Burster

BURSTER

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Original story by

Steven R. Schoner

Copyright 1994, 2020

All Rights Reserved

ISBN: 978-1-105-13006-9

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To my one and only daughter,

Anna Rachel Schoner

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BURSTER

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Eight hundred and twenty-one light years away from Earth, two neutron stars combine…  And in the year 2230, astrophysicist Brent Meyers makes startling discovery; a distant object that poses a supreme threat to all life on Earth and the Solar System at large. It is the end of the world as he knows it. This is a story of mankind's quest for survival. It details the 23rd Century world, and those striving to conquer seemingly impossible odds. And in this quest, Professor Brent Meyers meets Chemois DeMiter, High Priestess of the Church of Divine Science; keepers of mankind's salvation…

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CHAPTER ONE First Whispers

From the porch of my stucco home it’s late afternoon as I gaze over a desert landscape. The sky is extraordinarily blue, not a cloud in the sky.  The landscape is bleak, rocky, bushes, and cactus’ here and there.  I must remember that event; those days when I was thirty-five years on this Earth, those that I knew, before it all becomes a mere dream, a distant memory; a distant past in my mind.  This is what I recall now, and more comes to me as I remember…

It began in silence.  Not a sound as any would know it; a flash of light, visible and beyond visibility.  A gamma ray burster unleashed, an explosion so immense having impact far beyond its meager occupancy in space.  A myriad of star systems had already felt it, and what remained untouched would feel its presence…

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JUNE, 13th, 2230, 11:38 GMT, aboard Space Station EO-17 at Earth-Sun Lagrange point L1, 930,000 miles out between Sun and Earth, astrophysicist Brent Meyers stood at a holoscreen console and wall sized screen with his cyborg, Detron beside him.  Station EO-17; the hub for the Large Gravity Array aptly provided for long stays for up to a dozen people.  This station is the central data point for gathering gravity wave data. Its artificial gravity maintained with Graviton Technology that made earth gravity possible here and on all planetary stations.  Such would eventually lead humanity to the stars. 

The LGA is comprised of four gravity wave detector probes set in gravitational Earth-Sun Lagrange libration points; one detector each for L1, L2, L4 and L5.  The Earth and Moon orbits between L1 and L2 points and the farther out in space, before and aft in Earth’s orbit, are the L4, and L5 points.  Gravitationally locked in these positions, all four probes are held in place by the mutual gravity fields of Earth and Sun.  Synchronized with each other and at 2 Astronomic Units spanning 184 million miles apart, this array can detect even the slightest gravity waves. EO-17’s central quantum bio-computer analyzes sources’ positions and distances, and lunar wide spectrum telescopes then accessed to further define these objects.

With the station’s holoscreen Brent examined star system WR 104; first discovered in Sagittarius in the year 2000, it is located 8,000 light years distant.  The star system’s companion clocked a very precise eight month orbit producing gravitational pulses with a precision greater than an atomic clock.  WR 104 also generates strong gravity waves oriented so that the axis points less than a degree away from the Solar System.  In this orientation gravity waves are greatly diminished, as the strongest waves spread near tangential to the Earth’s ecliptic.  Yet the LGA can detect WR 104’s extremely weak subsidiary waves passing through the Solar system.  The atomic clock precision and orientation of these waves served Brent well in calibrating his array before conducting serious work toward the center of the galaxy.

A case study in and of itself, WR 104 is a binary composed of two massive stars bound in a tight orbit.  Both would one day explode as supernova, hypernova, and or worse; a devastating gamma ray burst.  Highly unstable, one star is known as a Wolf-Rayet in its last phase before exploding.  Brent had done repeated studies of WR 104.  His PhD dissertation twelve years earlier on this pair postulated how one could detect and quantify gravity waves emanating from it.  From that dissertation the LGA, the most precise gravity wave detector ever made, was funded and built shortly after to find these and others at even greater distances.

