Stardust 2017 Science Fiction Writing - Winning entries

FIRST POSITION:
Soul mate in the multiverse
 
15th August 2071
Augmented Warp Drive Launch Vehicle Complex, Satish Dhawan Space Centre, Sriharikota, India (13°43’ N 80°13’ E)

“A severe drought due to devastating human advancements over the decade has left the world’s populace in starvation. The Exoplanet Exploration Organization setup under the aegis of the United Nations has been unsuccessful in finding sustainable alternative for Earth. The future of human race looks bleak with the Multiverse Wormhole Drive System (MUWOS) seeming to be the only option in hand. This launch congregates the efforts of M.S.Vishweshwara , an eminent Indian scientist in proving the existence of parallel universes , possessing exotic new worlds paving the way for existence of the human race” read a digi-news article of the Global Times, as Major Rudra Pratap , the flight commander of the Warp Drive Shuttle TS-42 initiated the countdown for the launch.

A sense of nervousness filled the atmosphere at the ground command as the Program Director Gen.Trivikram Samrat and General Secretary of United Asia Kaldev Narayan gave the nod for the launch. The ion propulsion system of the WOLV-Mk(III) launcher boomed shattering the glasses in the vicinity , propelling the shuttle to heliopause within a hour and half of the launch. A reminiscent Maj. Rudra , radioed the earth station about the successful completion of Phase – 1 , as he looked at his wife Vice Marshal Indumati Pratap seated with Colonel Fujikawa of the Japanese Aviation Corp. A feeling of complexity filled his head as his wife and the Colonel nodded their heads in approval of initiating the warp drive over the event horizon of the supermassive black hole Ghatotkach – which by studies should act as a wormhole(Einstein-Rosen bridge) in providing a singularity of transit to parallel universes . As the system locked on for the jump, the trio experienced dilation of space and time around the continuum. Maj . Rudra turned to his wife and said ,”Dear, no matter what happens in this journey , I will remain in your memory forever “ with a tearful eye. The shuttle warped around the accretion disk , where the true fabric of nature dismantled , engulfing even light and all that the trio could see now was darkness as they experienced
extreme G forces. Monstrous clouds of cosmic radiation and matter from the
nearby neutron star started to rattle the shuttle ,and within a second the
three capsules of the shuttle containing the trio dismantled and Maj. Rudra
stood as the lone survivor after having ejected his pod. Huge trauma
overtook him as he began desperately searching his wife but to no avail. The
individual cells of his body began to pixelate as they began to drift in to the
white hole , which until now contradicted the founding pillars of the universe*
and he was reduced to merely a fragment of a new universe where
indefinite continued progress of existence and events that occur in
irreversible succession abruptly stopped and past, present and future
became one. This new universe ,sustained itself on the realms of the Planck’s
scale , and Maj Rudra now merely a virtuality ,yearned for his lost love.

* The white hole is said to decrease the entropy of the universe. In this context
the other universe allows the possibility of the above, thus redefining the
fundamentals of thermodynamics , which according to Albert Einstein is the
basic pillar of physics which is eternal.
* The parallel universe here is unlimited by time , as the very concept of
change i.e., time(popularly known as the fourth dimension) is non-existent.
By,
Adhitya K
NIT Trichy – B.Tech (I year) Mechanical Engineering


SECOND POSITION:

My name is Albert Brown, and this is my story. 

My father Michael Brown and his colleague were those that had theorised the existence of ‘Planet Nine’.  He worked tirelessly to predict its existence. His effort brought him closer than anyone else, but it sapped his health.  

Around the time I was 12, my father breathed his last. I decide to start where he left off.  Soon I found myself as one of the youngest astrophysicists in a senior position at NASA. 

Then an event occurred that changed my life altogether. Our sensors detected a stream of signals that seemed like absolute garbage. They were reportedly sent from a fast moving metallic object roughly 3 astronomical units from the sun, headed our way. They turned to us for help. 

The signals seemed to mean absolutely nothing. When we on the verge of giving up, I began to notice a pattern in the signal. It was something similar to the patterns in signals we used.

It almost seemed as if those signals were sent by us. Soon the mysterious object emerged from behind the sun and we received visual evidence confirmed that it was quite surprisingly, voyager 1. This seemed odd. Current technology predicted that the probe must be in the Oort cloud. But here it was. 

