Stars and Waves, page 24
She looked at the USB stick. She could not resist any longer. She plugged it into her computer and downloaded the data.
It wasn’t the same kind of data that she had taken. Fascinating. Unexpected. Together with her own data, Arthur’s additional data completed the picture. She felt even more excited. Excited and ashamed at the same time. Excited about the discovery. Ashamed of mankind.
***
Arthur was now at the top of St Mary’s belltower. He had come here with her several times when they were students, when they were together. From here, the highest point of this old Cambridge church, he could see dozens of other places where they had been together, when they had been in love, so many years ago.
Yes, this was the last thing he wanted to see.
The last place he wanted to be.
CHAPTER 41
The prickling contrast between the warmth of Rome’s sun and the gentle nip of the frosty, autumn air was delightful on her skin.
She had spent over half an hour simply sitting on a bench, eyes closed.
The pealing of the bells from St Giovanni’s Basilica reminded her that it was time to go. As she opened her eyes she was dazzled by the white marble of the church’s magnificent façade reflecting the bright Mediterranean sun.
Behind the massive basilica was the Lateran University, one of the Catholic Church’s main universities. It was hosting this year’s Symposium of the European Astronomical Society, one of the largest gatherings of astronomers in the world.
Shortly, she would announce her findings in the brief slot that the organising committee had allocated to her in the programme. Hers was the second presentation in the morning.
She indulged herself for a moment, reluctant to stand. It was not her old fear of talking in front of a large audience – that was completely gone, overcome forever. She was simply enjoying the moment.
She inspected the façade of the basilica and all its parts. The columns, the pilasters, the arches. The statues of angels, saints and popes. Wasn’t it ironic? She would reveal her discovery to the world from the womb of that institution, the Church, that had once made the centrality of Earth in the universe a pillar of its doctrine, to the point of persecuting anyone daring to question this dogma. Would the announcement of her discovery be another blow to the Church? She admired the beauty of the basilica’s façade once more. No, it would not be a major blow. The Church had evolved, had learnt to live and grow with science. It would adapt and embrace the discovery.
She took a deep breath, stood up, and headed towards the side of the basilica. She turned the corner to enter the square facing the large entrance of the Lateran University, which was flanked by the banners advertising the symposium. From a distance she noticed some unusual commotion by the entrance. She could make out cameras, journalists and TV crews. “What’s going on?” she whispered to herself.
“I suspect they’re here for you,” a familiar voice remarked next to her.
Laura jumped out of her skin. “Jack! You startled me!”
“Sorry,” said Jack, his smirk showing that he didn’t really mean it, and that he enjoyed the effect of his sudden intrusion on Laura’s thoughts.
“Do you mean they are still after the story of SPACEWAVE and Grace? I thought that had died down.”
She knew that Smith had managed to bury most of the story and stopped it from becoming a major international scandal. The local press in Arizona had understood that there had been some personal problems between employees that resulted in some tragic accident, but did not grasp the magnitude and scale of the underground operation that Grace had developed. In Chile, the authorities had not been keen to publicly admit that an internationally wanted ‘criminal’ had slipped through their fingers. In Bolivia, Grace had disappeared. The chances that she had survived were close to zero, but her body was never found. The local news media simply reported that an American woman got lost in the high-altitude desert and rescue teams had been searching for her for a few days. Laura and Jack had been interviewed by a few journalists in connection to Grace, but they had managed to conceal the scale of the story. There was no need for it to be disclosed. It was now all solved and under control by Smith. Revealing the full, true story and the associated tragic events would have irredeemably damaged SPACEWAVE, with catastrophic effects on its employees, and the numerous space projects that the company was developing.
“You’re right,” confirmed Jack, “although various parts of the story have emerged publicly in the different countries, they were simply reported briefly in the local news. No journalist has connected all the dots on a global scale.”
“So, if that isn’t it, then why are they here?” insisted Laura, looking at the crowd of journalists and raising an eyebrow.
“I guess they’re interested in what you’re going to announce this morning,” Jack said grinning.
“How do they know that I’m going to announce anything important? My talk is scheduled as a short presentation with a very dull title,” asked Laura, putting her hands on her hips. She had been cautious not to give anything away to anyone about her discovery. Not even Jack was aware of the magnitude of her discovery, though he might have had an inkling.
“Well, maybe someone… leaked something and generated some expectations on social media,” replied Jack, winking.
Laura gave him a gentle slap on the nape of his neck, frowning and smiling at the same time. “How do you know that I’m going to announce anything exciting?”
“Just guessing.”
“And why do you think that I’m keen to announce it to all the media?”
“Come on, Laura, you have been in the shadows for too long. You deserve some limelight.”
Laura was about to object, but couldn’t find the words. In the end, it was true that she was proud of her discovery and that she was curious to see what the reaction of the scientific community would be, but also the reaction of the general public. It would be foolish to think that it would not make the headlines and that it would not have an impact on people.
