earth by 125,000 miles or…’
‘Or it could smash straight into it,’ said Simon, finishing the sentence for her.
‘Can’t you be more precise?’ said Simon. ‘A mean deviation of 75,000 is pretty big.’
‘With the data I’ve got, no. If I had a few more days of data, yes, I could be more precise. But I haven’t, so that’s the best I can do.’
‘How about you? Have you got a better handle on its size and speed?’
‘Well, like you, I can’t be totally sure but the calculations show that it’s approximately 400 miles in diameter and travelling at about 199,000 miles per hour. I reckon it’ll reach the Earth in about two years time.’
‘Fucking hell,’ exclaimed Lucy, surprising herself for the second time, ‘a 400 mile wide lump of rock on a collision course with Earth in just two years. We’d better tell Carl.’
Lucy urged Carl to present the full facts, that the asteroid would probably miss the Earth, that the probability of an impact was low, but he was having none of it.
‘Godammit it, Lucy,’ he shouted, ‘I want this to be the headline news for weeks. If we say there’s only a slight chance of an impact, it won’t be. No, I’ll say there’s a 50:50 chance of a collision. It’s not too far from the truth.’
‘It fucking well is,’ thought Lucy, surprising herself for a third time. ‘It’s a fucking long way from the truth.’
‘I agree with Carl,’ said Simon. ‘Let’s go for sensationalism and get the attention.’
‘And the kudos,’ added Carl. ‘After all, we’re not saying that it will definitely hit the Earth, just that there’s a 50 per cent chance that it will.’
‘I’m not happy with…’
‘For fuck’s sake, Lucy,’ bellowed Carl, ‘I’m the team leader and it’s my call. That’s the end of it. Okay?’
Lucy said nothing, just turned on her heels and stormed out of the room. He was doing it again. Had he learned nothing? It was deja vu all over again.
Carl picked up the phone. ‘Hi, Viv. I’ve got some exciting news for you.’
16
Collision Course
Carl’s announcement did indeed make headline news around the world. Every TV station, every radio programme, every newspaper, ran it as their top story. Every day. His prediction that there was a 50 per cent chance the Earth would be destroyed by a huge asteroid in two years time caused mass panic. People were terrified. The impending end of the world, their world, scared them to death. The United Nations held emergency meeting after emergency meeting trying desperately to formulate contingency plans. Everyone looked to the world’s most powerful and technically advanced nations for leadership. Looked to America, Russia, Europe and China for a plan. A plan to avoid Armageddon. The episode with the meteorites was forgotten. Compared to what was happening now, it was an inconsequential triviality.
The scientific community adopted a more rational approach. In every observatory around the world, telescopes, both optical and radio, were trained on the approaching asteroid. They wanted more information, more data points, to calculate precisely the path of the asteroid. To calculate it without any error. With absolute certainty. To know, beyond any shadow of doubt, whether it would hit the Earth.
Viv’s team were one of the first on the scene. They trained all their radio telescopes, plus the Faulkes optical telescope, on the approaching asteroid hurtling towards them. And spotted a problem. Carl had been over optimistic in thinking they’d need only two days to calculate its precise path. They’d need at least several weeks, even months, because not only was the asteroid fuzzy and indistinct, it also had a ‘wobble’. A wobble which meant that its path wasn’t a ‘straight line’, but an extremely shallow sine curve. The asteroid alternated between deviating, ever so slightly, first to the left and then to the right, making it very difficult to predict with any degree of certainty whether or not it would collide with the Earth.
Conflict also flared between Carl’s team and Viv’s team, opening up old wounds. Carl’s team, led by Lucy and Simon, calculated that the asteroid would miss the earth by 50,000 miles, a mere whisker in astronomical terms. Viv’s team, led by Frank and Rupert, calculated it would hit the Earth a glancing blow, not a full-blown collision. Each team, not just Carl or Viv’s, believed their calculations were correct, but only one could be correct. The question was, which one?
As the months rolled by and the disagreements raged on, countries, governments and families started making their own contingency plans. Plans for different outcomes. Plans for what everyone hoped and prayed would be a near miss or, at worst, a glancing blow. No one wanted a full-blown collision. But even a near miss, a close encounter at 50,000 miles, would still cause extensive damage. Damage from the massive tidal surges caused by the asteroid’s gravitational pull. Tidal surges bigger than any seen before. Bigger than any tsunami. The damage to coastal and low-lying areas would be enormous. Countries like Holland would be obliterated, submerged under a mass of water, and areas prone to tidal bores, such as the Severn Estuary, would suffer a devastation far worse than the Great Flood of 1607, the worst in recorded history.
The Dark Freeze Page 11