What If the Earth Had Two Moons?: And Nine Other Thought Provoking Speculations on the Solar System - Hardcover

Comins, Neil F.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0312598920 ISBN 13: 9780312598921

Verlag: St Martin's Press, 2010

Inhaltsangabe

“What if?” questions stimulate people to think in new ways, to refresh old ideas, and to make new discoveries. In What If the Earth Had Two Moons, Neil Comins leads us on a fascinating ten-world journey as we explore what our planet would be like under alternative astronomical conditions. In each case, the Earth would be different, often in surprising ways.

The title chapter, for example, gives us a second moon orbiting closer to Earth than the one we have now. The night sky is a lot brighter, but that won’t last forever. Eventually the moons collide, with one extra-massive moon emerging after a period during which Earth sports a Saturn-like ring.

This and nine and other speculative essays provide us with insights into the Earth as it exists today, while shedding new light on the burgeoning search for life on planets orbiting other stars.

Appealing to adult and young adult readers alike, this book follows on the author’s previous bestseller, What If the Moon Didn’t Exist?, with completely new scenarios backed by the latest astronomical research.

Über diesen Titel

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Neil F. Comins is a professor of physics and astronomy at the University of Maine and author of popular scientific books, articles, and textbooks. He earned a Bachelor of Science degree from Cornell and a Ph.D. in astrophysics from University College, Cardiff, Wales.

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WHAT IF THE EARTH HAD TWO MOONS?

1

What If the Earth Had Two Moons?

DIMAAN, LLUNA, AND KUU

They came in the dead of night. One moment the bedroom was filled with the sounds of forest animals behind the village, the next with the deep shouts of men, rattling of heavily armored horses, and the ominous creaking of a carriage. A whip snapped; dogs began yelping; the leader of the group issued orders. They stopped right in front of his cottage. Lying in bed he heard his neighbors shuttering their windows and barring their doors. He knew that such actions would not protect them. The intruders would get in anywhere they wanted. As he finished this thought, his front door flew off its hinges, landing on the floor with a brittle crash.

He was up now, but as he moved to get out of bed, his mistress grabbed his arm. She was trembling, her eyes wide with the same terror he felt, but which he hid so she would not fear the worst. "Why?" she asked, hoarsely, softly.

"I don't know. Maybe," he smiled wanly, "I forgot to pay our taxes."

"They wouldn't be here for that."

"It was ajoke," he said, lightly. She gave him the "not now" look, but he missed it as the stairs were filled with the clattering of hobnailed boots. Doors opened and slammed shut. The children began crying.Then their bedroom door opened and an officer, followed by four soldiers, strode in.

"Galileo Galilei?" the officer demanded.

Galileo nodded. Without taking his eyes off Galileo, the man issued an order. "Take him."

"You will leave her and the children?" Galileo inquired, meekly.

"We only have orders to arrest you," the officer said, adding, "in the name of the Holy Inquisition."

If there is any justice in the world it occurred then, as a cluster of meteorites burst through the roof. A pair of them plunged into two of the soldiers, who fell dead.

Galileo laughed. The officer cursed and said, "Damned nuisance." Then he turned to the remaining soldiers and ordered them to take Galileo. Marina screamed as they dragged him out of bed. Galileo watched her, and their arms reached out to each other and then separated in slow motion.

The prison carriage, merely a cage on wheels drawn by a sickly horse, clattered and clanged as it carried the nightshirt-clad Galileo through the town and up to the castle. His body glowed red in the light of the moon Lluna shining and spurting molten rock overhead. He saw the eyes of hundreds of people watching him through slits in their shuttered windows. For perhaps the first time in his unruly life he wondered what they were thinking.

Over the next two weeks Marina, disguised as a scullery maid, brought Galileo his food, passing it through a small opening in the locked door, talking to him in whispers. She told him about the children and how the inquisitors had taken all his papers. He asked if "they" had asked her about anything in particular that he was working on. She shook her head.

