Chapter 13
Chasing a Comet
Jenny watched out of the window of the Traveler. She could see her father, standing at the edge of the field and waving goodbye. He soon became a speck and then disappeared from sight. Jenny felt a sudden pang of loneliness. The field in which her father had been standing soon blended in with the surrounding countryside, and before long, the Earth began to look like a big blue ball, with wisps of swirling white cloud.
Earth grew progressively smaller as the Traveler sped away, until it looked like the size of a marble, and then a speck in the vast blackness of space. Jenny couldn't help but feel very small and insignificant at this point. The immense distances in space boggled her mind.
.
Outer space was amazing. The celestial bodies that Jenny had viewed through the telescope at the observatory with her father were now visible with the naked eye. Jenny had always wondered at the vastness of space, and now that she was traveling through it, she was overwhelmed.
Jenny could see Mars in the distance, a red orb moving across the shimmering backdrop. "Wow!"
"We're moving so fast, I can't even appreciate the view," Jenny commented.
"I'm sorry, but time is of the essence. Maybe when all this is done, we can take a more leisurely pace and do some sightseeing," Born stated.
Jenny stared out of the window at the multitude of stars. The bright points of light that flickered in the distance began to look blurred and fuzzy, and Jenny began to feel dizzy, and sick to her stomach.
"Born? I don't feel very well all of a sudden," she said.
"You had better go and lie down for awhile," Born instructed. "You have a touch of space sickness. I have been space traveling for years and it still occasionally affects me. There is a bed in that room over there that you are welcome to use. We won't reach the comet for a couple of hours, so rest comfortably, and I will come and get you if you fall asleep," Born said.
Jenny went into the room indicated by Born. She didn't think that there was any chance of falling asleep at a time like this, but she did. Jenny was emotionally exhausted. She awoke about two hours later without assistance, feeling much better. She yawned and stretched, then made her way back to the control room to see what was happening. Her half-closed eyes opened wide when she looked out the Traveler's window.
"Oh, my goodness!" she said.
She could see the comet, luminous and gigantic, with the tail trailing beautifully, and seemingly forever behind it.
"It looks like we are going to crash into it," Jenny mentioned.
"We are not close enough to it yet to be concerned. The coma or head is over sixteen million kilometers in diameter, so it will still take us awhile to reach the nucleus, and we do want to approach with caution, as there will be bits of debris melting away from the main body of the comet," Born explained, as he pointed with his long finger.
"We will be entering the coma soon, and in a few hours, we will pull up beside the nucleus. It is the biggest comet I have ever seen," he commented.
"The coma and the tail are so beautiful," Jenny said, awestruck at the sight of what no human had ever laid the naked eye on before.
Streams of light flowed from the head of the comet, as the sun warmed it and released the elements within.
Brilliant colors flashed through the luminescent haze of the gigantic tail, trailing off for over one hundred and sixty million kilometers into the immense cosmic background. "How can something so beautiful, be so deadly?" Jenny asked quietly to herself.
Obos maneuvered them into a position alongside of the tip of the brilliant colossus, and set a course for the origin of this breathtaking scene, the nucleus.
Jenny looked out the window of the Traveler and felt invigorated that she was racing with a comet. She realized also though, she was racing with time, and time was running short.
As they approached, the coma began to look like a thick bank of luminous fog. Somewhere in the middle of this huge halo of foggy matter, was the source, an enormous chunk of ice and rock.
The comet was releasing a cloud of debris and water vapor. The Traveler penetrated the hazy halo, and visibility diminished. Brilliant bands of light streaked out behind the comet, created by the vaporization of materials such as iron, magnesium, sodium and silicon.
Obos activated an exterior light that cut through the mist and illuminated for almost one hundred meters in every direction, greatly improving the visibility for Jenny. She could see pieces of debris, seemingly floating in the murky space quagmire.
Small particles vaporized before Jenny's eyes, like tiny shooting stars, while bigger pieces of rocky material were traveling at almost the same speed as the spaceship, and large shadowy shapes loomed in the distance.
Jenny felt as though she was submerged in a murky, slow moving river. The current of debris drifting by, gave her the feeling everything was moving in slow motion. Obos fired various secondary thrusters, and easily piloted the ship around any large pieces of debris, or just ploughed right through fields of smaller pieces.
It was hard to comprehend, but Jenny realized, they were still racing through space at over 200,000 kilometers per hour. She continued to watch as they trekked for hours through the haze of debris, on an intercept course with the core of the comet.
After hours had passed, light from the spaceship appeared to Jenny as if it was slowly changing. It did not seem to penetrate as far as before, until she recognized the reason for the change. The light was reflecting off a wall of solid matter.
"Is that, the nucleus?" Jenny asked.
"Yes, it is now eighty meters away from us. I will maneuver us into position, approximately sixty meters from its surface," Obos answered.
The light penetrated the murky fog, and revealed what no human had ever set eyes on before. A massive comet that had been tumbling through space for thousands of years unimpeded until now.
"Obos, do your sensors indicate the overall shape of the comet?" Jenny asked.
"Yes, I have the capability to project a computer image of the comet on the viewing screen if you desire," Obos offered.
"Yes! Please do."
Obos proceeded to bounce thousands of sensitive energy beams off the surface of the comet, and evaluated every one of them upon its return, enabling it to recreate the comet's appearance, down to the finest detail. The computer transferred the image onto a viewing screen, situated just above the window. The video image provided Jenny with an excellent view. She saw the comet as a large, gray, irregular shaped mass, with patches of white. Portions of its exterior gleamed from the moisture created by the heat of the sun. Its surface was rough and rugged in some areas, and smooth in others, and it was pockmarked with craters, the result of many collisions with smaller objects.
"Wow! That's amazing! It looks like a frozen asteroid."
Jenny was just beginning to comprehend the vastness of the comet. She realized that if she were capable, it would take her days to walk around the entire comet. Weeks actually, because the surface would be very slippery and rugged.
The computer began to zoom in on several different portions of the comet, in order to allow various views and perspectives. The small craters pock marking the comet's face, were now beginning to smooth away, as the sun's heat melted the surface.
There were also rocks of various sizes protruding from it, sometimes in large, concentrated clusters. On one of the views provided by Obos, Jenny noticed a large boulder lift away from the mother ball, and slowly drift free of the spot it had occupied for thousands of years.
"Wow, look at that giant boulder that just released from the comet. It must be as big as we are."
"Two times bigger," corrected Obos.
Jenny looked out of the window and noticed high jagged peaks getting closer.
"The viewing screen now represents the area we are occupying," Obos said as it expertly piloted the ship.
Jenny looked at the video screen that showed four views from the Traveler. Up ahead, spiny peaks of glistening mo
untains stood out, like the teeth of a terrifying monster. To one side the plain dropped suddenly away until it appeared again far in the distance. A view of the other side showed a plain of gray, extending as far as the eye could see. Behind, was the high ridge of a deep crater.
Obos chose the base of a cliff in which to wedge the front of the Traveler. The Zorbite force field wedge was fifty meters thick, and Obos very slowly and cautiously, closed the remaining gap, until the Traveler nuzzled up to the comet. The ship shuddered slightly when the energy field made contact with the comet's surface, and Obos angled the path of the Traveler away from Earth while gently accelerating. They were now nudging the comet away from its collision course.