Stellarium (Origins): A Space-Time Adventure to the Ends of our Universe

by Fabricio Simoes

  “What the public doesn’t know,” the astronomer continued, “is that the last two missions, of the ten that have been launched in the last ten years, were manned.”

  “Manned? What do you mean?” inquired Hardt.

  “After the seventh trip, we had already more than proven that we were traveling through wormholes. NASA had already mastered the technology. Sometimes, when the accelerator was activated, the jump to another galaxy wouldn’t occur... the probe wouldn’t go anywhere... just like your theory predicted. The success rate was exactly 50%, just like you said in your article. So, after sending seven probes to places approximately twice as far away from Earth as the moon, we had all the data we needed to confirm that we were actually successfully creating wormholes, meaning that your theory had already been proven. So, you should have won this Nobel Prize at least three years ago,” said Allison with a smile.

  “Humph!” exclaimed a pensive Hardt, “but I understand. All the probes went through after a few tries and, after they returned, you were able to use the images they collected to confirm that they had been in Draco.”

  “Exactly,” exclaimed Allison, “the process worked, despite the fact that we never figured out why none of the probes ever went beyond Draco. They were all transported there. For some reason, the area in space where we launch the probes, approximately twice the distance between the Earth and the moon away, has a special connection with the Draco Galaxy. But anyway, we were left with this unanswered question, so, after the seventh probe, once we had mastered the process, we were able to understand that in order to jump through a wormhole to a point in the universe other than Draco, we would either have to send our probes further away—for example, send them to Mars and then jump from there, discovering where the probe was transported to after it returned through the wormhole—or attempt a manned trip to Draco, move around there upon arrival, and then make another jump back.”

  “But that would be crazy,” said Hardt. “We don’t know anything about the multidimensional topology of the universe. If you’re in a certain spot in space, and you create a wormhole, jump to the other side, take a few pictures, create a new wormhole, and jump back here, that’s fine. Your location in space didn’t change, and you are relatively safe. However, if you move around in this ‘other’ space and leave your initial point of arrival, when it’s time for you to come back and you thus create a new wormhole, it could take you to somewhere even farther away instead of taking you back to where you came from... which means you would be stuck in a maze with no way of going back. Why would NASA do something like that?”

  “No, NASA isn’t going to do that,” explained Allison, calming her old friend down. “We came to the same conclusion. So, we decided to go with the first option and send the eighth probe to a place even farther away. Mars was out of the question; we didn’t have enough time for that. So, we sent it to a point three times the distance between the Earth and the moon away. And that’s where we made a huge discovery: at that point in space, the probe came very close to Valkiria.”

  “How close?”

  “Close enough to take a picture that shows a planet in orbit! We named that planet Sater,” explained Allison, with abundant excitement and joy.

  “A planet? How fascinating! And what is this planet like?”

  “Well,” explained Allison, “we don’t know much yet. Remember that the objective with this probe was simply to try to send it somewhere in the universe other than Draco, but, unfortunately, with regards to that, we were unsuccessful. It seems that places close to Earth are always connected to that galaxy. However, on the other hand, the picture taken by the probe showed us this planet. It is similar to Earth in size. It’s very close to the Valkiria star, at about the same distance between Mercury and our Sun. But Valkiria isn’t that hot. In the photo, we also discovered that the star turned into a red giant. When we look at it from Earth, it’s between a yellow classification, like our Sun, and an orange one, like Alpha Centauri B. But that’s because it’s more than 250,000 light years away. In other words, the star that we can see from Earth is actually a representation of that star’s past, of what it looked like over 250,000 years ago. When we sent the probe through the wormhole, close enough for a high-quality photo and good data collection, we were able to confirm that, right now, it is a red giant. And it has a blue-toned planet in its vicinity.”

  “Blue? So it might have oxygen and water? And life?” asked Hardt with the enthusiasm of a teenager.

  “Yes, it might, or, rather, it might have, because at some point in the last 250,000 years, that star turned into a red giant, increasing in size and throwing any potential for life on that planet out of balance. Anyway, it’s much more likely that life never existed there. But the interesting part is seeing how this planet’s structure responds to the orbit of a red giant. Indeed—an interesting fact—that planet has rings, like Saturn. That’s why we named it Sater. It’s Valkiria’s Saturn.”

  “And that’s why NASA is launching phase two of the Stellarium space program,” she continued. “The plan is to send a probe to orbit this planet, collect data, and, eventually, sometime in the future, land on it. The problem is that this can’t be done autonomously. As you know, Draco is more than 250,000 light years away... in other words, any attempt at radio communication between someone on Earth and the probe would take 200 years to get there, and over 200 years to come back. That’s why we need to send astronauts. They would jump through the wormhole and release the probe, which would travel to Sater to collect data, and then transmit this data back to the astronauts’ spaceship. They would then jump back, without having moved around Draco, and then travel back via the same spot that they had jumped through the first time, approximately three times the distance from the Earth to the moon. Then, they would relay the data to Houston and come home.”