As Brent made observations of the Wolf-Rayet star, he measured its gravitational field perturbations, disruptions in its compressed core; and predicted that in about 5,250 years it would cataclysmically explode possibly devastating Earth’s life.  With plus or minus two percent uncertainty; he thought that mankind has enough time to consider the ramifications of its explosive power.  But he realized that it could explode anytime, as the dynamics of unstable stars were not fully known.  And as a warning, gravity perturbations from it would dramatically increase within a year of its explosion.

WR 104 served Brent well in calibrating the LGA, but also as an opportunity for him to get its gravity pulse.  He noted no instability, and thought, nothing to worry about from WR 104… For now at least.

Finished, he focused his instruments deeper into the constellation Sagittarius, scanning between the stars Alnasl and Theta Ophiuchi.  Avoiding the strong galactic center where gravity waves overwhelmed the array, he searched for blue shifted light of stellar objects moving toward Earth.  The galactic center was rich in stars, both near and far.  And in this region he looked for enigmatic and extremely difficult to find binary black holes and neutron stars. The enormous mega-million stellar mass black hole known as Sagittarius A Star that held the Milky Way Galaxy together is a powerhouse of gravity waves.  A difficult region to examine, he took great care in his observations.  This huge black hole sucked in stars intermittently one by one, and gravity wave pulses were clear sign of it.  But he knew it could be very different if it went on a stellar feeding binge swallowing up massive stars fast and furiously.  Over millions of years a star ring cloud had formed, composed of millions of stars.  It slowly grew ever larger.  And when the ring of stars gets close enough, orbits decaying, the galactic black hole would suck them in.  Stars swallowed up in huge numbers would scream their demise with enormous bursts of radiation, spreading throughout the galaxy with devastating effects for life on Earth.  The upside; no chance of that happening anytime soon as the inner star rings’ edge is far enough away.  Such would not happen for 200,000 or more years into the future.  And as revealed in Earth’s fossil record, these so-called ring cloud events were considered one of the causes for major and minor species extinction.

As Brent gathered data, he noticed odd gravity wave signals; strange gravity pulses close and nearly in line with the galactic black hole.  He had noticed them before in this difficult gravity wave region.  So he accessed the LGA quantum bio-computer a week earlier having it update and screen out the galactic core’s gravity waves from the source of odd gravity fluctuations that he observed.  With the task completed, he asked Detron to display the images on the wall holoscreen.  Brent looked for the source as it came into view near, and in line with the galactic center.

It had been tedious searching, taking years of his life.  Every galaxy has binary neutron stars with the potential of erupting into enormous gamma ray bursters.  And he knew these produce cataclysmic events on nearby star systems; even exceeding the effect of the Milky Way Galaxy’s central black hole feeding on multitudes of stars.  He had found such pairs in the Milky Way Galaxy and his observations of the universe at large revealed that every galaxy has the potential to produce gamma ray bursts.  But he had yet to see one that would burst anytime soon in the Milky Way, even though this calendar year he had found 23 potential gamma ray burst neutron pairs, along with hundreds of others he found in earlier years.

Brent knew that his job was in jeopardy as predicting gamma ray bursters in galaxies was in the politician’s minds an esoteric venture, one that had no practical application.  So, even though his project was heading for cancellation; he continued to scan the Solar System’s home galaxy, the Milky Way, hoping to find more gamma ray burst candidates as justification of his work.  And he thought about his predictions on WR 104 as simply not enough justification in the minds of higher-ups to allow him to continue.

Brent knew gamma ray bursts happen very infrequently in any single galaxy.  Such events could be millions, if not billions of years between each one. He would have to explain to the Appropriations Committee how this could impact the Solar System if so distant in time.  He hoped to find one even more relevant than WR 104.  One with a time frame of half, or even a quarter of 5,250 years to explode; that would keep the project going.

His hope was a long shot, but no sooner had he thought this, Brent spotted something on the holoscreen.  He knew immediately; a big one.  Scarcely believing his green eyes, he amplified the image and spotted a close and rapidly spinning pair of neutron stars coming into view relatively near the Solar System.  The spin so great; merger eminent, he instructed the quantum bio-computer to slow the spin down to clearly see the tidal forces on each neutron star.  They appeared as a spinning dumbbell, yet he saw space between the two neutron stars.  He knew then and there, when they touch a singularity will form producing a burster.

