The Extraordinary Adventures of a Russian Scientist Across the Solar System (Vol. 1)
Page 61
To distract me and soothe my thoughts—which keep on turning, in spite of myself, to Mercury and Selena—I’m trying to verify the calculations to which research on the Sun has given rise. In one day, I’ve finished that work and I’ve established the exactitude of all the figures obtained.
Night is approaching, but I’m not sleepy, so I’ll try to pass the time. Taking the Earth as a point of comparison, I’ve established the following: the Sun weighs 5,875 sextillion kilograms; it would require 324,000 Earths as a counterweight;141 the terrestrial diameter is 180th part of the solar diameter; the central star is, in volume, 1,279,000 times more immense than my native planet. As for the distance, I find that an express train, traveling 60 kilometers an hour, would take 266 years to go from the Earth to the Sun.142
These infantilisms have taken me though till morning. I can no longer resist…it’s preferable that I know what will become of me…I’ll run to the porthole and aim my telescope into infinity, in the direction where Mercury ought to be if the comet has not annihilated it in a formidable impact…
O joy! The planet is there, following its usual orbit as of previous days. I breathe more freely, as if a formidable weight has been lifted from my breast; God, who has just worked a miracle, has consented to protect Selena…it seems to me that the death of that child would have struck me a deadly blow.
Exhausted by anguish and insomnia. I’ll lie down in my hammock and go to sleep.
Wednesday, April 1. Nothing to record on Monday and yesterday; the vehicle is continuing in its course toward the Sun, whose enormous disk now fills the horizon. The light is so bright that I’ve had to cover the portholes with a quadruple layer of black crêpe in order not to be blinded.
What terrible, frightful heat! My skin, desiccated, is flaking off, my lungs, exhausted by the fiery air I’m breathing, function painfully, with a whistling sound that alarms me; it seems that my breast is swelling up, that all my bones are cracking…
What will happen?
I feel that it’s certain death I’m heading for…another few 100,000 kilometers and I’ll fall down, stifled.
Should I go backwards, instead of going around the central star and launching myself into infinity? Nothing is simpler. I have here, within range of my hand, the cords controlling the movement of the ring with which the shell is surrounded; with a single, scarcely perceptible action, I can turn around!
No, curiosity draws me on; the marvelous and unknown world attracts me…closer! And closer yet!
Thursday, April 2. It’s definite; I’m going forward! That being firmly established, and my mind almost free of the thought of Selena. I’m resuming my study of the Sun. The spots that I’ve observed on the face of the disk since my departure from Mercury have changed position…
I’ve established the exactitude of the parallel drawn by a French astronomer between terrestrial gravity, which varies in intensity from the equator to the poles, and the rotation of the solar patches, whose velocity is proportional to their latitude. It was sufficient, to arrive at that certainty, for me to follow the progress of three patches across the disk of the Sun for the whole day, one at the equator, one at 15 degrees of latitude and the other at 38 degrees of latitude. The first gave me, for its complete rotation around the star, a period of 24 days and a half, the second a period of 25 days and two hours, and the third a period of 27 days.
It was impossible for me, from the position in occupy in space, to follow a patch beyond 38 degrees, but it can be presumed that the rapidity of rotation will diminish progressively from latitude to latitude all the way to the pole.
I can scarcely do better than compare that surface rotation to that of an ocean enveloping a globe, which turns more slowly than it does, and less and less rapidly from the equator to the poles.
In 1611, the sublime genius who called himself Galileo measured that rotation, which his predecessors had only observed: Fabricius, Kepler and Giordano Bruno, who was burned in Rome for his astronomical opinions! Would we, who are so proud of our love of science, be ready, like our ancestors, to confess our faith on the pyre? I doubt it….and yet, here I am! O, to suffer 1000 deaths, to return to my native planet for a few minutes, only to die, while bearing the conviction that my name would pass into posterity!
