If you poke God in the eye he’s bound to get pissed. At least that’s what the Luddites back on Earth are saying. We spent ten years building the Massive Lunar Interferometer, then another six months calibrating the damned thing. At last, we got some clear signals – our first sampling of very low-frequency radio waves from the beginnings of time. After two more months of number crunching by the eggheads back on Earth, we were rewarded with mankind’s first glorious glimpse at the big bang itself. The celebration did not last long.
While most of the world’s astronomers were focused on the view from the dark side of the moon damned if Hell didn’t open up this side of Mars in the form of an uncharted comet now dubbed Hades.
I always figured we’d destroy ourselves via one of the usual suspects – war, overpopulation, genetically modified biotics. The Near Earth Object Defense System had rendered threats from asteroids and comets a thing of the past, or so we thought. The odds of an object too large for the system to handle were astronomical – no pun intended. Well, Hades is just such an object – a mostly water/ice comet larger than Deimos that no one saw coming in anywhere near enough time.
If the calculations are right it impacted just east of the Azores about two minutes ago. So here we are on the far side of the moon gathered ’round the base of Array #7 watching for the plume of ejecta to rise over the horizon. Marv says it should be beautiful.
by J.M. Strother ~ © 2011 by J. M. Strother, all rights reserved.
