The Question

The Radio Astronomer

“It’s not a comet,” said Ellis de Groot. “That much is definite.”

He was sitting behind his desk, leaning far back in his comfortable, worn old leather swivel chair, his booted feet resting on the edge of the desk. Yet he looked grim, worried. A dozen photographs of Comet Jacobs-Kawanashi were strewn across the desk top.

“How can you be so sure?” asked Brian Martinson, who sat in front of the desk, his eyes on the computer-enhanced photos. Martinson was still young, but he was already balding and his once-trim waistline had expanded from too many hours spent at consoles and classrooms and not enough fresh air and exercise. Even so, his mind was sharp and quick; he had been the best astronomy student de Groot had ever had. He now ran the National Radio Astronomy Observatory in West Virginia.

De Groot was old enough to be Martinson’s father, gray and balding, his face lined from years of squinting at telescope images and wheedling university officials and politicians for enough funding to continue searching the Universe. He wore a rumpled open-necked plaid shirt and Levis so faded and shabby that they were the envy of the university’s entire student body.

He swung his legs off the desk and leaned forward, toward the younger man. Tapping a forefinger on one of the photos, he lowered his voice to a whisper:“Only nine people in the whole country know about this. We haven’t released this information to the media yet, or even put it on the Net…” he paused dramatically.

“What is it?” Martinson asked, leaning forward himself.

“This so-called comet has taken up an orbit around Jupiter.”

Martinson’s jaw dropped open.

“It’s not a natural event,” de Groot went on. “We got a couple of NASA people to analyze the orbital mechanics. The thing was on a hyperbolic trajectory through the Solar System. It applied thrust, altered its trajectory, and established a highly eccentric orbit around Jupiter. Over the course of the past three days it has circularized that orbit.”

“It’s intelligent,” Martinson said, his voice hollow with awe.

“Got to be,” agreed de Groot. “That’s why we want you to try to establish radio contact with it.”