Dead Hand

Chapter 3

Few would debate that the members of the military are the most visible guardians of their respective nations. But they are not the only ones. As the world becomes a more complex place, many of those who stand watch while their fellow citizens go about their daily routines never touch a gun, let alone step out of an airplane at an altitude of thirty thousand feet. Most do not wear a uniform of any type. The vast majority of them would be taken aback ii someone were to lump them together with the military. Yet all are just as dedicated and skilled in their respective fields as are Captain Patrick Hogg. Sergeant-Chef Stanislaus Dombrowski. Major Andrew Fretello. and Colonel Demetre Orlov. Some of these sentinels without uniform are physicians and lab technicians at the Center for Disease Control, standing ready to repel a biological invasion of the United States by microscopic pathogens. Others belong to the twenty-something generation of computer hackers in the service of Great Britain's Ml 5. where they continue the traditions of World War IIs Blenchly Park by monitoring links to the worldwide Web and laying traps for their malicious counterparts. Though few recognize their roles as such, these men and women are no less vital to their nations as are the men who wear berets.

One of the more obscure groups that fit into this class are the Near-IIarih Object Discovery teams. Though they hail from many countries, astronomers who participate in NFO projects have but one purpose: to search the night skies for objects that pose a threat to planet Earth. From observatories around the globe, these teams scan the heavens, using an instrument called a "charged couple device," or CCD. Similar in purpose and function to a camcorder, CCD cameras digitally record several images of the same region of the sky over a period of time, usually an hour. The images are then analyzed by computers to determine if any object captured by the CCD has systematically moved in relationship to known stars, which tend to remain fixed in place. When a suspect image has been identified as something other than a star or planet, it is studied in order to ascertain its precise location, size, and, most important, its projected trajectory.

If, as a result of this closer examination, it is determined that the newly discovered object and its orbit may place it in close proximity to the earth, it is classified as a near-earth object. Given a name, the newly discovered NEO is added to a list of known NEO's and monitored. If a NEO's travel through space will bring it to within what is called an earth "minimum-orbit intersection distance," or MOID, it is classified as a potentially hazardous asteroid, or PHA, PHA's, quite naturally, receive special attention. By the end of the beginning of the third millennium of the Common Era, there were over seven thousand known asteroids, with several times that number yet to be discovered.

Asteroids come in many sizes and shapes. The largest known asteroid is 1 Ceres, measuring some 933 kilometers in diameter, or somewhat greater in width than the distance between Washington, D. C., and New York City. The smallest are measured in inches. The asteroid that is credited with bringing the age of dinosaurs to a close, known as the KT Event, was estimated to be 12 kilometers, or 7.2 miles in diameter. When it plowed into the earth some sixty-five million years ago, it gouged out a primary crater 180 kilometers wide. This single event created so much havoc to Earth's climate and environment that it is estimated that two thirds of all species in existence at the time passed into extinction.

An even more spectacular event, if one can use that word to describe such a catastrophic occurrence, led to the creation of Earth's moon. Today it is generally believed that an object the size of Mars, which measures some 6,800 kilometers in diameter, collided with Earth, which is 12,753 kilometers in diameter. The resulting impact threw tremendous amounts of debris into space. In time, this rubble was drawn together to form the moon. That particular cosmic event and its results are credited with creating Earth as it is known today.

The discovery of this geographic history has given the study of asteroids a greater sense of urgency and importance. While the time span between planet-killing events such as the KT Event is measured in millions of years, the fact that astronomers have been unable to identify all but the smallest number of these unwanted visitors has engendered a degree of paranoia among some of those who specialize in this area. For them, it is not a question of "if." Rather, they endeavor to prepare for the time "when" Earth will be struck by an extinction-level event. Like other professionals, the men and women who are part of various Near-Earth Object Discovery teams are committed to searching the skies, waiting, watching, and hoping that somehow their efforts will provide the time necessary to do something about any potential threat.