A question kept nagging me.  Why did voyager 1 turn around? On a whim I skimmed through my dad’s notes and ran some simulations while cross referencing with the NASA databanks. I realised the need for something of immense gravitational field to turn voyager 1 around. Moreover voyager was hurtling towards us as if it had picked up more speed. I realised that it could mean that voyager had taken a slingshot by ‘Planet Nine’. I wanted to publish a paper, but due to lack of evidence I kept my revelations quiet. 

Soon as word got out, the higher ups decided that Voyager 1 would be examined by specialists at the SkyLab. I pulled some strings and soon I spearheaded the project.

On examining we realised that the transmission system had taken considerable damage due to dust. However the modulation system was on point. It seemed as if the onboard systems on the Voyager had been programmed to calculate the distance from earth by taking into account the time that had passed and the speed that it was reported to travel at, and accommodate for any red shift. However this backfired when Voyager took an unexpected change of course. Due to the system damage, while the on board systems recorded data continuously, the last transmission to earth was churned out over and over again, on a loop. This explained the odd signals we were getting all this time. 

And that was the moment all the colossal implications of that struck me.  If the systems were still recording and storing research data, and were intact, there was a possibility that it may have picked up data on ‘Planet Nine’. I immediately set the process of publishing the paper into motion. As we combed through the endless data, there it was.  Like a pearl in the middle of an oyster, all the data mankind may ever have on ‘Planet Nine’. This made my paper rock solid. My breakthrough was hailed as one of the greatest of this millennium. 

Soon ‘Planet Nine’ would become a full member of the solar system, heck there were even talks about me sharing a Nobel with my dad and his colleague. But none of that mattered, course a Nobel Prize would be awesome, but I was glad to have fulfilled my father’s legacy. 

By 

Harish Ramesh 

EEE

THIRD POSITION:

Voyager I Reborn

By Joy Bhattacharya

23 December 2023

Finally, it had happened, the Voyager I ran out of power. It was a given, and hopefully, we had predicted it on time.

1 June 2018

The pressure from the Voyager I  signaling department was increasing, they had predicted that the Uranium based fission reactor will be going out of order, before 2022. Which had left us with no option but to start a new support project or to abandon our only view beyond the heliosheath.

The committee had taken a big hit, financially as well as morally due to the failure of the launch of Voyager IV, which, as the NASA claimed was running on a "controlled" fusion reactor.

We needed a breakthrough to empower the craft to travel the 15.9 billion km journey.

1 April 2019

The CERN announced that their EM drive projects a success, under the 20-year-old Dr. Shermann. Initially, we thought it was a prank, as the whole world stood confused and the social media went crazy over the infinite scope of research this would enable and of course, finding aliens.

The NASA president called the CERN immediately and confirmed the news. The next step was an increase in budget, it never fails to awe me, how the congress showers money on the NASA at the slightest glimpse of hope only to block it later. But this was a true miracle, and not funding it would be stupid.

1 June 2019

Within 3 months of its invention, a fully tested industry grade prototype was ready. The only thing holding us back was the rocket body. Yes, for the first time, the shell was holding us back.

But the good news was round the corner, the fusion reactor we had been testing had finally succeeded in all safety tests. The secret was the new polymer-like zigzagged and layered graphene, which was extremely heat-resistant and an efficient neutron absorber. The reactor could now be accommodated within a bus.

27 December 2023

Although late by 2 months, the Phoenix I had finally reached the voyager.  Not to mention, we received the message 33 hours after it's attainment of terminal velocity with respect to the Voyager I.

The next step was attachment, followed by disengaging of Phoenix I, into surplus parts and the Autobot (nostalgic, ain't it?), which would then reattach Phoenix to Voyager I.

The attachment went fine and so did disengagement, from our side at least, it would take 33 hours for a confirmation. The air grew tenser with time.

4 June 2019

The discovery of the fusion reactor and the EM drive would engrave 2019 in the history of physics.But with the next new structure, at least a year away, testing was the only thing we could hope to do.

The NASA president, however, had a trick under his sleeve, the model for Voyager I, the one used to train foreign signal catchers. And there we had our support structure.

28 December 2023

The next report came in and was bad. The phoenix parts couldn't be reassembled into the Voyager I, because of the size difference, but we had come far enough to turn back.

The next set of commands asked Autobot to cleverly dismantle the Voyager I and reattach only the comms to the internals of phoenix I.