Thanks to my telescope, the ocular lens of which I took care to darken powerfully, I can devote myself to interesting studies of the central star. At this short distance, the photosphere is clearly apparent to me in every detail, a dark network illuminated here and there, irregularly but in considerable quantity, by luminous points. It is these luminous points—whose totality, according to the American Langley,143 represents barely a fifth of the solar surface—that produce the light and heat. What would happen if their number were to increase or decrease? Death for the planets that its rays vivify—death by calcinations or cold!
I observed at the same time the inequality of heat and light projected by these luminous specks, which, according to their distance from the center of the solar disk, vary in intensity by a factor of five. Is it necessary to conclude from that, like Père Secchi, the existence around the Sun of a slender and absorbent atmospheric layer? I reserve that question for later study.
Friday, April 3. On awakening, my head feels as heavy as lead; I can scarcely open my eyes; my eyelids are inflamed, the pupils are stinging me horribly—the fatal consequences of yesterday’s studies.
Am I falling ill at the very moment when I’m ready to lift the veil that envelops the unknown? Should I stay in bed? Perhaps tomorrow…
No, tomorrow I might be dead….or something might set me back. I’m avid to know. To work—let’s extract from nature the secrets that attract me.
Great God! What a marvelous spectacle. There, before my eyes, close at hand—thanks to the telescope, at an apparent distance of only a few 1000 kilometers—the solar mass appears to be in upheaval, twisting in titanic convulsions. Here, the photosphere splits, tears and seems to fly into space in sparkling floss. There, it is hollowed out in immeasurable gulfs filled with vertiginous whirlwinds, at the bottom of which appear, as darker stains, the luminous Sun in combustion, through clouds of vapor lit by the glare of a formidable fire.
My amazement scarcely leaves me sufficient lucidity of mind to make a few scientific observations—measured with the micrometer, one of the gulfs is 800,000 kilometers in diameter!
For hours, I’ve remained here, immobilized in my stupefaction, my eyes riveted to the gaseous lava rising from that formidable pit as from the depths of a volcano, pouring out on to the photospheric surface, forming a sort of incandescent ring all around, running towards its point of origin in luminous threads. No doubt I’m witnessing the formation of those patches that astronomers over the centuries have taken successively for clouds, mountains, volcanic eruptions and immense scoria.
Wilson144 alone was right; sunspots are cavities whose depths, though sparkling, appear dark by comparison with the photosphere.
I can do no more. I’m exhausted. I scarcely have the strength to grope my way to my hammock—for my eyelids are so swollen that I can’t open my eyes…
Monday, April 6. Yesterday and the day before I stayed in bed, in the absolute impossibility of making a movement, and in a state of almost total blindness. For a time, I feared that I might by blind for the rest of my life.
The rest of my life! Bitter derision! Death is stalking me. I’m choking; my lungs function with increasing difficulty. It’s fire that I’m breathing, and 15,000,000 leagues still separate me from the Sun. The prospect of imminent death gives me strength and, this morning, even though I can hardly see, I’ve got out of bed and dragged myself to my telescope.
The solar perturbation observed on previous days has calmed somewhat; curiosity prompts me to count the sunspots. Their number has increased considerably; there again I find confirmation of laws established by terrestrial astronomers, according to which the solar surface is animated by a dependably regular motion of flux and reflux.
Every 11 years, the number of sunspots, eruptions and solar storms reaches a maximum and then decreases for seven and a half years; having attained its minimum, it increases again to its maximum, which it reaches in a period of three and a half years. The present phase is certainly that indicated by the maximum of the solar tide; that was the cause of the phenomena observed two days ago.
God, how I’m suffering! The hot ocular lens burns me painfully; it’s impossible for me to maneuver the telescope, whose metal absorbs the heat that the superheated air contained in the tube discharges. It’s necessary for me to renounce my studies—or, at least, abandon my telescope and devote myself to a few spectroscopic observations of the corona.
