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

result, the process was virtually untouched by human hands.

In the last quarter of the twenty-first century, an observatory’s computers pointed its telescopes and
directed them to track the stars through the sky. The computers controlled viewing times and exposures,
recorded the data, and produced the reports. Sometimes while analyzing data, the computers chanced
upon discoveries unrelated to the objects under study. When this happened, they sought the attention of
the human staff.

Thus, it was that Amber Hastings was monitoring the big telescope when the observatory’s computer
signaled for her attention.

“What is it?” she asked, stifling a yawn.

“I have an asteroid/comet discovery report,” the machine said in its too perfect baritone. “Do you wish to
review it now?”

“Might as well,” she replied. “I don’t get off duty for four more hours.”

As the most junior of Farside Observatory’s staffers, Amber had been assigned as Intra-System
Specialist, which meant that she was in charge of confirming and recording new sightings of comets and
asteroids. In her three years with the observatory, she had checked out half-a-thousand sightings. The
excitement had long since worn off.

The screen in front of her lit to show a starfield. She recognized Open Cluster NGC 2301, which had
been the subject of a long observation program two weeks earlier. Surrounding the cluster was a thicket
of stars. Amber let her gaze sweep quickly across the screen. At first, she saw nothing out of the
ordinary. Then her eyes were drawn to the lower right hand corner of the screen. There she found a dim
smudge of light.

“That it?” she asked as she reached out to touch the image with her finger.

“Affirmative,” the computer responded. “This frame was taken ten days ago at 13:12:15 UT”

Amber read off the object’s position data, noting that it was nearly in the plane of the ecliptic and off in
the direction of Monoceros. “What makes you think it’s a comet? That area is near the Rosette Nebula
and that big patch in Orion.”

“The spectrum is that of a typical comet coma shining by reflected sunlight.”

“Dopplered?”

“Yes.”

“How far?”

“Sufficient to indicate a velocity of 10 km/sec inbound along the observation vector.”

“Interesting,” Amber mused. “Size estimate?”

“None.”