All along the galactic core’s more distant gravity well obscured this binary neutron star system.  He searched this region for well over two years and somehow overlooked this object.  This was the source of the abnormal gravity perturbations that he had detected in this region all along.  He missed its gravity signature.  The black hole gravity waves from Sagittarius A Star, holding the Milky Way galaxy together hid it. 

Brent stroked his black hair in exasperation, shocked, taking the sight of it in.  And even as the central quantum bio-computer and Detron processed the data, Brent knew the ramifications of this find.  What he didn’t know; the exact time of merger.

He gave this find a preliminary designation PSR2230.24G.  The G in the sequence stood for a Milky Way galactic discovery; the 24th Milky Way Galaxy binary neutron star pair found this year.  None of the hundreds of others looked like they would erupt any time soon in the expected life of the Universe aged at near 14 billion years.  And the one he found two years earlier, PSR2228.15G, would not burst within a million years.  But PSR2230.24G revealed a gravity signature of a close and energetic one.  The gravitational perturbations revealed extreme tidal forces exerted on each neutron star creating neutron star quakes.  Cracks, sub-millimeter shifts in neutron star surfaces were enough to disturb the gravitational field of the entire Milky Way Galaxy, the fabric of space-time beyond, shaking even stars and planets and thus triggering his array.

Brent, direct and to the point addressed Detron, From the pair’s frequency, what’s the interval of merger?

The answer did not take long.

Two years, two months.  Detron answered.  At which point from our position in space-time their surfaces touch forming a singularity.

Brent, silent, his heart throbbing fast, thought on this discovery.  Could the extensive infra-metric gravity array data be wrong?  No, it had not been before, he thought.

Beyond shocked, he stood stunned looking at the images on the holoscreen.

The merger time catastrophically short, much shorter than he expected; near infinitely shorter than any other that he had observed.  All of his previous finds had predictions on the order of millions to billions of years.  To discover one that would merge in less than 5,000 years within the Milky Way Galaxy would prove a find indeed.  But to find one that would merge within his lifetime hit him all at once.  He knew then and there he would witness a rare event, one that no one alive had ever observed.  Compared to the others; this was more than just close.  And he knew from the gravity signature that it proved too close.  His heart sank with the realization and the fear that it might be the last thing his eyes would see.  Such a merger would have profound effects on the entire Milky Way Galaxy, Earth and the Solar System’s colonies.  With the data compiled, the crucial question regarding distance remained.

The quantum bio-computer mainframe processed it, downloading data into Detron’s bio-electric brain.  With all the background to sort out, the known distances of nearby stars to consider, the task even with the world’s most advanced quantum bio-computers took time, up to several hours.  Brent queried its progress as he did further study of the close pair.  From past experience the results were always worth the wait; the answer beyond question.  The estimated merger time sat well in Brent's mind, as the mathematics and frequency theory of gravity waves did not deviate from one pair to the next.  He gazed in wonder at the pair displayed on the holoscreen, certain that the burst would occur more or less in the time specified by the computer.  Brent considered the ramifications of it as  Detron made the computations ready and said, I have it.

Brent turned to face Detron and asked evenly, Okay, what’s the pair’s exact distance, energy release and estimated impact time?

Extra data is needed to ascertain that precisely.  Detron replied, From that already processed, the distance is eight hundred twenty-one point six-three light years away.  As Detron spoke, the numbers and statistics came up next to the pair on the wall holoscreen.  Total energy release; in two seconds more than all the stars of the entire known universe.

Brent swallowed hard on that answer.  It hit him all at once.  His worst fears confirmed, this stultifying amount of energy from the merger would arrive in two years, and two months.

What! Brent asked, Are you certain?

Detron turned and said, Yes.

