Into The Void
Page 19
Captain Steele floated toward the black dwarf rotating slowly side over side. He used his visor to magnify his vision unto the object. He could barely see the object off in the distance. He wondered how long it would take before its gravity would pull him in. It should be any minute now. He had counted the minutes since since pushing off the ship. At just under five minutes he felt the pull of the black dwarf's gravity pulling him toward it.
Captain Steele could feel him slowly accelerating toward the black dwarf the closer he got as the gravity became strong and stronger. He bent forward and rolled his body so that his feet were now facing the object. He then used his DSSM's thrusters to control his momentum and decent toward the black dwarf. He fell for several minutes before he started to feel a strong pressure pushing onto his suit. He looked down toward the black dwarf and and could finally see the object without needing to magnify his vision. The surface was as black as night and it appeared to be moving.
Captain Steele slowed his downward momentum substantially with his DSSM.
“Did I ever tell you about that mission where I had to jump ship and fall into the planet's atmosphere Jamie?” Captain Steele said.
“No. What happened?”
“Me and my team had just finished a mission in the Hydrus sector and were on our way back to our base in the Canis Major sector when we were ambushed around a star in the Pictor system. This star had six planets, some of the the most beautiful planets I've ever seen. This one, however, was a complete mess. It was the third largest in that solar system and it was also too close to its sun,” Captain Steele said.
“Anyway, we fought hard, but ultimately, we had to abandon ship. We were out numbered 100 to 1. The ship was decompressing and it was only a matter of time until it it imploded. We had to leave but the ship's escape pods weren't working. However we had our DSSM suits. So we jumped out of the ship hoping for the best. We aimed for this planet, not knowing what awaited us. We knew the planet wasn't well established but we didn't know it was completely abandoned.
“We jumped toward the planet and used out DSSM's suits to guide us toward the planet. We were goners if we tried to stay alive outside the ship. The attackers would just smash into us or shoot us with their ships. We headed out toward the planet and skydived all the way into the atmosphere, caught fire entering the atmosphere, then had to find a way to slow our decent before we smashed against the ground. Needless to say, the guys attacking us admired our ballsy attempt to survive, but didn't respect it. They still shot at us and tried to kill us. Thankfully, their ships couldn't maneuver very well in the atmosphere like we could in our suits so we survived a bit longer. They lost several men when their ships tore up trying to fly around like combat fighters that high in the atmosphere. Our suits handled better than was expected.
“We finally landed on the ground about 15 minutes later. Some of us hit the ground too hard and died. It really was a shame. Anyway, we continued our fight when we landed and ran for some cover waiting to set up and ambush. The thing was, this planet was far too hot for most and they made one attempt to take us. It failed. We were unable to take their ships when they landed. This planet was close to 2,500 degrees Fahrenheit. We waited on that planet for two weeks to be rescued,” Captain Steele said.
“What made you bring this up now?” Jamie asked.
“Because now I'm skydiving onto a dead star.”
Captain Steele continued to fall towards the black dwarf. He started to glow as he entered the atmosphere of the black dwarf.
“You are entering the atmosphere now. The atmosphere is kept by the gravity the black dwarf has. It seems to be oxygen, carbon, nitrogen, and zinc. Interesting... when the black dwarf was a white dwarf it should have blown off all this or fused it into other elements. It appears that somehow a minor atmosphere either remained or was reformed,” Jamie said.
Captain Steele look at his DSSM's readings. Gravity is at 40 times what Earth's gravity was. He continued to fall for several minutes picking up speed. He would slow down his speed with his DSSM's thrusters. He was close enough he could see the black dwarfs surface. He slowed down to almost a crawl just above the surface of the black dwarf.
“We've accomplished many things and now, I'm stepping on the surface of a star,” Captain Steele said proudly grinning.
Captain Steele was hovering just above the surface by about two feet. He stopped his thrusters and landed hard on the surface. He landed so hard that his knees buckled and he had to use his hands to keep from falling forward onto his face. He got up and as he did he checked his DSSM's readings. 1,000 times Earths gravity. His suit was creaking under the pressure of the gravity. He was having and incredibly hard time walking. He reached down to check the material of the star and found it in a solid form, but not completely solid. It was solid, much like a piece of metal, but it was vibrating and shaking, not the piece as a whole, but in different places and at different rates. Some places were vibrating more than others. From time to time there seemed to be a sudden hardness spike out in a direction like a line but he couldn't see what caused it. The material almost seemed to be squishy in different places but remarkably hard at the same time.
“You getting this Jamie?” Captain Steele asked.
“Yes. It appears to be vibrating due to the electrons not being able to maintaining the same ground state so it's vibrating trying to find a way to exist,” Jamie replied. “Get me a piece of that would you please John?”
“Sure thing.”