I observe the presence of that cloud of solid corpuscles, which forms a belt around the Sun which certainly extends as far as the Earth; incessantly launched into space by solar eruptions, and incessantly falling back on the star that produces them, these corpuscles, illuminated by the luminous rays, produce what people on Earth call the zodiacal light. Is it also to them that the perturbations observed in Mercury’s motion must be attributed? One interesting question among many, which I expect to resolve—and simultaneously settle the question of the intramercurial planet discovered by Le Verrier.
I recall now a long dissertation with which Mikhail Ossipoff lulled us to sleep at the Institute of Sciences several years ago, on the subject of projections of solar matter—rising, he said, with a velocity of 267 kilometers per second to heights sometimes surpassing 80,000 kilometers. That poor colleague has made a profound error; these projections have a much lower velocity—but the matter disseminated in space, and temporarily invisible, reappears as a vapor that cools and becomes visible along its entire length within a few seconds.
Tuesday, April 5. Although half-suffocated by the temperature of the vehicle, I’m continuing my spectroscopic studies and my calculations.
The corona is very dense to an extent of 500,000 kilometers around the solar globe. Of the chromosphere, where the immense whirlwinds known as sunspots are produced, I can see nothing but a formidable ocean of fire, forming the second envelope of the Sun. As for the photosphere, it appears to be neither solid, nor liquid, nor gaseous, but seems to be composed, like terrestrial clouds, of mobile particles, and to be dancing on an ocean of gas of enormous weight and cohesion.
Although suffering frightfully, I’ve succeeded in analyzing the composition of the solar mass itself, and I’ve identified in the spectroscope the 450 black lines characteristic of iron in combustion in its gaseous state, the 118 of titanium, the 75 of calcium, the 57 of manganese and the 33 of nickel. I recognize, besides, traces of cobalt, chromium, sodium, barium, magnesium, copper, potassium, and finally hydrogen and oxygen, at a very high temperature.
My chronometer marks 4 p.m. I can’t continue any longer. The instruments are slipping out of my hands, my head is resonating with an infernal hum…everything is dancing around me…I’m losing my sense of reality. My sight is growing dark…my breast no longer swells…it seems that my heart is stopping. Is this death?
Thursday, April 9. I write that date at random, not knowing exactly how much time I remained in the comatose state from which I’ve just emerged.
I was awakened a little while ago by a sensation of relative coolness; it seemed to me that it was a resurrection. I was lying on the floor in the midst of my instruments. Although weak, I dragged myself to the thermometer; it marks 65 degrees. On the day on which the accident that I described on the previous page occurred, it stood at nearly 80 degrees.
I feel a sensation of incredible, but purely physical, well-being. My head is still heavy, it’s true, but my blood appears to be circulating freely and I’m breathing easily. The furniture-column is within my range; I was able to extend my hand and take a carafe of eau-de-vie from a shelf and drain it by half. Revived, I got to my feet and, supporting myself with my hands on the wall, I made my way to my telescope!
Curses! The micrometer indicates a sensible diminution in the solar disk. Instead of going forward, I’m moving away…or rather, I’m falling! What has happened? In consequence of what phenomenon have I been snatched from the attractive power of light to roll through space?
A relatively uninteresting question, though—the why doesn’t matter; it’s sufficient that I observe the fact.
All day, I’ve remained immobile, my eyes riveted to the telescope. The day star is moving away in space; its diameter is decreasing. At the same time the thermometer is falling…falling….
Close enough to touch the goal…and then, nothing more! It’s atrocious! I’m afraid of going mad with rage.
The realization of my impotence falls upon my skull like a lead weight.
I’m going to bed and to sleep.
Sunday, April 12. It’s been two days since I had the courage to write a line. Idiotically, I remained lying in my hammock, careless of the fate that awaits me, thinking about only one thing: the awakening that drives me to despair.
Oh, to approach the furnace, even to fall into it and be devoured by the oceans of fire! But before then, to see, to contemplate—to have, if only for a few seconds, consciousness of the secrets of that marvel!
