Walker Andrews looked at the data from Frontier’s nanosats in his presentation one last time. It was phenomenal, to say the least, and it really resembled a map of wind patterns across the globe, spread out over the galaxy. Well, a very small part of the galaxy, anyway.
The
nanosats had quickly gotten out of range to transmit their data back in a timely
manner, if the signal even could make it back to earth among all the galactic
interference. But what they had discovered was impressive.
“Okay,
Walker,” Jim Macomber said, “Dazzle us.”
“Right.
Okay, so, here is an animation extrapolated from the nanosats, projecting their
flight paths. As you can see, most were carried out in the same path as our
other satellites. However, we have about a dozen that got spun around, and
headed pretty much straight back at our solar system.”
“Like an
eddy?” Peterson asked.
“Exactly
like an eddy. We expected that this might happen, but what we didn’t expect was
that the satellites veered off again before they could cross back over the
heliopause.”
“What could
cause that?” Jim frowned.
Walker
shrugged. “We’re not sure at this point. Either they got caught up into other
eddies that saved them, or there’s some phenomenon preventing the dark energy
winds from entering the solar system.”
“That would
explain why the sails aren’t catching wind inside the solar system,” Jenny
nodded.
“This
happened in every direction for the satellites that got looped back around?”
Jim asked.
“Yes. From
what we can tell, the solar system is in a bubble. We’re not sure if dark
energy can’t come in or if just chooses to go around.”
“Chooses to
go around? This is not a sentient life force,” Peterson snarled.
“Okay, bad
choice of words,” Walker held up his hands. “Maybe, maybe our solar system is like
a piece of flotsam in the water. The current has to go around us. We know that
we’re gravitationally bound to the galaxy. And we’ve long suspected that dark
energy is the force responsible for the expansion of the universe, so maybe
it’s just that pockets of gravity and matter don’t get along with dark energy.”
“Start
looking for a way to test this idea once we launch Zheng He,” Jim declared,
standing up. “I also want special attention paid to any nanosats that are on a
trajectory to Alpha Centauri. If the satellites veer away from entering that
system, we’ll know there’s something about solar systems.”
“Uh, Jim?”
Walker said tentatively.
“Yes?”
“About
Alpha Centauri. That is, the design specs on the nanosats, well, how do I put
this?”
“The
batteries won’t last long enough to continue to transmit after an hour, which,
if the velocity holds, will only get them about halfway to Alpha Centauri.”
Peterson said bluntly. “I wrote you a paper on that, but you signed off on the
spec batteries, anyway.”
Jim nodded
sagely. “Congratulations, Peterson, you’re now in charge of the power and
transmitters for Zheng He’s nanosats. I want at least a day’s worth of
transmitting power, over the course of the distance that entails. Get to work.”