I was highly interested in this story which describes
astronomers sighting a cosmic visitor to our Solar System,
on a close course to Earth's orbit. ADAM: A CLOSE ENCOUNTER
WITH A COSMIC VISITOR is for anyone who follows the
interplanetary explorers, Voyager and Cassini. There are
diagrams and colour illustrations from the Hubble space
telescope to clarify points of the text. Set in a future
when a Mars habitat is being planned, this tale indicates
the risks of space travel start before we even leave the
planet.
Patty and Sid Wilson are the first to spot the incoming
object. They operate a giant NASA telescope in the Nevada
desert, checking nightly for new asteroids. Adam, as they
quaintly name the first new moving body they spot, has a
hyperbolic orbit instead of an elliptical one, meaning it's
not on a regular track around the solar system. Just passing
Saturn, the object is massive enough to perturb the orbit of
little moon Phoebe, yet so dark that its low albedo has
stopped other observers from seeing it sooner.
The projected path of Adam will take it closer to Earth
than the orbit of the Moon. Even if this newcomer doesn't
strike Earth, or the Moon, the effect of its passing could
alter our climate and cause earthquakes with tsunamis. Can
anything be done to avert global disaster? Patty and Sid
don't want to cause a panic, but the sooner NASA and the
world leaders and scientists know, the sooner they can make
plans. Not to mention that some people think Adam may be a
spacecraft!
Jack Smith has been a physics teacher, and he introduces
plenty of physics and astrophysics concepts, in such a way
that teens and adults should be able to grasp the meanings.
Some liberties have been taken to carry the story.
In ADAM: A CLOSE ENCOUNTER WITH A COSMIC VISITOR, scientists
co-operate, while politicians and generals fear one another,
causing inertia. The human race will have to outgrow its
childish lack of co-ordination to survive this major hazard.
Jack Smith also believes that a colony on Mars is a way the
human race can avoid keeping all its eggs in one planetary
basket. I love the pictures in this book and I really enjoy
the human face to every part of the story. Even astronomers
fall in love, and even scientists get the blues.
Sid and Patty Wilson were making a routine scan of the
heavens in their Nevada observatory in
preparation for an upcoming Martian project. They were
scheduled to leave for Mars in two years to
set up a permanent colony. All was going well when they
detected something very unusual. Their
equipment had found an unknown object beyond the orbit of
Saturn. Originally thinking it was an
asteroid or comet buzzing toward the sun, they soon wade
into a mystery that will have profound
consequences for all the people on earth.
The body is traveling fast, very fast. In fact it is moving
fast enough that once it swings past
the sun it will leave the solar system. What’s more this
body could not have originated in the
solar system. This is no comet or asteroid. It is large,
very large. And the most chilling thing
about it is that it is heading towards Earth. What is it? Is
there danger for the people of Earth?
What should Earth do to prepare for it? Adam is a story
about a cosmic visitor that will change
everything.
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