  “It seems like an excellent strategy,” said Hardt in agreement. “Though it is very risky. But anyway, how do you all know that it’s safe to send humans through wormholes?”

  “Well, as I mentioned earlier, the last two probes—the ninth and the tenth—were manned. The first carried three rats, and the second a primate. NASA got special permission to keep these last two missions a secret, as well as the discoveries from the eighth probe, under the pretext of national security, so that they could carry out these tests with scientific accuracy without having to worry about the influence of public opinion. The good news is that all the crew members are doing well. The trips were a success. In a few months, NASA is going to announce phase two of Stellarium, explain the discoveries of the most recent probes, and let the world know what’s coming.”

  “Allison, that’s great! I’m even happier now than I was when I received the Nobel Prize a few hours ago! Indeed, everything seems to have advanced so much and so quickly. Up until a few years ago, we were still trying to prove my theory; now, we’re talking about sending humans through wormholes and visiting a planet where there might have been life?! That’s spectacular!” exclaimed Hardt excitedly.

  The old astrophysicist stopped for a minute. He patted his jacket, looking for a handkerchief, and brought it to his face. He was thrilled. He had dedicated more than 50 years of his life to science. He would be turning 70 soon, and he was really happy to see this happening during his lifetime.

  “I’m sorry, Allison, this is just so much new information for an old astrophysicist. When will the mission be?” asked Hardt, drinking a bit of the water that he had yet to touch.

  “Dr. Hardt, the mission will be launched one year from now. And I’ll be on it. That’s the big news that I wanted to share with you. Of course, I traveled from the United States to Switzerland to be here for your award ceremony... but also because I wanted to tell you about all this face-to-face.”

  “Allison, you mean that you’re going to be one of the astronauts? Aboard the first human mission to another galaxy, traveling through a wormhole?”

  “Yes! There will be three astronauts. One of them will be t
he navigator specializing in the topology of parts of the universe that, up until now, have only ever been studied by probes... and someone familiar with the Draco Galaxy. They didn’t hesitate to ask me if I wanted the position. I’m going to spend the next 12 months in training,” she explained.

  “Plus,” she continued, “ever since I moved to Houston ten years ago, traveling to work at the Johnson Space Center every day, I’ve always considered the possibility of going to space some day,” she explained with a twinkle in her eye.

  “I’m so happy for you, Allison! I know that this is extremely risky, but I can tell from the look on your face that you are happy. I can’t remember having seen you this way since Ed passed away...”

  At that moment, Allison’s head fell a bit, her eyes shifted toward the table, and her happiness seemed to lose a bit of its shine. Allison didn’t have children, but she had once had a husband. She had gotten married shortly after having moved to Houston. However, a car accident had separated them. Allison tried not to talk about it. She had devoted herself solely to her work during that time, but Edward was always in her thoughts.

  “I’m leaving tomorrow,” said Allison. “I’m going to spend Christmas with my mom. I’ll be back to the States in January. But, before that—before Christmas, actually—NASA will announce the new program. I hope to see you again before the launch.”

  “Of course, Allison. We’ll be in touch. I’m sure I’ll be in Houston before you leave. It’s getting a little late for me, as well. Let’s go. I’ll walk you back to your hotel.”

  For Allison, it was great to have seen Dr. Hardt again. He was a good friend of hers, despite the fact that they didn’t speak very often. By that time, Allison had put down roots in the United States; she had plenty of friends, and she had long been a U.S. citizen, but, regardless, she missed her home country. She usually traveled to Brazil every two or three years to visit her mom, but this was the first time that she would make the trip with the feeling that it might be the last.

  A few weeks later, Allison celebrated Christmas. Childhood friends came to visit her, and she helped her mom put up the Christmas tree. She was able to once again enjoy the little things in life; the small town where she had grown up seemed just the same as before. Very little had changed. The same ice cream shop, the same bakery on the corner, everything was pretty much the same.

  Allison had been in Brazil for two weeks when NASA announced its plans. The Brazilian media sought her out immediately. She started doing interviews, explaining how the mission would work. Her country was proud that an astronaut born there would be part of the first mission to another galaxy, despite the fact that Allison, who had long ago become a naturalized citizen, would be representing the United States.

  Chapter 3

  Before heading back to the United States, the high school where Allison had studied invited her to speak to the students. The idea was for her to tell them a bit about her background, explain the most recent advances in astrophysics, including the mechanism that made the creation of wormholes possible, and inform them on a few of the trip details. She accepted without thinking twice about it.

  It was a classroom full of teenagers who were preparing to take their college entrance exam. She would be happy to give back to the place that had taught her so much, all while setting an example for these youth.

  So, the morning before her flight back to Houston, Allison spent almost four hours in a classroom with about 30 students. Many of them had studied the subject and came prepared with questions.

  Allison described much of what she had already explained to Dr. Hardt, but the students were most interested in how the technology worked:

  “So, before we can talk about how NASA is going to send astronauts to another galaxy, we need to talk about gravity. Who can tell me what gravity is?” asked Allison, looking around the room.

