Ancient collision at the edge of the Galaxy

Antiqua locus, designatus est in Extremis

Prologue

XXIII AUGUSTA, MMXXV

The Behemoth and the Milky Blue Dot

Off in the distance, the shadowy orb came into view. Framed by thousands upon millions of stars which glistened brightly at varying distances away, the orb at first was a minuscule speck blending into the casual view, if such a thing even existed in this vacuum. As the orb became a near-space object, its character began slowly to reveal itself. A dull opaque glow, the appearance of a drab surface of grey, black, and some variation of those two colors, was smattered about on the surface of the orb. Some other material, which appeared white as the Behemoth approached closer, looked to be frozen or simply washed out with no character whatsoever. This did serve to illuminate the orb in a slightly different hue, differentiating it from the other billion stars and clouds in the parameters of view. Pockmarks of large and larger crater impacts dotted the surface, their number soon to be multiplied with the addition of more strikes as the Behemoth hurtled past through the near orbital path of the opaque orb. This frozen ball, at one time given the dignity of being known as a full-fledged planet in a solar system which had identified only a single digit number of such heavenly bodies, waited silently and continued its path around the distant orange ball of fire. While Pluto, as it would come to be known in the early twentieth century, was the smallest known planet in the solar system, it did have the unique distinction of being the largest object in the nearby belt of asteroids that rimmed the outer reaches of this system. Here in the Kuiper Belt (another twentieth-century affixed moniker), Pluto reigned, and consequently, as the Behemoth approached, its path was subtly altered by the weak yet consistent gravitational pull exerted within its resonance. The Behemoth and its bevy of mini Behemoths careened toward Pluto at an unfettered pace, and many of the smaller iceteroids did not escape its pull and collided violently with the surface of the object. Undeterred, the Behemoth soared past and left in its wake on Pluto explosions from the debris which had latched on at various points in the heretofore journey of the great frozen rock through space. The glow of these blasts lasted only a nanosecond due to the paucity of oxygen contained in its slim layer of atmosphere. Now there were fresh impacts on top of ancient impacts, but Pluto continued through the cavernous blackness as though nothing had even happened, as it had for hundreds of millions of years since its formation.

Prominently visible now in the center of view, far ahead, was the unmistakable glow of a large, yellow-orange ball of fury. This round body of massive energy beamed continuously, and was in fact the reason the Behemoth was on its trajectory in the outer reaches of what would be known as the Milky Way Galaxy. The gravitational force exerted even at this distance had been enough to alter the path of the Behemoth and turn it and the vast collection of meteoroids and space dustules toward the Galactic Center. Now, the Behemoth picked up speed, with no other heavenly forces of inertia in its immediate path, and began to pick up visuals of other far larger colorful globes ahead, its tail glowing and changing from white hot to a hue of dark green as it cut a path through the blackness.

In the stark, all-encompassing vastness and quiet of space, there is beauty. The only comparisons which the worldly dweller even has in his vocabulary, in the language of any of the many civilized (and not so civilized) nations of the present or our forefathers, are of earthly vistas, with no true inkling of the nature of the expanse in its furthest reaches. For having never actually experienced the climate or lack thereof in any of these billions of spaces within the space, Earth-bound inhabitants are left to mostly speculate the conditions which make up our far-away neighborhood of stars, planets, and a multitude of other heavenly objects.

A small piece of this beauty is visible on a clear night from Earth, with the millions upon billions of twinkling dots illuminating the otherwise black sky. But, this is just a minuscule part of a micro-tip of what is actually in existence in the expanse. These familiar glistening dots, which over the millennia have been identified and labeled as constellations with histories and mythology included as well to tell the story of the stars and the heavens above, are only the beginning of what the cosmic spectrum holds.

The Milky Blue Dot was unlike any other visible object in the all-encompassing quiet and vastness of these far reaches. Seemingly larger and brighter by degrees as the Behemoth hurtled toward it unabated, the Milky Way blue dot shimmered and waited. Some distance further, an unmistakable yellow-orange orb still beamed furiously as the brightest light of all amongst the trillions upon trillions of glistening lights visible among the vastness. The brilliant blue dot was dwarfed by the orange ball of fury, and even at this distance, more than 900 million miles away, it was an unmistakable hue, unique to any other light that glimmered at every angle. And, there were other glowing orbs visible, with many colors and sizes, and uniqueness in this group of orbiting bodies. In what would later be known by the inhabitants of the brilliant blue dot as the Kuiper Belt, and owing to the massive magnetic field of the Trans-Neptunian region, the Behemoth’s current course had been altered due to a massive collision in these far reaches.

Photo by Daniele Levis Pelusi on Unsplash

The origin of the Behemoth may never be exactly certain, for a variety of causes could have created it: a collision of two planetary bodies in a faraway galaxy, a dwarf star imploding and setting loose it’s orbiting bodies to roam the far reaches after millions of rotations, or just the simple bumping of two asteroids into each other in a belt of thousands of such icy rocks similar to the one housed between Mars and Jupiter in the Solar System of the Milky blue dot. Many of these rocks are large enough to have their little band of satellites, yet not quite large enough to be considered a proper planet. Any small collision sets off a chain reaction of other collisions, some minuscule, some gargantuan. In any event and no matter the cause, the Behemoth at present hurtled through space at such a speed that the gleaming lights between it and the yellow-orange sphere appeared closer and brighter at all times.

After a certain amount of time, the Behemoth, which in its current state was about the size of a 10 story building, which would not be built or used on the brilliant blue dot for another 550 years give or take a decade (if using the measure of time the beings who inhabited there used), approached an immense gathering of rocks not unlike itself. This mass of objects, held together in a dense but loose grouping by the gravitational pull of the gas giant later to be known as Neptune (named after a man made diety who lived at the bottom of one of the oceans that gave the brilliant blue dot its blue luminance) ominously loomed in the path of the Behemoth. Due to the size of the Behemoth and the thousands of other objects, some larger and some much smaller, a clean path through seemed virtually impossible. Even in the vast expanse, these objects populated much of the near space environment, and many exerted their small gravitational pull as well, making it even more difficult to traverse this path unscathed.

An object, later to be classified as a dwarf planet and given the exotic name of Quaoar, stood directly in the path of the Behemoth at its current trajectory. In a nanosecond of blinding green-hued flash, the two gigantic iceteroids slammed into each other with such a force that the impact sent many of the other small and large rocks reeling. There were many other collisions and explosions as icy rocks went careening in every direction. The Behemoth, now reduced to a mere fraction of its previous mass, sped with a bright green and blue tail of hot cosmic gas. The rock now careened in an entirely new pathway. Behind, there was still chaos where there had been tranquility as the chain reaction begun by the Behemoth colliding with Quaoar continued unabated. But, this soon became a distant past event as the rock cut through the silent dark.

Had anyone on the Milky Way been looking, the Behemoth, or what was left of it, would have been visible with a moderately powerful telescope to those inhabitants residing in the Northern Hemisphere. The trail of glistening cosmic dust would have distinguished this object from the other faraway galaxies and stars also visible. But, the telescope would not be invented until 1608, which would still be over 125 years.

Author’s note: This is an idea in progress…thanks for reading it. I will be working on it this summer, so check back in, ok?

-Brad