5 September 2019

Work on project Phoenix I had started immediately. The plan was to have the fission reactor in the middle, with two hydrogen tanks on both the sides. The EM drives will be in the front and the back acting as propulsion or breaks.

The EM drives could only generate power in order on millinewtons per 80W of power supplied. However, the nuclear reactor would solve the problem.

30 December 2023

The next report came in. SUCCESS!!

The comms were working and compatible with the new instruments.

17 December 2019

The launch was timed at 1720 hours, with the President and the whole Cabinet as the witness, the Phoenix I successfully launched into the dark oblivion only to burn and rejuvenate.

31 December 2024, 23:59

The final report from Voyager I came over, "Good Bye, Voyager I" we all shouted as tears dripped from everyone's eyes.

1 January 2025, 00:00

The report continued, but this was no more Voyager I, it was the reborn Phoenix II.

We all welcomed this new year with eyes glimmering with tears of farewell and hope for the future.

Laser Pointers in Stargazing!

Our fingers are great tools. We use them to eat, pick our noses, and of course, point at things. However when pointing at things in the sky, fingers usually aren't long enough. When one beckons at a star overhead to a friend, he/she often meets cries along the lines of "Where? Where? What? That one? WHERE?" Modern laser pointers have changed that situation.

Laser pointers are instruments capable of producing powerful beams of light, which can be seen scattering in the lower atmosphere, and make it easy to point out astronomical objects. Generally, astronomical laser pointers are green and more powerful than standard ones used for presentations and such. Even though red lasers are the standard and can propagate the longest distance without scattering, green lasers are preferred for celestial pointing. This is because the human eye is much more sensitive to green light than red light. These usually use a neodymium diode core as the main component of the instrument.

Generally, the units used by astronomers have a power rating of no more than 5 mW. Nonetheless, these can still be harmful if the beam hits the human eye directly. A standard pointing laser viewed at point blank range will appear brighter than the sun, and since the rays are aligned and coherent, they can cause severe damage to the retina. Industrial class lasers can blind you instantaneously. (Lasers can be pretty darn dangerous!) 

Another hazard of lasers arises from a rather ironic reason - pointing them at the sky. Celestial objects aren't the only thing you can see above you. The sky is 'inhabited' by aircraft flying overhead frequently. The risk of the laser beam hitting the eyes of a pilot or messing with instruments is extremely worrying, and could potentially lead to a disaster. Because of this, several countries have regulations regarding laser pointers, even requiring the people owning the higher power lasers to register with government authorities. There are cases of people who have pointed lasers at airplanes, been reported by the pilots, and subsequently been arrested. This is a serious issue. Clearly, with great power comes great responsibility.

Laser pointers are a wonderful thing. When used right, they can be extremely handy astronomical aids and help bring to the joy of astronomy to everyone.

THIS IS A 5mW GREEN LASER POINTER PRESENTED TO US BY ONE OF OUR CLUB FOUNDER, CEE!

Content writer: Venkatraman Srikanth (1st year, Nakshatra)

My best experience in astronomy

Posted this is in a facebook astronomy group, in which someone had asked which was my most beautiful experience in astronomy:

Some 6 years ago, I just bought my first telescope (which I am still using). I was looking for the Andromeda Galaxy and could not at all find it. But eventually I did! It looked grey and spherical and got darker away from the center. It was so beautiful... I showed it to mom and she said it looked heavenly! 

When I later fired up Stellarium, I slowly realized that what I saw was not in the Andromeda constellation at all! I could not explain it. The object turned out to be in the constellation Perseus, because I recognized the stars around the object. But Stellarium showed nothing where the object was supposed to be! Finally, I realized that it was the comet I read about in astronomy blogs that had suddenly and mysteriously brightened by a factor of almost a million (the comet was at mag ~3 when I saw it). I was so happy I saw a comet, that too just a few weeks after I bought my first telescope! 

More about it here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comet_Holmes

Almost everyone I have met had some story or the other they just had to share about the night they first saw the Milky Way, the time they woke up early and saw dozens of shooting stars, the first time they ever looked through a telescope...which was your most beautiful experience in astronomy? 

Life on asteroids : Is it Possimpible?

"The surface area of Elsevere is only three quarters that of the State of New York, but that’s irrelevant. Remember, we can occupy, if we wish, the entire interior of Elsevere. A sphere of 50 miles radius has a volume of well over half a million cubic miles. If all of Elsevere were occupied by levels 50 feet apart, the total surface area within the planetoid would be 56,000,000 square miles, and that is equal to the total land area of Earth. And none of these square miles, Doctor, would be unproductive.” 

