Islands of Space by John W. Campbell Jr

Author:John W. Campbell Jr. [Campbell, John W. Jr.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Jerry eBooks
Published: 2015-01-22T05:00:00+00:00

THEY turned the telectroscope toward the tiny pinpoint of the star, scarcely visible in the depths of space. It was glowing a very dull red on their screens. Then suddenly a change seemed to come over it. Without any apparent reason, it went out all together. The telectroscope had been set rotating at such a speed that its apparent motion was zero, so now they saw it moving across the screen as it suddenly flared violet! It was larger already, and even as they watched it, it grew swiftly larger, and at a speed that they could watch! Its brilliance was mounting swiftly; it was becoming ever more and more brilliant. Already it was a blazing point of violet light, so bright that it blurred the screen. It was a disc a moment later, and still growing brighter. Already they could see its glowing with the naked eye.

“It is happening! That star is standing still in its orbit for the time!” said Morey triumphantly, after a few minutes’ work. “It is growing at a tremendously greater rate than I had anticipated, however! A star that size should radiate light at a rate that is simply unbelievable, and as it is in the condition of a white dwarf now, with a mass of 2,000 suns, and unstable, since we cooled it, we are seeing something that cannot happen in the natural universe. The Lord alone knows what that star will do before it reaches stability. Look at it! That violet light is due to two things—already it is tremendously hotter than it was, and, further, it is falling toward us, and the surface is raising at a rate that is inconceivable. I am beginning to wonder, Arcot, if we will ever be able to get within the necessary twenty million miles of its center of gravity, which is the distance we need to reach in order to escape?”

“We won’t have to—the edge alone will weigh so much we will be able to get loose. But just think—that is climbing to a temperature that no matter can reach normally! When those two suns crash—well, we would never be able to escape if the space control breaks down before we are at least two light hours away! It will be radiating its light at an unheard of rate—look at that change—Morey, I think that is going through all the stages of stellar evolution in a few days! Think of the awful reaction when those two stars unite—and nothing in God’s universe could stop them now. A star of that mass, when made of normal matter, would be so big that it would fill all the space between its old orbit and this other star, and it is rapidly regaining the electrons in orbital motion, and as fast as they get there, they go up in radiation—and more fall—Lord! It can’t stand it! The whole star, the forty decillion tons of matter it makes, plus the forty more that make this other star, will be gone inside of a year! Our sun wouldn’t last over a day.

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