“Come with me. It’s better if you enter the venue through a side entrance.” Jack gently nudged her towards the far side of the large building.
He guided Laura through a side door and then through a few narrow corridors. They reached a small door. Jack signalled for her to wait, slipped through the door and closed it behind him.
Laura waited for a few seconds. Then she cracked the door open and peeked through it. The door was an auxiliary entrance to the large lecture theatre where the plenary sessions of the conference were being held. Delegates were taking their seats, as the first session was about to start. The room was quickly filling in. Laura noticed that the media were setting up their cameras. The first speaker of the morning was already on the stage. She noticed that the organisers of the symposium and the chairwoman of the first session were visibly nervous, hastily conferring, and scanning the audience. Clearly, they were looking for her, as she was scheduled to give the second presentation of the morning, but was nowhere to be seen. The massive presence of the media, atypical for this kind of conferences in astronomy, was probably adding to the tension.
Laura saw Jack approaching from the far side of the theatre, where most of the journalists were clustered. He entered and closed the door behind him. “It’s better that you stay hidden here until the beginning of the session, or else you risk being assaulted by the journalists. I may have overdone the rumours about your presentation,” Jack said with a grin.
Laura didn’t say anything, but rolled her eyes. Only a few months ago this tension and expectation around her would have caused her terrible distress and anxiety. Now she was just annoyed. Annoyed that the organisers were worried and agitated because of her.
A few minutes later they heard the voice of the chairwoman echoing through the loudspeakers of the lecture theatre.
“Welcome, everyone, to the first plenary session of the morning.”
Jack and Laura peeked into the theatre again. People were still drifting into the room, taking the few remaining seats, then sitting on the stairs or standing by the sides of the theatre.
“Please take your seats as we are about to start,” prompted the chairwoman. She was still searching the audience, trying to spot Laura. “This session is dedicated to exoplanets and we begin with a review by Andrew Foster about the ‘Search and characterisation of rocky planets’.”
Professor Foster, an elegant elderly man, went on the stage. The first slide of his presentation was already projected on the large screen. “Good morning, everyone. I’m grateful to the organisers for their kind invitation to give this review.”
As Professor Foster started his introductory remarks, Jack opened the door and guided Laura towards the first row of seats. Every seat was taken, so Jack indicated for her to sit on some steps next to the wall. The chairwoman noticed the movement, saw Laura, and sighed in relief.
Foster’s presentation lasted for about half an hour. There were not many questions at the end. Many eyes in the audience were already focused on Laura.
“If there are no more questions then we can move to the next talk of the morning, by Laura Bellini,” said the chairwoman and made a gesture inviting Laura to come on the stage while Professor Foster went to sit in the front row.
Laura walked up onto the stage, with confidence, chin held high. Her insecure and hesitant self was just a faded memory.
All the journalists who were still idling outside hastily entered the lecture theatre. Everyone’s gaze was turned on Laura.
The chairwoman approached her together with one of the organisers. “Laura, we don’t have your slides in our system for projection,” she whispered with a worried expression.
“Don’t worry, I have my presentation on my laptop,” said Laura, patting the computer that she had just placed on the podium, “I just need to connect it to the projector,” she added, grabbing a cable and plugging it into her computer. She had barely finished her sentence when her first slide was already projected onto the large screen. It did not show the title of her presentation, as is customary, but three photos.
She looked out over the audience and started addressing them with a loud, confident voice, “Although I only have ten minutes, I would like to start my presentation with a tribute. A tribute to three persons who are no longer with us, but without whom the discovery that I’m going to present would have not been possible.”
She looked at the first photo on the screen.
“Julia Russell. An outstanding scientist. A wonderful mentor. She was the one who had the genial intuition to develop the original program that eventually resulted in the discovery that I am going to present.” Only in the last few months Laura had appreciated how visionary Julia had been. And only recently had she realised how stupid she had been to not fully appreciate the project that Julia had conceived. She wished she could tell Julia… she wished she could thank her… she wished she could hug her. Laura paused for a few second. She wanted to say more, a lot more, but did not want to publicly reveal her profound feelings for Julia.
“Arthur Cecil-Hood. A brilliant mind who gave so much to astronomy during his career. He had the idea to obtain the data that greatly expanded the scope of my results. He put passion in his work.” Her gaze shifted to Julia’s photo. “We will greatly miss his invaluable contribution to science.”
Then she looked at the third photo.
“I’m sure that most of you don’t know this person,” she used the laser beam to point at the black and white photo.
“Vladimir Kasparov.” She looked at the many puzzled faces in the audience.
“He was an exceptional Russian scientist, whose findings and intuitions were hastily and unfairly dismissed by his colleagues about 30 years ago.”
Some people in the audience shifted in their chairs, loosening the collar of their shirt.
“Yet, this whole story started with him.”