Captain Steele reached down and grabbed a small bit that was sticking out. He pulled on it to try and break it off and it didn't. He then took his rifle and shot it. Some of the bullets ricocheted off and some went right into and through the material. The material almost seems to become a gas while remaining incredibly hard as the bullets hit it.
“It seems the material's thickness changes slightly with the vibrations. I am also getting a reading from your DSSM that says the air is filled with free floating electrons. It appears there are electrons floating freely in the air. Please take a sample for me as well,” Jamie said.
Captain Steele took a container and swiped at the air and quickly closed a lid around it.
“That do the trick?” Captain Steele said sarcastically.
“Yes. Be careful John.”
Captain Steele then proceeded to walk along the surface of the black dwarf. He turned off the lights on his suit and had Jamie turn the lights off of the ship. It was sickening. He felt like he was going to be sick. It was like he was in the vacuum of space, in zero gravity, with the darkness and the cold that seemed to be piecing his suit, but there was gravity. It messed with his mind. His mind said he was in zero g's, but his body said he was on a planet. He looked around and all he could see was the darkness of space. It was incredibly relaxing yet incredibly sickening.
Captain Steele turned his lights on and started walking. He was having a hard time believing he was walking on the surface of a star. This is something that no one had ever really considered possible.
“Jamie, was this really a star at one point?”
“It was. How or why it ran out of energy then completely cooled is beyond my ability to comprehend. I need those samples to try and figure that out.”
Captain Steele then scanned the atmosphere. It was composed of 60% oxygen, 30% carbon, 7% nitrogen, and 3% zinc. His suit said the air was not breathable due to the high amount of pressure on the star. He knew that if the pressure on the star was too great it could cause problems for him. The atmospheric pressure was at 540 Terapascals, or TPa, as much as the inside a nuclear bomb at detonation. He decided he has had more than enough abuse and so he left his helmet on. He walked around the surface of the black dwarf until he came to what appears to be a large hole.
“Should I venture into the hole Jamie?”
“I strongly recommend you don't. It could collapse crushing you.”
“If it's been here this long, I doubt it will collapse any time soon.”
�
�I am quite curious as to how a hole could exist here. The gravity should have crushed the matter to such a point the black dwarf is a small round ball with no openings,” Jamie said.
“Time to find out.”
Captain Steele carefully climbed down into the hole in the black dwarf. He noticed the material of the black dwarf was vibrating much more down here. As he climbed down he noticed what appeared to be a narrow cave system just a tad bigger around than he was.
“You getting this Jamie?”
“Yes...proceed care....John. Signals drop...”
Captain Steele assumed that the signal was having a hard time getting through the dense matter. He place a relay beacon there to boost the signal.
“Can you hear me now Jamie?”
“I heard you perfectly. Glad you finally decided to bring those with you. I don't know why you haven't until now. They are fully stocked on the ship. You never know when they might be needed,” Jamie said.
“Probably because I didn't think we would be needing them until now. We haven't had any real need for them until now,” Captain Steele said, “What do you make of this?”
“It appears that the gravity of the black dwarf and the electrons looking for a place to be are causing unnatural formations inside the black dwarf. The material vibrating might have caused some of it to become less dense and when the gravity caused the star to collapse the free floating atoms may have prevented the star from completely collapsing creating this cave system. This cave could be billions of years old,” Jamie said.
Captain Steele continued to walk through the cave, ducking, kneeling, crawling, and climbing over walls. He thought it was the coolest thing in the world to be crawling around inside a star. As he went deeper into the cave he would place another relay beacon to stay in contact with Jamie.
“You are about 4,000 feet into that cave John. You have moved downward about 2,000 feet,” Jamie said.
As Captain Steele traveled deeper into the cave his suit kept building up static electricity due to the free floating electrons. He was worried that it might fundamentally change the material of the black dwarf into a solid or a plasma and reignite the black dwarf into a star. That would not be a good thing.
“Jamie, is it possible that me being in here could some how generate enough energy to reignite the black dwarf into a star?”
“It's possible it might reignite it into something, but to reignite it into a star it would need to have enough energy to have a fusion reaction. You might cause something to catch fire but it will not turn into a star because of you alone,” Jamie said.
“I'll keep that in mind. Thanks for letting me know that before coming down here.”
Captain Steele traveled ahead and kept running into dead ends and had to back track to make anymore forward progress. He kept crawling around the cave until he came to another hole that dropped several hundred feet. He scanned his DSSM readings. The atmospheric pressure had increased substantially, and the gravity had as well. He placed a rope in the material and started to climb down.
As Captain Steele climbed down he had to squeeze past some incredibly tight spots. He would reach an end to the drop and be standing on a ledge then he would place another rope on the edge to continue moving downward. It got to the point when the gravity was so strong that he almost couldn't continue. He continued to push ahead anyway, checking his DSSM's readings. His DSSM said he was at 2,000 times Earths gravity. His suit was creaking under the stress more than it was before. He decided he would climb down this last rope just to see what was down there.