But no, the dream is over. Infinity has tempted me and infinity has absorbed me. For all eternity, I will roll like this, an inert and purposeless mass, through the starry spaces.
May God have pity on me and let me die quickly!
Tuesday, April 14. It’s the end. The fall is becoming more precipitous…and the vision of Selena is haunting me again.
Will she stand before me like this until my eyelids are closed by the finger of death?
Selena…Selena…forgive me!
Here ended the notes made by Sharp in the course of his voyage—which, in accordance with his promise, he had given to Mikhail Ossipoff. When the latter, very thoughtful and mentally obsessed by the scientific revelations he had just read, had closed the notebook, the young woman got up and marched straight to her father’s former enemy, with her hand extended.
“Monsieur Sharp,” she said, with an adorable smile, “when you believed you were about to die, your last thought was to regret the harm that you had done me. I therefore have every reason to believe that that regret is sincere. Here is my hand; I forgive you.” Enveloping Gontran—who was frowning as he listened to her—with the gaze of an enchantress, she added: “I expect all those who have some sympathy or affection for me to do likewise.”
The ex-permanent secretary of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences formed a grimace that resembled a smile and, after having stammered a few unintelligible words by way of thanks, fell back into a somber reverie.
Farenheit had listened, motionless and silent, to what Ossipoff had read aloud. It seemed that the account of the frightful dread that his enemy had experienced had not weakened the hatred that the American had sworn against him. His eyes fixed on the ground, tugging his large beard angrily and nervously biting his lip—an indication, in him, of an irritation contained with great difficulty—Farenheit maintained that posture for a long time, as indifferent to the amicable chatter of Gontran and Selena as to Fricoulet’s mocking comments. Suddenly, as if coming to a decision, he stood up, went over to Flammermont and touched his shoulder with the tip of his bony finger. “My dear sir,” he said, “I want to talk to you.”
“I’m listening, Mr. Farenheit.”
The American shook his head. “Our conversation must be private.”
Gontran got up, linked arms with the American, and went down the hill with him, stopping beneath the first trees of the Mercurian forest. “What’s this about?” he said.
“I’d like to ask you a great favor.”
“I’m entirely at your disposal, and if it’s in my power, consider it done.”
These words earned the young man one of those handshakes to which the inhabitants of the New World are accustomed, which almost dislocate the shoulder.
“Here’s the thing,” said Farenheit. “By virtue of the
priority that Monsieur Ossipoff claims to have over me, I’m obliged to renounce my vengeance upon that wretch Sharp. On the other hand, living in company with the scoundrel who ruined me and tried to murder me is impossible…”
“But what do you want you do, my poor Mr. Farenheit?”
“What I want to do,” muttered the Yankee, “is to get away.”
Gontran opened his eyes wide. Is he going mad? he thought.
As if he had divined the young man’s thought, Farenheit replied: “You’re asking yourself whether I’m in my right mind. Don’t worry—I’ve never had a clearer head in my life. So, I repeat…I want to get away. I want to go back to the Earth, and the favor I have to ask of you is that you help me accomplish that project.”
The young man uttered a fervent exclamation, while waving his arms in the air in a chaotic gesture. “Me!” he said, finally, when his initial suffocation had passed. “You were counting on me to…” He stopped, strangled by an irresistible desire to laugh. “But what you’re asking of me is impossible!” he continued, after a few moments.
“Impossible? Why?”
Flammermont was about to tell the truth: that he was the last person of whom one might demand such a service. Fortunately, though, he reflected on the imprudence of such a confession and abruptly changed his expression. “Because,” he replied, “we’re so far from Earth that—for the moment, at least—it’s futile to think of repatriating ourselves…”
“Bah!” said a mocking voice behind him.
With one movement, the two men turned and saw Fricoulet.
The latter advanced toward them. “I’ll begin,” he said, “by offering you my most sincere apologies for having overheard part of your conversation—but you were raising your voices so loudly that they reached my ears…fortunately for you, Mr. Farenheit.”