areology
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Dr. Copland looked through the telescope at the familiar red planet. He had seen Mars hundreds of times over his career, and even more before he ever stepped foot in a proper observatory. He knew the Martian surface like the back of his hand. And so, as he looked through the powerful telescope again, he was trying to figure out why the familiar sight was less familiar than it should have been.
It was not any one thing he could point to that was different. To his eye, everything looked the same as it always had. The same hills and valleys. The same craters and shadows. He took in a sharp breath. That was it. The shadows. They were wrong. Not by a lot, not enough to really tell with the naked eye. At least, not by anyone with less expertise than him.
He rolled his office chair to the nearest computer and gave the order to take a picture. When it was done, he pulled it and several other pictures up onto the screen. All the photos were of Mars in the same position in its orbit, going back several years. Then he used his expert eyes, aided by digital accuracy, to compare them. And his thought was confirmed. The shadows were off by, what was on the surface, just a few centimeters. Not enough to be truly noticed, but enough to change the way the Martian landscape looked.
Now he just had to figure out why. His mind raced through possibilities. It could be just a normal thing. After all, there were hundreds of variables that went into the size of a shadow. It could be as simple as the planet’s position relative to Earth, or it could be the result of something outside of Mars’ atmosphere. He looked back at the rows of photos. Each one showed his old friend in slightly different ways. He tilted his head from side to side.
There was something there. Like the shadows, it was nothing he could tell immediately. He again relied on computer precision to light his way. Each year, the planet seemed to be a tiny bit bigger than the year before. Not much, but the difference was there. It was like it was growing. Or getting closer. His breath caught in his throat.
No, no that was ridiculous. Of course its orbit was stable. There was no way it was getting closer. But he could not deny the photo evidence, weak as it was. He had to know. He had to test it out. He was already thinking of everything he would need to do to properly test his budding hypothesis. A hypothesis that he desperately hoped was wrong.
Because if Mars was indeed getting larger, than it meant problems for Earth. More than he could even think about without more study. But there was one question. One question that he dreaded the answer to.
If Mars was indeed getting closer, what else was also getting closer?
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So...sci-fi disaster story anyone? Maybe a serving of existential dread about the inevitability of death to go with it? Cheery stuff!
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