  Several students raised their hands, a few of them responding at the same time, without waiting to be called on. The answer that most of them gave, almost simultaneously, was the classic one: gravity is a force that attracts bodies, and which is proportional to the mass of those bodies (the greater the mass, the greater the gravitational pull), and inversely proportional to the square of the distance between them (the greater the distance, the lesser the pull). But this wasn’t the answer that Allison was looking for.

  “That’s correct. But I want to take a more philosophical approach to gravity. Let’s think about it like Einstein did long ago: imagine that the universe is a huge mattress. Imagine if you were to place several balls on that mattress—a pool ball, a tennis ball, a soccer ball, a golf ball, a bowling ball, and a few ping pong balls. You would see all of the balls sink into the mattress a bit. In fact, the heavier the ball, and, thus, the greater the weight, the greater the deformation that it would cause in the mattress. Now, imagine if you were to place an extremely heavy steel ball in the middle of the mattress. This would cause such a huge deformation—this ball would sink so far into the mattress—that all the balls around it would start rolling toward it. This is the concept related to gravity that I want to talk about with you all,” said Allison.

  “In this example,” she continued, “the greater the weight of the body sitting on the mattress, which, in this case, represents the fabric of the universe, the greater its attractive force. Now, imagine that this ball is much heavier... for example, a bowling ball that weighs a ton. What would happen?”

  A student in the front row responded emphatically: “It would sink down so far, and would cause a deformation so huge in the mattress, that all the balls would roll toward it.”

  “Exactly! We can call that ball a ‘black hole’. Its gravitational force is so strong that it attracts everything around it. Now, imagine if that ball, which weighs a ton, was the size of the tip of a needle. What would happen?”

  “It would puncture the mattress!” said a kid in the back, causing the rest of the class to burst into laughter.

  “Correct!” said Allison, to everyone’s surprise, “that’s exactly what would happen! At first, it might not puncture the mattress. In other words, that heavy ball would deform the mattress and cause the rest of balls to roll in its direction, attracted by its gravity... but as soon as it went through, the mattress would go back to its original shape and that gravity would disappear. The point I’m trying to make here is that this tiny but extremely heavy ball, a mini-black hole, given its huge gravity, would puncture and pass through the mattress, or, in this case, space... and would end up on the other side.”

  The students were clearly surprised. “Is that what the spaceship does?” the teacher asked, just as curious as her students.

  “Yes,” replied Allison. But, first, let’s talk a bit more about space.”

  So, the astronomer continued:

  “I asked you all to imagine space as a mattress, right? Now, we’re going to switch things up a bit. Let’s imagine that space is a sheet, and that this sheet is spread out on the ground. There is an ant at one end of the sheet. Let’s imagine that this ant is us, and that it wants to get to the other side. So, for that ant, the universe is a flat sheet, spread out on the ground. The only way to get to the other side is to walk across the sheet, which, for the ant, would be quite a long journey.”

  “However,” Allison went on, pausing for a moment to take a sip of water, “despite the fact that the little ant thinks that the universe is spread out on the floor, in truth, the sheet isn’t spread out, but is actually all crumpled and piled up, as if it were ready to be thrown in the laundry. Nonetheless, the ant, which, in this example, lives in a two-dimensional world and can’t see any of this, would start walking in a straight line and would get to the other side, traveling over the entire terrain without realizing it. However, if that ant wanted to travel more quickly, it could create a tiny, little hole in the sheet, fall down to a lower layer, make another little hole, and fall one more layer down, until it eventually got to the other side. The other side of the universe—or of the
sheet—might be just millimeters away from the ant... all it has to do is create holes, or shortcuts, to travel through the sheet. Later, if we were to spread the sheet out on the ground, we would see a series of little holes in seemingly random places, but which in reality were connected to each other and which the ant had used as shortcuts. It’s like entering at one end of the sheet and exiting at another point in the middle. That’s exactly what the spaceship does: it travels through space using holes, wormholes, with the fifth dimension.”

  “But, Dr. Scheffer, how does the ship do that? How does it know where it has to go?” asked a student who didn’t look very convinced.

  “Guys, you can call me Allison, none of that doctor stuff, okay?” said the speaker with an informal tone and a smile, as always. “So, to sum things up a bit, a physicist developed a theory about how the acceleration of dark matter creates a gravitational wave, distorting space. One of his hypotheses posited that, if we were able to accelerate a huge amount of dark matter around a circular tunnel, a sort of huge ring—like the CERN particle accelerator in Europe—for a very short amount of time, we would be able to create a huge gravitational point that would distort space and create a ‘hole’. This would have to last for much less than a second. It would be instantaneous... and, at that point, we’d have to turn off the accelerator. In other words, it’s like a pinprick in space. You turn on the accelerator and the hole is created, then you turn off the accelerator and the hole closes... and, after all that, you hope to end up on the right side.”

  “And how do you get the spaceship to the other side? I mean, how do you go through the wormhole?” asked the teacher, a little embarrassed.