Member-only story
An Unexpected Space this Time
As the first space probe reached what should be the edge of the gravitational influence of the star at the center of our solar system, the science community was uninterested. The only people paying any attention were the small team from the national space agency and two groups of mixed graduate students and post-grad scientists staying to work as interns for their graduate advisers. The students and interns were hoping to get enough data to justify an academic paper on the official exit of the probe from the solar system.
The members of the agency team were expecting reassignment since this probe would not need human monitoring for the next twenty years, which was well past the expected life of the probe. The probe had already exceeded it’s expected lifespan by fifty-percent. So there wasn’t much hope that it would last another twenty years to reach the nearest interstellar dust cloud.
“Five minutes to estimated system exit.”
“Um, sensors are showing an acceleration of zero point one five G, X:31, Y:270: Z:144. Wait, zero point two same heading.”
Everyone in the control room looked up, with the three senior scientists and the team lead rushing to the sensor station.
“That doesn’t make any sense. Are you sure of the readings?”
