Rogue Wave

Chapter 24

The reason Gail Wentworth joined the Satellite Analysis Branch of the Operational Significant Event Imagery team was because they were the first to see images of every major environmental event in the world. Any time a volcano erupted or a cyclone blew across the ocean, the OSEI redirected its satellites to capture it. And Gail had a front row seat.

But even with everything that she had seen in her five years at OSEI, the call from Hawaii Civil Defense had come as a shock. She was still having trouble believing that there really could have been a meteor impact. In her wildest dreams, she never thought she'd get a request to look for evidence of one. Her specialty was the use of satellite imagery for storm track projection, so her first instinct was to work with the satellite technology at her fingertips.

Just as Gail Wentworth expected, clouds obscured the ocean in the area of the Palmyra Atoll, rendering the GOES-10 satellite images worthless. Both the 18:30 GMT and the 19:00 GMT photos showed a blank expanse of white that stretched for 200 miles in all directions around the supposed impact site. Not that she really knew what she was looking for. At that moment, she didn't savor the irony of having a PhD in meteorology but knowing virtually nothing about meteors.

The equipment, like the GOES-10 that hovered in a geostationary orbit thousands of miles from Earth, was used primarily to map large weather systems, particularly hurricanes. It wasn't intended for impact detection. With a resolution of one pixel per mile, even a major impact might only be 10 pixels across. There was a tiny patch of slightly darker cloud cover in the vicinity of the latitude and longitude given to her by Dr. Tanaka, but that could have been anything. Without a higher resolution photo, she couldn't confirm an impact.

The only other scientist in the operations center with her that day was Nathan Gentry. Gail was loathe to call on him for help. His satellite data analysis was top-notch, often detecting patterns that no one else saw, but he spoke in a nasal whine that Gail could take for only a few minutes, and his personal hygiene was spotty at best. He often wore the same clothes to work multiple days in a row; his current shirt was on day three. But he also had a hobby that was directly applicable to her crisis. Gentry was an amateur astronomer.

Gentry leaned over Gail's desk, peering at the GOES satellite image on her computer. She wrinkled her nose in disgust, but Gentry was oblivious to her repulsion.

"It would be so cool if there was an impact," he said, "but you'll never be able to see it on that."

Gail knew that, but she didn't want to spend time defending her analysis.

"Did you check the POES image?" she asked. POES was their polar orbiting satellite system. It circled only a few hundred miles above the Earth.

"No image from that time of the day from any satellites. Besides, there's not enough resolution on them, either. We're not going to see it on anything we have."

"What else is there? LANDSAT? IKONOS?" Both of those satellite systems were capable of high resolution photos from their low orbits, but it would be sheer luck if one of them had been over that region at the time of impact.

"Those and military. A spy satellite would give a great view, but no one spies on the central Pacific as far as I know."

Gail threw her hands up in frustration.

"Then how are we going to find out if there was an impact?"

"I called a guy I know at Goddard Space Flight Center. He works on LANDSAT. They sent a new satellite up last year with a much wider field of view than LANDSAT-7, one that takes photos every thirty seconds on a constant basis. Can you believe that?"

Gail nodded in appreciation for the advance in technology. She wished for that kind of capability at OSEI. In a normal day, they were lucky to get 100 pictures from some of their satellites. Of course, they could take photos more frequently in an emergency, but they needed to set that up ahead of time. For events in the past, they were stuck with what was already photographed.

In her opinion, she shouldn't have even gotten this request. A meteor impact that no one knows about? Gail thought NASA had dropped the ball on this one.

"Wouldn't NASA see an asteroid headed toward Earth?" she asked. "We should have heard about this days ago, maybe even months ago."

Gentry scooped up one of the memos from her desk and pointed at the text.

"You see the period at the end of that sentence. Now imagine being two miles away from it. Think you could see it?"

Gail glared at him. Another annoying habit of his was to talk down to her.

"If I had a telescope, I might."

"Right. You might. If you knew exactly where to look. Well, that's what it's like trying to find a 500-meter-wide asteroid that's five million miles away."

"But as it gets closer to Earth, wouldn't it get easier to see?"

"Asteroids move at 25,000 miles per hour. It would get here in less than ten days. And there aren't nearly enough telescopes around the world to find every chunk of rock flying around out there. I know, because I'm in Spaceguard."

"Spaceguard?" She stifled a snicker. It sounded like an alien star fleet squadron. Gail wasn't surprised Gentry belonged to something like that.

"It's a group of astronomers around the world who spend their time cataloguing all of the asteroids in the solar system. I've discovered two myself." He said it as if he'd invented electricity.

"So if you're all looking," Gail said, "you should have seen one big enough to cause a tsunami."

"Not necessarily. In 2002, an asteroid came within 75,000 miles of Earth, well within the orbit of the moon. The asteroid was 100 meters in diameter, big enough to destroy a major city if it had collided with Earth." He paused for effect.

"It missed," Gail finally said.

"Right. Barely. But the date of closest approach was June 14. The asteroid was detected on June 17. Three days after it had gone by. It's completely believable that the first we would know about an asteroid was after an impact. In fact, it's lucky it hasn't happened up until now."

"We don't know it has happened."

"We will soon."

As if to punctuate Gentry's remark, the phone rang. Gail expected it to be HCD calling to get an update, but it was a scientist from Goddard for Gentry. He took the phone from her and said "yes" a few times before scribbling on a pad and hanging up.

"Come on," he said. "I've got an email."

He left Gail's desk. She followed reluctantly.

"What is it?" she asked.

"Something you'll want to see. Lucky for us, the new LANDSAT was in the right place at the right time."

Gentry plopped himself at his computer and logged into his email.

A series of images popped up. Gail drew in a sharp breath at each one, ignoring the odor wafting from Gentry.

Until this moment, she hadn't really expected to find anything, but what she saw made her a convert. She was a believer.

The implications of the photos flew through her mind. An airliner carrying hundreds of people had already been lost because of what she was looking at. Now she knew that was only the beginning.

"Oh my God," she said, horrified at the thought of the destruction to come.

"I know," Gentry said, grinning at the pictures on the screen. "Isn't it cool?"