"The Object" by Joshua T. Calvert

Above: "The Object" by Joshua T. Calvert - 390 pages. I completed reading this book in October 2024.

Introduction - Is Interstellar Travel even possible?

"The Object" is about a unique, unexplained celestial body detected in our solar system. The newly appearing celestial body ("the object") has attributes - aura, tail, speed, speed changes, and directional changes - not explicable by contemporary scientific knowledge. "The Object" posits a possible first encounter by humanity with extra-terrestrial life.

We take for granted that visitation of our solar system by extra-terrestrials is a distinct possibility. But lately, not to rain on author Calvert's parade, I've begun to wonder about the likelihood of such a visit. Why? The distance numbers don't make sense. Other bodies in the universe, or even in our own galaxy, are so far away that even if light speed space travel was developed, short of deus ex machina or divine intervention, distances are too far to allow for inter species contact. It's hard to come to grips with the fact that the universe is built on a time and distance scale beyond our comprehension.

Over the last few months, Facebook has been sending me reels of UK astrophysicist Brian Cox's wonderful 20 second snippets on the universe. I keep "liking" the reels, so the Facebook algorithm keeps sending them to me. Following is some of what I am learning from them.

I grew up knowing about a solar system, where our star, the sun, was surrounded by nine planets, of which one, our planet earth, was the only planet sustaining life as we knew it. There were stars in the heavens, but those stars were light years away (the speed of light being 186,000 miles per second) and there was no possibility considering existing technology that we could ever travel to those other solar systems.

But now, thanks to the Brian Cox reels, I know more. And my fifty-year-old sense of the low probability of our civilization encountering off earth civilizations has augmented. I know that our sun is but one of 200 billion stars in our galaxy, the Milky Way. The stars we can see at night in the sky represent only a miniscule portion of the stars in the Milky Way galaxy. Our sun is in a fairly remote arm of the Milky Way, far away from the center of the galaxy. The closest star to our sun is Proxima Centauri, 4.2 light years away. Proxima Centauri has three exoplanets, none of which is deemed to be able to support life as we know it. One of the brightest stars in our ski is Betelgeuse. which is 724 light years away. Imagine! If earthlings could develop a light speed spaceship, it would still take 724 years to reach Betelgeuse and planets which may be orbiting it. In galactic terms, not to mention universe terms, Betelgeuse is close to our sun. The diameter of the Milky Way galaxy is one hundred thousand light years. But then, get this, if you want to fry your brain. There are two trillion galaxies, more or less the size of the Milky Way, in the observable universe. The distance to the closest galaxy from Milky Way, the Andromeda galaxy, is 2.5 million light years! The distance across the galaxy is 90 billion light years.

The fastest space craft created by humans is the unmanned Voyager 1 which moves at a speed of 38,000 miles per hour, infinitely slower than light speed (186,000 miles per second). At 38,000 miles per hour, it would take 75,000 years to reach "nearby" Proxima Centauri. Interstellar distances in our own galaxy are so vast so as to preclude (again, short of divine intervention or deus ex machina) any contact with off earth civilizations in the Milky Way, not to mention other galaxies in the universe.

So, why contemplate space travel at all here on earth? Elon Musk says, citing the Fermi Paradox, that we have to assume that we are alone in the universe and, therefore, we have a unique duty as a species to preserve human consciousness by becoming a multiplanetary species. I'm thinking there is enough of a chance that he's right and that reaching for the stars is a human obligation. And with Mars being within earth's reach given current technology, that's a good place to start.

But I digress.

"The Object"

So, as I read "The Object," I did so as a skeptic about "reachable" life off of earth. Still, as "The Object" is a contemporary, hard science book, one learns from reading it a lot about current efforts which underpin mankind's own efforts to explore space and perhaps, as Musk hopes, to become a multiplanetary species. The technologies outlined in the novel are the same ones, now on the drawing boards, to take man to Mars within the next ten years.

The object in the book was detected by an astronaut, Melody (Mel) Adams who is studying the solar system's outer planet, Pluto, through a telescope in Hawaii. The object has attributes that don't make any sense. Mel convinces her colleagues that the object comes from outside of our solar system and may have some relationship with extraterrestrial life. But after Mel goes public about her discovery, she loses credibility with the scientific community and NASA and is fired.