Brent never questioned or doubted results of a quantum bio-computer, but now he did.  For what Brent understood about neutron star mergers, this event so close to Earth meant doom.  Gravity waves did not lie.  They told of the merger that had already happened 819 light years before, and the gamma ray pulse would arrive sometime in August of 2232.  All the while the mainframe quantum bio-computer further narrowed down the figure and loaded information into Detron’s bio-electric brain.  Brent imagined the effects, like the shock waves of trillions of hyper thermonuclear bombs yet to come.  The distance; the cinch in the knot… The estimated distance from the event not anywhere near enough for safety; unless in a galaxy millions if not billions of parsecs away.

In that moment, Brent saw that the stars and the galaxy that he had seen all his life had changed from beauty to hostility.  And with the arrival of one blast wave, it would all come home.

How could I have missed this?  Brent said aloud as he lifted his right hand to his forehead.  He already knew the answer.  The pair’s gravity waves and orientation were all along masked by the huge black hole core of the Milky Way Galaxy.  And an intervening dust cloud further obscured the pair from optical detection.

With a hot flash, a surge of adrenaline gripped him, The deviation of error for this pair; its axis; what is it? Brent asked.  Against all, he hoped that the margin of error was large.  A pulsar pair merger so near is catastrophic, especially if the radial axis of the pair’s rotation points toward the Solar System, as WR 104 axis nearly does.  It would focus the beam of radiation like a laser gun.  A Wolf-Rayet event would be nothing compared to this.

Hypernovas, such as what WR 104 would someday release, had occurred in the past.  Brent had studied them, noting several extinction events at intervals of about 100 million years in the geologic record.  At first only a theory for several of Earth’s mass extinction’s, proof came with the discovery that hypernova radiation left traces; tracks, tiny holes in the crystal structures of the rocks that made up the Earth’s surface at the time of the event. These tracks could be counted, measured, quantified; the sources determined. Such was the case with the Ordovician Extinction, 443 million years ago, when over seventy percent of species became extinct.  But none of those ancient hypernova events at tens of thousand of light years distant were near as deadly as what would come from a gamma ray burster 821 light years away.

Trembling with the import of his discovery, Brent estimated that in August, 2232 the gamma blast wave and its accompanying particle radiation would sweep through the Solar System.  The severity depends on the expelled gamma ray jets radiating like two opposing extremely narrow cones.  Within that path every life form incinerated.  Only those outside the path might have a chance for survival.  Would a radiation cone point toward the Solar System at large?  More facts to gather, Brent was on edge as he conducted direct observations of the pair.  Detron and the mainframe computer continued in the analysis, processing gravity wave data all displayed on the holoscreen. Factor of estimated error is five percent. Detron said, Will be narrowed as more data comes in.

Could it be possible that most of its radiation would miss the Earth? Brent thought, he turned to Detron and said, What’s the pulsar’s orbital axis with respect to the ecliptic?  I need an answer even if the data processing is incomplete.  Brent knew that at 821 light years distance the width of the beam would encompass the entire Solar System.

He reflected on such an event.  The process of gamma burster beam radiation: axis reveals the plane of the combining pair’s matter disk. When gravitationally distorted neutron star surfaces touch, a singularity occurs at the point of contact forming a black hole.  The rest of the neutron pair forms a spiraling disk like a whirlpool.  Neutron star matter, untold billions of kilograms per cubic centimeter, as dense as mountains packed into a sugar cubes approaching the speed of light form a sharply defined super heated disk around the singularity.  Spiraling into the black hole, in mere seconds it ejects along the axis of rotation from each pole a searing blast of neutrons moving at speeds approaching light speed.  This blast of high-speed neutrons and subatomic particles interacting with the light of the collapsing neutron pair produces the observed gamma ray bursts.  The gamma ray burst is secondary to the real danger… High-speed neutrons, sub atomic particles cascading in its wake.  In a vast intense cosmic ray storm, first to come; neutrinos, then searing gamma rays followed by neutrons and subatomic particles.

And Brent considered it, when Detron’s answer came. The numbers displayed on the holoscreen next to the projected pair as Detron said, Orientation, of pair’s orbital axis with respect to the Solar System’s ecliptic; point, zero, zero, zero, zero, zero, one, five, three.

Brent