Captain Steeled grabbed the rope turned his back to the edge and started to climb down the rope. He continued to climb down and by the time he went down several hundred feet he was met with a much larger opening in the cave with thick clouds of gas in it. The opening became about 60 times the size he was. The gas was acting very spastic. He could see large chunks of it darting about in an unpredictable manner as part of the cloud lite up. The gas looked like it was being thrown around in groups, bouncing off of the walls then pausing before being thrown in another direction.
“Jamie, what am I seeing? What is this?” Captain Steele asked.
“It appears you have reached a different layer inside the black dwarf. Stars, much like planets, have different layers. The Earth has its inner core, and the outer core, followed by it mantle then crust. Stars have layers too. It appears you have just descended into the second layer of a black dwarf. I can see where the black dwarf's core has collapsed bringing the upper layers of it to the bottom, much like when the top of a building collapses downward, filling in the lower layers with what was on top.”
“What about the gas? Is it just gravity and degenerate matter causing it to act the way it is?”
“It's possible it could be either. Please take a sample.”
Captain Steele reached the bottom and took samples of everything. He then proceeded in a direction after placing another rely beacon. It was getting harder to walk as the gravity increased. The increase in atmospheric pressure wasn't helping either. He was incredibly tired from his hike and was really wondering if he could get back out. He continued for about another hour before taking more samples and tests. He noticed that physics were working differently here. These clouds of gas seemed to be clumped together with rounded edges. The scan also said they were made of zinc and carbon.
“Jamie, can carbon exist in the form of a gas?”
“Only at temperatures above the boiling point.”
“Well I'm not at that point. The temperature here is pretty much absolute zero.”
“The physics inside a white dwarf or black dwarf would behave in extremely unnatural ways due to the very nature of what they are,” Jamie said.
Captain Steele continued on through the cave, climbing, crawling, kneeling, and squeezing through passages. He had traveled for a long time before coming to another drop point.
“How far into the star am I Jamie?”
“About 12 miles deep. How are you holding up?”
“I'm tired and my DSSM's stressed almost to the breaking point. It's really hard to walk, even when my suit is trying its best to negate the gravity.”
“Make sure you come out of there soon.”
“Will do.”
Captain Steele looked down the drop point and started to climb down. He headed down for sometime before his suit started to flash warning signs that it was just outside its max ability to handle the gravity and the atmospheric pressure. He kept going downward slowly when the cave opened up again. He looked down and saw what appeared to be liquid. He dropped a scanner down there to see what it was. He didn't hear anything from the scanner so he continued to climb down.
Captain Steele's suit gave a warning flash that it just shy of the max that it can handle yet again. He continued to head downward until he reached that max. His suit continued to creak under the pressure. He was just above the liquid. He had his suit scan it and found that it was liquid oxygen, nitrogen, carbon, and zinc combined.
“You getting this Jamie? This is incredible.”
“It's revolutionary! Who would think that physics could exist that are contrary to the laws of nature simply because of the extreme nature of stars?”
Captain Steele decided to enter the liquid by continuing to crawl down the rope. He passed through it and it acted just like liquid, only it was it was vibrating and flying. After about 50 feet he came through it to the other side.
“The liquid is floating in a shape of a thick rectangle above the ground?” Jamie yelled excitedly as she saw the footage coming from his helmet.
“Yeah, and it looked to be moving around much like the gas clouds were but it is also sliding around the edges of the cave as well,” Captain Steele said looking below him at other planes of liquid doing the same thing.
The sheets of liquid were bouncing off the walls and moving in an unpredictable manner. They were moving up and down the sides of the cave and bouncing almost like a block of jelly.
“Why was the liquid behaving like that?”
“I have no idea John. It defies all known laws of science. This is bigger than anything we have even seen. Maybe the vibrations of the semi-solid degenerate matter have something to do with it. There still was the super dense matter from the surface of the black dwarf at the center of the black dwarf. I would imagine the violent nature of a star's creation and death would be so extreme that such a state of matter as what we saw could only exist inside a star. The gravity and the degenerate matter could cause many things to happen. Considering that we know the material properties of a white dwarf are truly astronomical, and that the life and death of a star is much bigger and much more violent than we can imagine, one can only wonder at why it was acting the way it was,” Jamie said.
“So it's a possibility that somehow when the star collapsed under its own gravity it created an environment capable of creating such peculiar effects?” Captain Steele asked.
“It's possible. The gravity itself is incredible and degenerate matter is incredible as well. The unbound electrons have a lot to do with it as well. Plus the violent death of such a large object as a star could make such things possible,” Jamie said.
Captain Steele made it the cave with the gas in it and laid down.
“What are you doing John?” Jamie asked.
“Shhh!” Captain Steele said.
“What?”
“I'm trying to sleep.”
“What? Why in the world would you want to do that?” Jamie asked.