This effort is not an easy one, for not all asteroids are alike and their travels are often less than predictable. The pull of gravity by the sun and other planets, the weight and shape of the asteroid, not to mention random collisions with other asteroids, influence the path of an asteroid. All of these calculations include some high-speed guessing. To start with, the exact weight of an asteroid cannot be precisely measured. Unlike planets, asteroids are not round. Some look like peanuts. Others bear a striking resemblance to potatoes. Besides their irregular shapes, the exact composition of an asteroid is difficult to gauge. By far, the most numerous are C-type asteroids. Accounting for seventy-five percent of all known asteroids, they tend to be dark. C-type asteroids have the same chemical composition as the Sun, minus hydrogen, helium, and other volatiles. The next largest class are those of the S-type. S-types are made up of a metallic nickel-iron, mixed with iron and magnesium silicates. These are considerably brighter in appearance.

Most asteroids that come into contact with Earth never make it to the earth's surface. Instead, they fall victim to the atmosphere, much as a dead man-made satellite does when gravity finally reclaims it. This is what happened in 1908 when an asteroid measuring fifty to sixty meters in diameter was pulled off its path and onto a collision course by Earth's gravity. Traveling at a speed of twelve to twenty kilometers a second, this stony asteroid exploded approximately six kilometers, or twenty thousand feet above the Tunguska region of Siberia with an estimated force of at least twenty megatons. Had this event taken place over a populated section of the world, say Western Europe instead of the barren wastelands of Eastern Russia, it would have been listed as the greatest natural disaster in recorded history. Knowing full well that the next visit by such an alien force may not be so obliging, the NEO teams watch, plot, and project the travels of a threat few of their fellow human beings concern themselves with.

One of these tireless guardians was a middle-aged astronomer by the name of Frederick Kellermann. As part of the joint French and German OCA-DLR Asteroid Survey Team, it was his task to review the data at the Institute of Planetary Exploration in Berlin, Germany, that was gathered by the Observatoire de la d'Azur, located in southern France. A sickly child, Kellermann had spent much of his youth in clinics and hospitals. Though the quiet orderliness of those institution^ appealed to him, the suffering he endured while confined in them prevented him from pursuing a medical career.

Instead, he opted to pursue another field of study that was just as orderly, and even more sedate: astronomy. Throughout the years when he had few friends and little freedom to wander about this earth, Frederick Kellermann was drawn to the distant heavens. They were boundless, yet orderly. Always in motion, but quite predictable. And above all else, they were silent. Whether it was in the dimly lit office where he spent many an hour hunched over his computer, picking his way through digitized information forwarded to him, or perched behind a telescope under the cavernous dome of an observatory, the German astronomer cherished the reserved world in which astronomers existed. What thoughts and words filled his head were his, and his alone. He could dwell on them and organize them as he saw fit, just as he sought to establish an orderliness out of the marauding chunks of rock and iron that threatened planet Earth. Perhaps one day, Kellermann dreamed, there would be a way of controlling these menaces just as effectively and efficiently as he did his own thoughts and words.

On this particular night, Kellermann was reviewing data on a number of PHA's, potentially hazardous asteroids, that were coming around for another encounter with Earth. None were expected to be of any great danger. All had been identified, analyzed, categorized, named, and listed. Since their travels were predictable, the computer that maintained the list spit out their names when they were about to reach their projected earth minimum-orbit intersection distance so that NEO teams could turn their attention to them, analyze their current activities, and update the data they provided.

Among the PHA's that Kellermann was studying on this night was one bearing the designation Nereus 1991 HWC. It would be making a close pass to Earth shortly, coming to within.0032 AU's, or astronomical units. An AU is equal to the distance of the earth to the sun: 150 million kilometers, or 93 million miles. Since the distance between Earth and its moon is.0027 AU's, that means that Nereus 1991 HWC would, for a period of time, be right there in the neighborhood, so to say. During close encounters such as this, an asteroid is monitored with greater frequency. In the case of Nereus 1991 HWC, its angle of attack and the rotation of Earth itself put the Observatoire de la d'Azur in the best position to track it.

Measuring less than one hundred meters in diameter, Nereus 1991 HWC was definitely not a planet killer. But it was still a threat, one that Frederick Kellermann was charged that night with inspecting. From file data, the German astronomer knew that Nereus 1991 HWC was a small S-type asteroid that tumbled about the inner solar system, which meant that it was close enough to the sun to be stripped of most of its gases and liquids. Asteroids, sometimes referred to as comets, that spend most of their time in the far reaches of the solar system retain many of the gases and liquids that are part of their formation. It is only when they come close, relatively speaking, to the sun that these gases and liquids are heated and shed, creating the long tail that characterizes them. Lacking this cosmic signature, and due to its small size and dark profile, Nereus 1991 HWC was a bit more difficult, but not impossible, to track.