-Councillor Elvis Blei, 

"Strikebreaker", by Isaac Asimov

In the year 1957, Asimov not only gave humanity an idea of how it is possible to terraform asteroids, but also how to exist in them. That was not the only story in SF towards the colonization of asteroids during that time. In fact, from around 1960's these ideas have been cropping up in many famous stories and movies. For example, in the adventures of Lucky Starr and Pirates of the Asteroids, Uncle Scrooge (Island in the sky, March 1960), X-Men comics (Asteroid M in X-Men #5,1964), and of course, Futurama, the humans(or intelligent life-forms) have managed to create a habitat on/in asteroids.

So, scientifically speaking, is it possible to exist on/in asteroids? Well, it does have its own advantages, and disadvantages.

Advantages :

• Low gravity - Any construction work, equipment, and movement will be a lot more easier to handle than here on earth, or even moon. That means, everything that needs to be manufactured for supporting life on an asteroid, can be structurally weak(cheap) and still be good.
• High-quality minerals - Minerals which are quite difficult to obtain on earth, like platinum, tungsten, etc. might be easily available on asteroids. The occupation pays for itself!
• Large number of sites - If a base is created on one large asteroid, all you need to do is travel to nearby asteroids and collect minerals or establish a base, which, frankly, is the easiest part.
• Scientific Research - The need of low gravity environments for research in areas like Materials engineering would be very easy.
• Adventure - There are always people volunteering to do dangerous stuff for the thrill of it. Adrenaline pumping adventure would be the first thing on the list for any human being brave(or mental) enough to volunteer for helping establish a base on an asteroid. Of course, he/she would also need to scientifically and technologically sound.

Disadvantages :

• Low gravity - Humans are not(yet) adapted to live in low gravity conditions. So, either artificial gravity, or adaptation is necessary, to survive for extended periods on an asteroid.
• Fuel - Even in the asteroid belt, the Sun is too far to provide adequate energy for extraction of minerals, let alone conducting scientific research. Unless a way is found to harness energy efficiently from the Sun, or Laser power beaming (Wireless Electricity) becomes advanced enough to transfer energy to large distances, fuel(the lack of it) remains a big drawback.
• Radiation Hazards - A permanent colony on any asteroid would definitely need to perfect a technology to mimic Earth's Ozone Layer, magnetosphere, and ionosphere, to survive outside space suits. 
• Spatial Hazards - Moon's distinct markings and craters reminds us that even though it looks beautiful when you see it 384,400 km from there, being on the receiving end is actually quite hazardous for health. This is when the moon is literally a planet away from the asteroid belt. Being on the asteroid belt then, would obviously be even more dangerous.
• Food and Water - Organic life forms would definitely need sustenance to perform optimally. Of course, with studies showing that 5% water is present in an asteroid's crust, it might actually sound hopeful, but then, Earth is 71% water, and look where it has got us now. It would be possible to ship food and water from Earth or a Martian base, but the best bet would be recycling.

So the big question really is whether human technology is ready for getting human beings to an asteroid and getting them back alive. Well, that would depend on whether humans do actually have the spirit of cooperation to pool their resources on a scientific space odyssey for their own good and science's advancement or rather squabble meaninglessly over everyday issues on who gets to loot more oil, and who plays the big brother. If we do come to our collective senses, then yes, it would be very much possible.
And if this becomes a reality, the biggest winner would be us.

P.S: Wondering about the title, just click here!

Timekeeping in Astronomy

"Captian's log, stardate 1513.1. Our position: Orbiting planet M-113. Onboard the Enterprise: Mr. Spock temporarily in command. On the planet: the ruins of an ancient and long dead civilization. Ship surgeon McCoy and myself are now beaming down to the planet's surface. Our mission: routine medical examination of archaeologist Robert Crater and his wife, Nancy. Routine, but for the fact that Nancy Crater is that one woman in Dr. McCoy's past."

 - Opening of Star Trek: The Original Series, Season 1, Episode 1; "The Man Trap"

If you're curious like me, you'd have noticed that the Captain's log from Star Trek used some form of strange new system of measuring time. What does stardate 1513.1 represent? It turns out, it doesn't really mean much. It was just another way of making the show look futuristic. From Wikipedia:

"We invented "Stardate" to avoid continually mentioning Star Trek's century (actually, about two hundred years from now), and getting into arguments about whether this or that would have developed by then. Pick any combination of four numbers plus a percentage point and use it as your story's stardate."