Laura moved onto the next slide, which showed a faded photo of a young Kasparov giving a presentation at a conference, behind him a graph projected on the conference screen. Smith and Jack had retrieved it from Grace’s office.
“At a conference in Paris, about 30 years ago, Kasparov presented data on the star 70 Ophiuchi. He had monitored the star with the BTA-6 Russian telescope for several months. He noticed that, in some of the observations, the data suggested some peculiar features,” Laura pointed at one of the tentative features identified by Kasparov on the graph in the photo. The signal was indeed marginal, embedded in a lot of scattered data.
“He interpreted one of these features as water in the atmosphere of an exoplanet transiting in front of the star.” She could see some of the people sneering or raising their eyebrows. There was also some giggling. Laura glared at the audience.
“No one believed him,” she said loudly, with a hint of anger. “He was even mocked.”
Then she lowered her voice and, with a quiet, forgiving tone, she added, “I don’t blame the delegates who were harsh on him. At that time planets outside our solar system had not yet been discovered, let alone the atmospheres around them. At that time it may have sounded like science fiction to them.”
She paused for effect.
“Kasparov’s claim was quickly forgotten by most.”
Laura scanned the audience, whose eyes were glued on her.
“Totally unaware of those early claims, Julia Russell and I obtained several datasets of 70 Ophiuchi.” Laura changed the slide to show the result of the datasets collected by her and Julia at the TNG telescope, including those which had been erased by Grace from the archive, but recovered from Laura’s own hard drive.
“Our data unambiguously shows that 70 Ophiuchi does have a planet orbiting around it with a period of about nine months.” The full set of data from the TNG was now beautifully showing the movement of the stars as a consequence of the small gravitational pull of the planet orbiting around it.
“This was not an exceptional finding per se. But Kasparov saw an early release of these results, which we published a few months ago, and immediately connected our findings with his claim 30 years ago. The exoplanet that we have identified around 70 Ophiuchi is most likely the same that had transited in front of the star 30 years ago, leaving the imprint of water in its atmosphere found in Kasparov’s data. He probably did not want to make a big fuss about it, but for him our findings must have been a sort of vindication in the eyes of the scientific community.”
She looked at the audience sternly, as if they were somehow representative of the same scientific community that had denigrated Kasparov.
“He tried to contact me and Julia about it… but unfortunately he lost his life, in a tragic… accident.”
“Julia and I tried to reconstruct what he had found 30 years ago. By combining Kasparov’s and our findings, we could estimate that the exoplanet in front of 70 Ophiuchi has a mass of about five times that of the Earth.”
Laura noticed that some people in the audience had stopped taking notes, eyes wide open and leaning forward.
“Sadly, our quest cost Julia her life.” Laura lowered her eyes. She did not want to give any more details away. It was too painful for her and revealing all of the tragic events associated with it was not relevant to the scientific discovery.
She stood still, eyes closed, for a moment.
Some low murmurs started to rise from the public. She could more distinctly hear the whispering of a delegate sitting in the first rows, “Is this it? Exoplanets with masses similar to the Earth and with water in their atmospheres have already been discovered around other stars. Sorry about the peculiar and sad events linked to it, but this discovery is well below the expectations that the rumours have generated.”
She opened her eyes with an intense glare. “Yet,” she continued more loudly, “yet, I wanted to understand the additional features that Kasparov had spotted in his data.” She slightly narrowed her eyes.
“From my data I could determine the date and time of the next transit of the exoplanet in front of its star. I… erm… convinced…” she hesitated a second, “I convinced the European Southern Observatory to give me access to the Very Large Telescope to observe 70 Ophiuchi at the time of the transit.”
People in the audience sat up on their chairs.
“The observation was, how shall I put it… quite successful.” She grinned and moved to the next slide.
“This is the data!”
There was a simple graph. Everyone hastily and eagerly studied it. Some squinted their eyes, others adjusted their glasses. Whispering and muttering rose from the audience. Sounds of amazement came from some individuals.
“Yes,” Laura tried to be heard above the sounds from the conference delegates. “Yes, impressive, isn’t it? The data is self-explanatory and the implications are obvious.”
She pointed to one feature in the data.
“This is the clear signature of water in the atmosphere of the exoplanet, confirming unambiguously what Kasparov had already found. At its distance from the star, the temperature of the planet is adequate to have liquid water on its surface.”
Then she moved the pointer to indicate two additional, clear features.
“These are the signatures of molecular oxygen and methane…” she paused, enjoying a little bit of drama for the media, “together with water, they are an unambiguous bio-signature.”
She surveyed the stunned faces in the audience.
“Each of these elements separately can have different origins, but together they only have one explanation – life.”
Now, all the journalists gasped.
“Yes, there is life on this exoplanet. Oxygen produced by the photosynthesis of some form of vegetation and methane coming from the waste of some sort of microbes or some sort of… fauna.”
Laura gave a few moments to let the news sink in.
