Charcoal black
and potato shaped, the ancient icy snowball plummeted slowly through the immense
void of space. It had already swung
around the blistering hot sun and was headed back to the outermost frontier of
our solar system. The sun’s massive gravity was gently tugging on it, putting
on the gravitational brakes, ready to pull it back. It will
be back, as it has been many times before, but that whole process will take
another 76 years.
Gritty vapor surrounded the old relic of time and space in a
huge incandescent cloud. With the hot
sun beating down on the dark murky surface, jagged cracks ripped across its
crusty nine-by-six mile surface, causing geysers of water vapor to jettison out,
creating its long stretching tail. It
was spewing out more than sixteen tons of material every second, which will be
its eventual demise, in about 253,308 years.
For the last 2,200 years, perhaps more, the tumbling iceberg
had been observed by humans, causing fear, panic, and excitement. For 2,200 years, the human race could only
observe the cosmic spectacle from afar.
In actuality though, no one had ever really seen the actual comet. The
shy visitor had always been hiding in the glowing spherical cocoon of dusty
water-rich comet exhaust. But not this time! Not in 1986! The human race had conquered Earth’s gravity,
they had conquered the moon, and now they were going to conquer Halley’s
Comet.
By March 13th, the tumbling iceberg already had
close encounters with the first of a few spaceships, part of an armada of ships
sent from Earth. These ships were inquisitive little probes trying to steal its
long hidden secrets. The Russian probe Vega 1 was the first such invader,
gingerly taking a peak at 5,500 miles out.
If that wasn’t bad enough, its twin sister, Vega 2, approached from a different trajectory and dared to get 500
miles closer three days later, with its camera snapping away. The Japanese were at least a little more
polite, the Sakigake kept its
distance at 4.3 million miles, and Suisei
didn’t get any closer than 94,000 miles – neither had a camera.
But then, there was the European spacecraft Giotto, the fifth visitor from that big
blue rock, the third from the sun. It
was the most adventurous; it was the one that dared to take a close-up peek at
the tumbling jet-black snowball, with strange geysers spouting from cracks in
its crust. Giotto’s camera was
feverously taking pictures, sending them back to the Earth at the speed of
light; a 13-minute journey. Plunging
ahead at a passing velocity greater than 42 miles every second, it drew closer
and closer to the heavenly comet; being scrubbed by dust and thudded with
cometary nuggets on its way.
Little Giotto got closer than Vega 1; it got closer than
Vega 2. It closed in on 3000 miles out, then 25 seconds later it was only 2000
miles out. Its little camera, and its
bevy of scientific equipment, was joyously peeking under Halley’s skirt for the
first time ever. Giotto was collecting a
wealth of data that was going to make scientists and astronomers have goose
bumps for years to come. Then, at 1000
miles out, that is when Giotto’s spying camera saw it. That’s when it saw the object.
The first picture was just a silhouette with Halley glowing
brightly behind it. The second picture
was much closer and it was much more obvious that it wasn’t gas vapor, it
wasn’t dust, and it wasn’t video noise.
The object wasn’t a chunk of ice that broke free either; this object was
too sleek, too curvaceous. This object
wasn’t created by nature. This object
was manmade. But maybe “man” made isn’t
the right term in this case. All the
other probes were long gone by this time and no other ones were on their way. It
wasn’t from Earth. Besides, it was huge;
it was bigger than a jumbo jet. All of
the scientists viewing the images instantly thought of the old UFO pictures
from the 1950’s, as that was exactly what it looked like. A saucer shaped object with a dome on
top.
At the European Space Operations Centre in Darmstadt,
Germany, Horst Keller, the leader of the camera team, instantly cut the video
feed per protocol. He called over
Gerhard Schwehm, the lead mission scientist, to take a look. Gerhard instantly instructed Horst, and the
two other scientists who saw the pictures, to not speak of the images until
instructed further. The further instruction
they received, only a few hours later, was to never speak of the pictures, ever,
not to anyone. The public was informed that Giotto went
blind for a bit, after being hit by comet debris, causing the antenna to skew
away from Earth. This was certainly
feasible, and totally believable, and is what has been written in the history books ever since.
http://lifeoneuropa.blogspot.com
http://lifeoneuropa.blogspot.com