But interestingly, the convention used by astronomers to keep time is very similar sounding to the stardate system seen in Star Trek. Astronomers use what is called a Julian Date whenever the time and date of a measurement needs to be mentioned.

Calendars have a long and messy history. The calendar system that is in use around the world today is called the Gregorian Calendar. People only started using this calendar in the late 1500s. Before that there was something called the Julian Calendar which was introduced by Julius Caesar in 45 BC. These are two big calendars. But there were also a lot of other calendars in use by different countries and cultures. A look at calendar systems in wikipedia shows a mind boggling and confusing list of widely varying systems. Some are similar, some are wildly incompatible. Also, due to the fact that the time taken by the earth to go around the sun is not an exact integer multiple of a day, errors inevitably arise when measuring time in years or months. Astronomers needed a standardized method of referring to time for astronomical observations. This was the motivation behind the adoption of the Julian Date.

A Julian Day Number is an integer that represents the number of days that have passed since 1st January 4713 BC in the proleptic Julian Calendar or 24th November 4714 BC in the proleptic Gregorian Calendar. (NOTE: A preleptic calendar is a calendar obtained by extending a calendar system backwards in time to date before AD 4)

The Julian Date of any point in time is the Julian Day Number of the previous day along with a decimal number that represents the fraction of the next day that has passed.

For example, the 1st of January, 2014 1800 hrs is represented by a Julian Date of $2456659.25$

I hope everyone has a wonderful time celebrating another complete revolution of the Earth around the Sun. An exciting year lies ahead!

The Beginner's Guide to the Galaxy

So you're interested in space and you're bored of watching documentaries on Nat Geo or the Discovery Channel. And you want something to do during the power cuts. Don't panic, here's our beginner's guide to astronomy.

So, shall we take that telescope?
Not so fast! That's one misconception that many people have. You don't need to have a telescope to begin astronomy. I'm not kidding. The sky is a calendar and there is so much you can learn with just limited tools! Once you're familiar with spotting basics objects like planets, Orion nebula and constellations, you can buy binoculars and telescopes. if you have a good budget, go for buying good quality "reflective" telescopes.

Now what?
There's tons of stuff that you can see with your eyes - satellites, planets like Mars, Jupiter, Venus, Saturn; the ISS (the international space station), the Pleiades star cluster (a...cluster of stars, duh), meteors and even the Orion Nebula (A collection of gas visible to the naked eye) . Stellarium is a good software that will help you find these objects () If you have an android, download Google sky map.

Start out getting familiar with the sky. First try to notice a very prominent constellation like Ursa Major or Orion the Hunter. You'll realize that most constellations barely resemble what they're supposed to represent :/ After that, it should be easy to spot the other objects using relative positions.

www.heavens-above.com will help you to spot satellites and the ISS, just make sure you set the home location to Trichy or Wherever You Live Town. Many 'iridium flares'  - bright reflections from a certain type of satellite - would be visible during the evening, it is quite fun to watch them swimming slowly across the sky. Once you have registered and entered your location, you can click the links for iridium flares and the ISS to see when they are visible.

Cool machi! What's next?
Just have an open mind. Remember, we're all amateurs here when it comes to the Universe. Expand your knowledge and try to understand what the stuff really means and absorb all the vastness and beauty. As the astronomer Carl Sagan once said, "Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known." His book and TV series, Cosmos is also a must watch, along with practically anything by Neil DeGrasse Tyson.The Bad astronomy blog  is a good place to check out recent developments in astronomy.

Glossary:
Magnitude: Scale used to measure brightness of celestial objects. It's a log scale, like the pH scale. Bizzarely, the lower the magnitude, the brighter the object is. Venus, the third brightest in the sky has a magnitude of about -4 or thereabouts, whereas a star with mag 5.5 is just visible to the naked eye. Stars with higher magnitudes are dim and can only be seen through telescopes or other devices.
Altitude: Angle of elevation in the sky, with ground level at 0 and zenith at 90 degrees. the Pole Star's alt is about 10 degrees in Trichy.
Azimuth: The direction of the object, with north at zero, east at 90, south-east at 135 degrees and so on.

Have a good journey!