Melody turns author and writes a bestselling book about the object but remains a pariah in the scientific community. Fast forward a few years, when the object is observed again near Saturn, slowing down. All doubts are erased. Melody quickly gets back in good graces with NASA, and she eventually gets the commander post as an astronaut on a mission to rendezvous with the object when it reaches the orbit of Mars.

The book is in three parts. 1. Discovery and confirmation of a likely extra-terrestrial object. 2. Preparation for the mission to rendezvous with the object at its closest point to the earth in the orbit of Mars. 3. Earth crew encounter with the actual object.

Part 1. highlights include Melody's romance with NASA head Jim. No wonder Melody has the inside track to lead the mission to rendezvous the object.

In Part 2 Calvert addresses issues like training, selection and the politics of the situation. A verified extra-terrestrial object would set off an international competition among competing space agencies. These problems are solved in the narrative with NASA and China agreeing to have two Chinese crew members join the six-crew member expedition.

Part 3, which chronicles the expedition to the object, named Serenity, is the most interesting and thought-provoking part of the book. Following is a synopsis of Part 3.

A spaceship, Pangaea, is built and launched in 2031 to rendezvous, in Mars orbit, with Serenity. En route, a crew member is killed in an EVA by micrometeorites and all crew members, strangely, inexplicably, experience the same dreams of floating in deep space. Pangaea makes a successful landing on the cigar shaped Serenity. Initial studies by the astronauts show Serenity to be bionic.

Notwithstanding their strong suspicion that the object is a life form, the astronauts open a hole on the surface of the object and enter. They are attacked by a black fluid and, returning to the hole, discover that it has been sealed by a callus. One astronaut dies after a fall and is covered by green snail-like pustules. The remaining three crew members (one crew member remains on Pangaea) explore tunnels within the object. They discover that the fluid flow is periodic and that an internal air flow occurs every eleven minutes. The reader has figured out by now that the object is alive, but with a slow metabolism necessary to facilitate interstellar travel. Here, per my "too far" chronicle above, someone (I'm too lazy... too many zeros) should do a calculation, calculating the time required to reach our solar system from Proxima Centauri, the sun's closest star. Proxima Centauri. Comets can travel as fast as 100,000 miles per hour, most are slower. The object speed was not faster than a comet and the object sometimes slowed. Wherever the fictional object came from, it had been traveling for a long, long time. I don't think Calvert goes far enough to reconcile this distance/time problem.

In their efforts to maneuver inside Serenity. the astronauts disrupt (wound?) its life systems. One astronaut, Tom, is able to make it back to Pangaea. Mel enters the brain chamber and sees astronaut Hongbo's body, sans space suit, linked into the neural fibers of the brain. Mel makes actions to Hongbo and Hongbo's body mimics her. Via Serenity's actions, Mel's mind integrates with Serenity, where Serenity uses Hongbo to communicate.

Serenity reveals that it is a living fully conscious biological probe, developed by an intelligent species in the distant past to collect data about other intelligent species. This data is sent to a data center where the species shifted after a gamma ray destroyed their home. Serenity had traveled for eons, and had encountered many species, but due to the damage caused by Mel's crew, the interstellar object had only fifty years to live. Serentiy reveals that for it, time appears to pass very quickly.

While captive of Serenity, Mel, unable to return to her ship, is able to communicate with Tom and Chinese astronaut Zhigang on Pangaea who are on their way back to earth. Earth remains in contact with Mel for an undetermined time. Mel asks Serenity about the dreams her crew experienced on the initial voyage to Serenity and learns, from Serenity, about a new technology - quantum entanglement communication - that Mel communicates back to Pangea and earth.

In the epilogue, it is revealed that Tom has lived to the age of 140 years. Many "dream centers" based on knowledge received from Mel's communication synthesis with Serenity have been created which have served humanity in beneficial ways. Astronauts of the Pangaea/Serenity mission have been recognized as heroes in the popular consciousness.

Oumuamua
Serenity's description by Calvert is strikingly similar to Oumuamua. (See below Wikipedia on Oumuamua).