In combat, routine can kill. Soldiers who follow a pattern, who execute their duties in a predictable manner, often set themselves up for disaster. An enemy who is aware of his foe's habits can exploit those routines in many ways. The most obvious is to lay an ambush. But that is only one way of exploiting a pattern. An opponent can hide what he chooses from an enemy when the "scheduled" enemy patrol is due to arrive. This technique is used on a strategic level by nations that are concerned about satellite surveillance by a foreign power. Since the orbit of a spy satellite can be predicted, a foe can cease certain activity while it is overhead. This can be used at any level. An opposite approach can be equally effective. Called a ruse, one side deploys false emplacements, dummies, or stages mock maneuvers so that his foe's intelligence community will generate a false picture of their opponent's capability, activities, or intentions. This is what the Allies did in World War II before D day, when George S. Patton was placed in command of an army group consisting of plywood tanks and empty troop camps.

In the world of science, however, routine is cherished. This is especially true for astronomers, who often find themselves dealing with phenomena that are as predictable as the stars. The scientist must be most meticulous and precise when tracking and dealing with objects that appear, even when enhanced, as little more than pinpricks in the night sky. Entities as small as Nereus 1991 HWC can be tracked only with the use of computer programs that generate an image a human would not otherwise be able to view. Yet even the most sophisticated computers have their limits, especially when it comes to detecting things that are smaller than a fraction of a pixel.

On this night, Frederick Kellermann had a number of PHA's to look at. He took them in the order of the priority that his superior at the Institute of Planetary Exploration had established for him. Kellermann reviewed the latest images captured by the CCD at the Observatoire de la d'Azur. Next, he ran this information through a program that matched the new data with that which had been previously generated to see if there were any changes or variations in the projected trajectory of each PHA. Since asteroids are small, the gravitational pull of larger planets and moons, including Earth's can affect them. The same invisible force that holds the moon captive can, and on occasion does, draw other celestial objects toward Earth. This is where the great danger comes from in regard to PHA's. Like a steel ball-bearing rolling about in a maze of magnets, the path of an asteroid can be bent this way or that whenever it comes close to a planet. Since Nereus 1991 HWC's travels also took it close to Mars, there was concern that the pull of Martian gravity would alter the asteroid's trajectory. A quick comparison of the computer generated plot with the historical data satisfied Kellermann that this had not happened, not this time.

Next, the German ran the program that factored in the moon's potential impact on the incoming visitor. Since the moon would be hidden behind Earth when Nereus 1991 HWC swept in and made its pass, the moon would be unable to influence the asteroid. The final check was to do the same for Earth itself, for the very planet that the NEO teams were trying to protect had the potential to draw in a fatal asteroid with a blind determination not unlike that which a disgraced samurai warrior relies upon when he plunges his own sword through himself.

When all these checks had been made, using the same techniques and routines used to analyze each PHA, Frederick Kellermann leaned back in his seat, lifted his hands above his head, and stretched. As he did so, he stared at the image of Nereus 1991 HWC for a moment. Like all the other PHA's he had studied and would see before this night was out, Nereus 1991 HWC was behaving as it should. It afforded him no surprises and generated no concern. It was adhering to the routine that Kellermann had come to expect, in a manner not at all unlike the one Kellermann himself was following.

Glancing at his watch as he lowered his hands back to the computer's keyboard, the German astronomer saw that time was slipping away. He still had a dozen more targeted PHA's that he needed to look at before his shift was over. Without another thought, he reached out and automatically closed the file on his screen, never once suspecting that another object, a tiny, dark C-type asteroid was fast closing on Nereus 1991 HWC. Too small to be detected by the CCD at the Observatoire de la d'Azur, this unnamed chunk of space rock was on a collision course with Nereus 1991 HWC. Out of sight of the seven billion inhabitants of Earth, this rock, measuring less than five meters in diameter, slammed into the larger asteroid and set in motion a chain reaction that would create a crisis unlike anything seen on Earth since the KT Event.