"Michael McCollum - Thunderstrike" - читать интересную книгу автора (McCollum Michael)

“On the order of nine million years.”

Amber whistled softly under her breath. One of Sol’s errant children was making an infrequent visit to the
inner system. If the computer’s estimate of the orbital period was correct, this was only the five
hundredth time this particular object had approached the sun since the birth of the Solar System.

“Size estimate?”

“Not possible. The comet nucleus is obscured by the coma. Perhaps it would be visible in a larger
instrument.”

“That damned sixty!” Amber muttered. The telescope she was being forced to use was one of the
observatory’s lesser instruments. It was equipped solely for visible light work and had a photo array
system dating back twenty years. It was, in the words of more than one junior staffer, a piece of junk.

“Show me the orbital tolerance,” Amber ordered.

Again, her screen changed. This time it displayed a three dimensional chart of the Solar System. A series
of ellipses appeared on top of the concentric circles that represented the orbits of the planets. The
ellipses ranged from red to violet, with green representing the nominal orbital path. The red and violet
were the two possible extremes when all sources of observational error were taken into account. The
rainbow of colors intersected between Saturn and Jupiter, then diverged in both directions. The point
where all lines came together was the current estimated position of the object.

Amber let her gaze follow the object’s inbound path to where it crossed Jupiter’s orbit. “Show me a
speed up of the orbital motion along the nominal path.”

“Working.”
As she watched, the family of ellipses disappeared, leaving only the emerald green line on the screen. A
golden comet symbol swept inward, picking up speed as it went. As it approached Jupiter, the golden
comet merged with the big planet’s white banded sphere.”

“Stop! Center on Jupiter and enlarge ten times. Begin again at the point where the comet comes on
screen.”

The screen changed scale and the scene repeated. The golden comet slid down the green arc while the
Jupiter symbol curved sedately toward the comet. This time the two icons passed within a few
millimeters of one another, then separated.

“I note a close approach situation here,” Amber said, more talking to herself than the computer. “What is
the minimum separation distance?”

“On the nominal orbit, the comet will pass within one hundred thousand kilometers of Jupiter.”

“That’s practically a collision!”

“That is true.”

“Have you considered the effect of Jupiter on the comet’s orbit?”