And neither did Ben’s laptop or cell phone.
“If it’s a black hole, wouldn’t we see gravitational lensing?” Dr. Müller mused.
In theory, a black hole’s gravity should bend light passing close, like a cosmic bead of water lensing starlight around it. The black hole itself would be invisible, but there would be a telltale shift of starlight if it were there.
“Yes and no,” Ben replied. “A black hole of ten solar masses has a Schwarzschild radius of thirty kilometers.” The Schwarzschild radius was the famed “event horizon” of a black hole, where the escape velocity exceeded the speed of light. Beyond that boundary, all of our physics and knowledge became useless, so this boundary became the commonly accepted “size.”
“From twenty billion kilometers,” Roger added, “too small to see.”
Dr. Müller looked at Ben. “So it’s smaller than we thought. We should update the media.”
Ben gritted his teeth, his patience far since worn out. “If you want another word out of me...” Jess and Celeste had been on the ground in New York for two hours already. They must have seen his face on TV by now and know that he wasn’t on the airplane behind them.
Dr. Müller nodded. “Let me check again.” He stood. “Sorry, the network security team was overwhelmed today.”
Ben clenched his jaw and watched Dr. Müller wind his way out of the room.
“He does have a point.” Roger nudged Ben, pointed at the star fields on the screen. “Something that big, even at this distance, with Gaia’s instruments we should be seeing microlensing. That’s what you asked me to look for around Gliese 445, right?”
Ben nodded. Microlensing meant a tiny shift of intensity in the light coming from a star. A small black hole—small relative to the millions-of-solar-mass ones at the centers of galaxies—wouldn’t be big enough create a fish-eye kind of lensing. It would only shift some of the light away from the observer, making a star it passed in front of appear to twinkle. Teams around the world were processing Gaia’s images, looking for this signature, but it was maddening work. Every star had some small variability.
The door to the control room opened. Dr. Müller’s face appeared. He motioned for Ben to come to the door. “I have your equipment.”
Ben looked at Roger and shook his head. “Finally.” They stood and walked to the door, exited into the hallway.
“Here you go. There are instructions for logging into our imaging network” Dr. Müller gave them a folded sheet of paper along with their laptops and cell phones. He pointed down the hall. “I’ve reserved room 304 for your use.” He looked at Ben and pursed his lips. “Your emails and calls will be monitored. It’s the best I can do.”
“Great.” Ben grabbed his stuff and stalked off without looking back. He opened the door to room 304. Not more than twelve-foot square—two cubicles with workstations, and a gray couch next to the entrance with a flat screen TV on the wall beside it.
Ben turned on the TV and tuned it to CNN, while Roger opened his laptop to log into ESOC.
“You getting the feed?” Ben asked.
Roger held up one finger, waiting for the connection, then nodded. The newest images from Gaia loaded up, and bright pinpoints of starlight spread across his screen. They were linked into the satellite data feed from Gaia, as well as a dozen other ground-based and orbiting observatories connected to Darmstadt.
“Perfect.” Ben sat at the workstation to Roger’s right and opened his own laptop.
Roger looked over his shoulder at the news feed on CNN. “The riots stopped in LA. Maybe you helped. Maybe Müller knows what he’s doing.” He pointed at a headline scrolling across the TV’s display.
Ben glanced at it, then returned to logging into the ESOC wireless network. “Doubt it. People are in shock, acting emotionally. Random outbursts. To be expected.”
“Expected? You think this was expected?” Roger cocked his head and stared at Ben.
“Not Nomad, that’s not what I mean.” Ben typed in the password taped to his laptop. “I mean, through the magic of modern media, we’ve just told seven billion people that they have months left to live. Like we’ve told everyone on the planet they have terminal cancer. Classic seven stages of grief, starting with shock and emotional acting out.”
Roger grabbed the remote and turned up the volume. An “expert” was in the middle of explaining how the whole thing was a hoax. “What about denial?”
“That’s in the first phase as well.” Ben waited for the network to accept a connection. He opened his phone and turned it on. “Still nothing?” He flicked his chin at the Gaia image on Roger’s laptop.