For six weeks, Galileo sat in his prison room on a bed of straw and rough burlap, wearing the same nightshirt, which literally rotted on his body. During the first week, his arrogance kept him aloof, as he waited for inquisitors to question him. They never came. During the second week, his reserve turned to anger. The people taking turns monitoring him through a series of hidden mirrors saw him circlingaround the room, rubbing against the wall opposite his bed, then against the wall with the door, then against his bed, and finally against the outer wall, with the commode and window. As he circled, he rubbed the walls with his hand until it was raw. After the second week, Marina stopped coming. She could not stand the smells.

During the third week, as his anger dissipated, he found solace in continuing his studies. The day before his imprisonment, he had received a letter full of technical details of the observations made by Martinelli on the island of San Salvador in the New World. He had spent that day memorizing the results in it. Now he compared those observations, meticulously recorded by his friend, with the ones he had made at the same time and the ones that they both had made twenty years before. Sifting through all this data chiseled in stone in his eidetic memory, and scribbling calculations in the dust on the floor, he completed the work that had obsessed him for years. And he was right! The angles between the telescopes observing the same place on the moon Lluna had changed over the decades. Lluna was moving away from his world, Dimaan. Despite the squalor, the arrogance returned.

During the fourth week he started pounding on the door, demanding to be released. No one came to tell him to stop, and the door never opened. During the fifth week, confusion surrounding his arrest, imprisonment, and this interminable isolation broke through his defenses. The original question returned. Why had they arrested him? It must be something to do with his observations of the heavens, he reasoned, but what? His renowned ability to focus and concentrate evaporated.

During the sixth week, he started thinking about errors he had made: errors of commission and errors of omission. Maybe, just maybe, he should have married Marina. Perhaps he shouldn't have fired Sestilia. Vincenzo really deserved the raise he had requested all those years ago. And what about his girls ... .

The day after the tears appeared, an orderly opened the door, gagged, and vomited. Then he ordered Galileo out. Nearly naked, Galileo stumbled into the hallway. The gaggle of guards all backed away. With spears, they prodded him down the corridor and into a room through the middle of which ran a stream of water. He was tossed apiece of soap, a towel, and a robe, and ordered to bathe, which he did with as much zest as he could muster.

The courtroom was a study in contrasts. On the side where the three judges sat, the walls were covered with dark wood panels and an immense tapestry. Glasses and pitchers filled with crystal-clear water sat in front of each of them, along with baskets of fruits and nuts. On the other side, Galileo stood on a bare wooden platform in an alcove surrounded by gray, rough-hewn walls.

"How do you plead and do you agree to recant what you have said?" the central judge, tall, with a goatee beard, demanded.

"Are you out of your tiny mind?" Galileo demanded. "That is, if you have one at all. I have done nothing wrong. Nothing," he hissed at them.

The three judges and the guards against the side walls all gaped.

The judge on Galileo's right regained his composure first. Scribbling something on the sheet in front of him, he half turned his head toward the astronomer. "Do you really believe that? Do you think you would be here if we didn't have proof positive of your transgression?"

Galileo glared at him. The silence filling the room became so thick that several guards shook their heads to clear their minds.

"Do you deny ..."

"I have done nothing wrong and made no mistakes," Galileo interrupted, through clenched teeth.

The third judge sat back, smiled briefly, and began speaking, putting his index finger to his lips as Galileo opened his mouth.

"We think that you misunderstand us." He motioned for the guards to leave. When they were gone, he rounded on Galileo. "We know that our planet, Dimaan, and the heavens have been here forever. They are immutable. Unchanging in Essential Essence."

"Earthquakes, volcanoes, sunspots," Galileo interjected, unsure where this was going.

"Mere challenges to humans," the judge said, smiling. "Our Creator does not want us to think we live in paradise here. You, however, claim that you can prove that there are irreversible changes in the...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: St Martin's Press
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2010
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 0312598920
• ISBN 13: 9780312598921
• Einband: Gebundene Ausgabe
• Auflage: 1
• Anzahl der Seiten: 288
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: Nicht verfügbar