Oumuamua is the first interstellar object detected passing through the Solar System.[23] Formally designated 1I/2017 U1, it was discovered by Robert Weryk using the Pan-STARRS telescope at Haleakalā Observatory, Hawaii, on 19 October 2017, approximately 40 days after it passed its closest point to the Sun on 9 September. When it was first observed, it was about 33 million km (21 million mi; 0.22 AU) from Earth (about 85 times as far away as the Moon) and already heading away from the Sun.

ʻOumuamua is a small object estimated to be between 100 and 1,000 metres (300 and 3,000 ft) long, with its width and thickness both estimated between 35 and 167 metres (115 and 548 ft).[13] It has a red color, like objects in the outer Solar System. Despite its close approach to the Sun, it showed no signs of having a coma, the usual nebula around comets formed when they pass near the Sun. Further, it exhibited non‑gravitational acceleration, potentially due to outgassing or a push from solar radiation pressure.[24][25] It has a rotation rate similar to the Solar System's asteroids, but many valid models permit it to be unusually more elongated than all but a few other natural bodies observed in the solar system. This feature raised speculation about its origin. Its light curve, assuming little systematic error, presents its motion as "tumbling" rather than "spinning", and moving sufficiently fast relative to the Sun that it is likely of extrasolar origin. Extrapolated and without further deceleration, its path cannot be captured into a solar orbit, so it will eventually leave the Solar System and continue into interstellar space. Its planetary system of origin and age are unknown.

ʻOumuamua is remarkable for its extrasolar origin, high obliqueness, and observed acceleration without an apparent coma. By July 2019, most astronomers concluded that it was a natural object, but its precise characterization is contentious given the limited time window for observation. While an unconsolidated object (rubble pile) would require ʻOumuamua to be of a density similar to rocky asteroids,[26] a small amount of internal strength similar to icy comets[27] would allow it to have a relatively low density. Proposed explanations of its origin include the remnant of a disintegrated rogue comet,[28][29] or a piece of an exoplanet rich in nitrogen ice, similar to Pluto.[30][31][32] On 22 March 2023, astronomers proposed the observed acceleration was "due to the release of entrapped molecular hydrogen that formed through energetic processing of an H2O-rich icy body",[33] consistent with 'Oumuamua being an interstellar comet, "originating as a planetesimal relic broadly similar to solar system comets".[34] Wikipedia

SDT note: There is no claim by scientists or reasoned speculation that Oumuamua is the creation of a non-earth civilization. Calvert, the novelist, has built a fictional account about what Oumuamua could have been. But here is link to an Oumuamua reel by Neil deGrasse Tyson who tries to tease us in that direction. (9) Facebook

Above: NASA’s James Webb Telescope image of Oumuamua.

For Discussion

What are the moral implications of an earth effort to encounter another species and through ignorance destroying it?
Was a romantic engagement between Mel and Jim, NASA head, a help or a hindrance to the novel's effectiveness?
Considering the size of the galaxy, let alone the universe, is it logical to expect an encounter with extra-terrestrials even if they exist?

Conclusion

"The Object" is an easy, fast paced read about the application of existing or contemplated technology used to face off with a possible civilized entity from outside of our solar system which has entered our solar system. The encounter with the object, named Serenity, shows it to be alive. There is a moral dimension. Man's efforts to understand Serenity result in Serenity's death. Still, there is beneficial knowledge from Serenity's technology learned by Commander Melody as she synthesizes with Serenity's brain which knowledge she transmits to earth. Calvert's is an imaginative hypothesis about the object, a facsimile of which, Oumuamua, (though there were no claims about it being somehow alive) actually passed through our solar system in 2017. I'm not convinced that mankind will have an encounter with aliens considering current astrophysical knowledge about the immensity of interstellar distance, but of course I, Musk, and Fermi, could be wrong. Mankind's curiosity about alien life is not going to go away. And notwithstanding "The Objects" far reach speculation, I enjoyed the thought provoking read. Other life in the universe or not, Earth still has an obligation to reach into space due to earth's fragility and the need to preserve (unique?) human consciousness.