Jacob's telescope followed stars in the sky. He saw Orion, the blue draped stars of the Pleiades and the hazy appearance of Andromeda. Then his vision was that of Jupiter and the four Galilean moons of Io, Europa, Ganymede and Callisto. Despite its size the planet appeared as a small disc, and the moons were no more than four glowing lights close to it. As he studied the planet a fifth light suddenly appeared among the moons. It was blue in essence, and shone for a few moments before disappearing. No larger than any of the moons
This was something that Jacob hardly could believe. The telescope was just a small refractor, but it didn’t matter, the light shouldn’t have been there. Of what he had seen before its sudden appearance there were no star in the field of vision. Perhaps it had been a small one. Perhaps he had just seen a distant nova he thought. Some minor star far away, blowing up, before him. But what would the chance be of that? For a short moment a though went though his head of it being a fifth moon. After all Jupiter had over sixty of them. But that also was not plausible. The four big ones made up almost the full hundred percent of the mass orbiting the gaseous globe. Also he had never heard of anyone else having such a vision. A human satellite then? No. That also, was out of the question. So he came back to the idea of a nova. But who could confirm this? Sure as anything he couldn’t do it himself. The light was gone now.
Jacob decided to call the university at the break of daylight. It was to late now anyway, and he didn’t have contacts among the strange people that he imagined populated the larger observatories.
The following day Peter Schrim received a call at his office at the university outside San Francisco. The man had hardly finished introducing himself before he tried to make some disoriented claim on a seeing a nova in the vicinity of Jupiter. At first Peter had taken him for a lunatic claiming that Jupiter itself had gone nova. But after he finally had managed to calm the fellow down, it became clear that the man had seen some blue light in his small refractor just the night before. When the conversation reached this point, Peter had more or less already reached for another phone. Here was an opportunity. Not to be missed. If it really were a nova it would make for a great article. Peter Schrim soon called some colleagues from the faculty who were on duty for a project at the Arecibo radio telescope in Puerto Rico. He was sure his friends would be as excited about this as he was now.
This was something that Jacob hardly could believe. The telescope was just a small refractor, but it didn’t matter, the light shouldn’t have been there. Of what he had seen before its sudden appearance there were no star in the field of vision. Perhaps it had been a small one. Perhaps he had just seen a distant nova he thought. Some minor star far away, blowing up, before him. But what would the chance be of that? For a short moment a though went though his head of it being a fifth moon. After all Jupiter had over sixty of them. But that also was not plausible. The four big ones made up almost the full hundred percent of the mass orbiting the gaseous globe. Also he had never heard of anyone else having such a vision. A human satellite then? No. That also, was out of the question. So he came back to the idea of a nova. But who could confirm this? Sure as anything he couldn’t do it himself. The light was gone now.
Jacob decided to call the university at the break of daylight. It was to late now anyway, and he didn’t have contacts among the strange people that he imagined populated the larger observatories.
The following day Peter Schrim received a call at his office at the university outside San Francisco. The man had hardly finished introducing himself before he tried to make some disoriented claim on a seeing a nova in the vicinity of Jupiter. At first Peter had taken him for a lunatic claiming that Jupiter itself had gone nova. But after he finally had managed to calm the fellow down, it became clear that the man had seen some blue light in his small refractor just the night before. When the conversation reached this point, Peter had more or less already reached for another phone. Here was an opportunity. Not to be missed. If it really were a nova it would make for a great article. Peter Schrim soon called some colleagues from the faculty who were on duty for a project at the Arecibo radio telescope in Puerto Rico. He was sure his friends would be as excited about this as he was now.
***
That night, as Earth moved and the antenna came into position towards Jupiter the staff in Puerto Rico naturally felt alert and excited. This could be one of those happenings that every astronomer hopes for to happen once in her lifetime. Noise of the cosmic background filled the room coming out of the speakers placed on top of the rest if the receiving equipment, digital pictures showed on their screens. Then as the Arecibo got the planet focused the cosmic noise went right up, became higher, until the speakers screamed out in a high pitch note at the limit of the endurable.
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