The James Webb Telescope discovered
something terrifying in deep space
I work for NASA as an astronomer, and there are
certain things we keep hidden from the public.
No, the Earth isn’t flat, and aliens don’t control
the government. Fuck, I wish those were the
case, as the truth is much, much worse.
In 1993, the Hubble Space Telescope saw a star
disappear. It didn’t go supernova, or die naturally,
it simply went dark, over the span of a few
minutes. This star was already too faint to see
with the naked eye, and ground-based telescopes
had trouble picking it out from among the
surrounding stars, so the event wasn’t widely
known to the public. At the time, we thought the
most likely explanation was that a cloud of
interstellar dust had drifted between Earth and
the star, occluding it from view. It was noted and
mostly forgotten about.
In 2007, two more stars vanished. Due to the
circumstances of this event, this was much more
concerning. The two stars in question were part
of a binary system, orbiting each other at a fairly
close distance. If a cloud of interstellar dust was
the culprit again, they would have both seemed
to disappear simultaneously, or very close to it.
Instead, both stars faded individually over a
period of minutes, separated by a span of about
8 hours. This binary system was also about 15
light-years closer to Earth than the star that had
previously disappeared in 1993.
After carefully reviewing millions of Hubble
images, two more stars were identified which
had ‘gone out’, in the years 1995 and 2002.
These were all in the same stellar neighborhood,
only a handful of light-years from each other.
The only conclusion we could draw was that
some unknown influence, traveling close to the
speed of light, was shrouding (or destroying)
these stars. Unfortunately, the Hubble wasn’t
sensitive enough to tell us any more than that.
The James Webb Space Telescope first came
online a few months ago. Although official
channels will tell you that it’s still undergoing
testing, we have been actively collecting data
since early February. One of the first things we
did was to aim the telescope at the regions of
space occupied by the vanished stars. If they
were being blocked by dust clouds (a hope some
of us still held onto), the increased sensitivity of
the JWST may have been able to see through
them and confirm that the stars were still there.
Unfortunately, we had no such luck. The first 3
stars that had disappeared were still completely
dark. Gravitational wave detectors, though, soon
found something odd. In all cases, not only were
the stellar masses still present, but the amount
of mass had actually increased. More sensitive
observations had also detected a type of ‘string’,
or ‘web’ stretching through space connecting
these now-invisible stars.
When we trained the telescope on the binary
system that had vanished in 2007, which was the
nearest point at which this phenomenon had so
far been observed, there was finally enough
ambient EM spectrum radiation left to try a mass
spectrometer reading. If you’re not aware, mass
spectrometry is an incredibly useful process,
where by measuring the patterns of light
wavelengths emitted or reflected by an object,
we can learn tons of useful information, such as
its temperature, speed and direction of
movement, and chemical composition. The
readings we got from the binary stars didn’t
make any sense, though. First of all, they were
cold - almost as cold as the surrounding
interstellar medium. Whatever had happened to
these stars had snuffed them out completely, or
somehow prevented their light from escaping.
What was truly puzzling, however, were the
emission lines returned by the mass
spectrometer. Several familiar elements, such as
Hydrogen, Carbon, Nitrogen, Oxygen, and
Magnesium were identified, but these were few
and far between. Most of the readings didn’t
correspond to any known chemical elements, and
even seemed to defy what we knew about the
physics of light, matter, and chemistry. This
massive, star-spanning structure was primarily
composed of materials that we didn’t even have
names for, and may not even have been matter
as we understand it.
Speculation ran rampant. Obviously, such a thing
couldn’t be a natural phenomenon. Finally, we
had proof of extraterrestrial life! But what was
this thing we had discovered, and for what
purpose was it being built? The leading
hypothesis was that we were looking at a series
of Dyson Shells - massive solar collectors built to
completely envelop stars, in order to capture
100% of their energy output. Such a concept had
been envisioned in the early 20th century, as a
potential source of energy for an interstellar
civilization. Ever since then, the idea had found
its way into popular science fiction. The
construction of these massive structures had
actually been theorized to be one of the first
signs of intelligent extraterrestrial life that we
may someday detect. It seemed that day was
today.
The theory still didn’t explain everything, though.
First of all, there was the impossible speed with
which the stars were covered. Constructing a
Dyson shell from scratch in a matter of minutes
was beyond even the wildest speculations of
scientists and sci-fi writers. Then there were the
mysterious ‘filaments’ that connected the shells
over distances of light-years. No one had any
idea what purpose these could serve, or how
they could even be built.
Everyone at NASA was fascinated by this
mystery. In hindsight, we may have been better
off if we had never discovered the truth.
Less than a month ago, the JWST detected a
series of unusual energy bursts emanating from
interstellar space. These were occurring at the
very edge of a star system approximately 12
light-years from the binary system that vanished
in 2007. As we focused the telescope on this
system, we soon determined that these were not
natural phenomena either. The energy
signatures, which were still flashing
intermittently, matched what would be expected
from thermonuclear and antimatter - based
explosions, along with several other types of
energies that we couldn’t identify. These
explosions, although still not visible to the naked
eye on Earth from that distance, were absolutely
tremendous in magnitude - easily billions of
times more powerful than any nuke that humanity
could conceivably build.
After experimenting with the telescope’s settings,
we were able to get a clearer picture of what
was going on: The tip of one of the interstellar
‘filaments’ that linked the Dyson system was
passing through the Oort Cloud of the distant
star system, approaching its sun. And whoever
lived there was fighting back. Their weapons
were able to slow the thing’s advance,
shattering, breaking off, and vaporizing planet-
sized chunks of the object, but it seemed to be
rebuilding itself almost as fast as it was being
destroyed. After less than a week, the explosions
stopped. It seems that they had run out of
ammunition. In the void between stars, we knew
that these things traveled at nearly the speed of
light, but as we watched it approach the inner
star system, its pace slowed as it swelled in size,
preparing to devour the system’s star.
We quickly trained the telescope’s mirrors on the
doomed sun. We were about to watch whatever
this thing was blot out another star, but in real
time. We all held our breath as we watched the
projected image of the main sequence star,
slightly larger than our own sun. At first, nothing
seemed to be happening, but soon a small
shadow appeared on the edge of the luminous
orb, soon followed by another shadow, and then
a third. The shadows began to converge, forming
a strange yet somehow familiar pattern as they
blocked out the star’s light.
“What… are those?” One of my colleagues
gasped. “They almost look like…” she paused, as
if afraid to say the next word for fear of ridicule.
I, however, had no such hesitancy.
“Leaves,” I said, my voice monotone. The
situation was far too incredible to express any
emotional reaction, even that of pure shock.
“They look like leaves.”
We watched as, over a period of minutes, a web
of shadowy outlines, matching the familiar
shapes of oblong leaves and thin vines,
proceeded to blot out the remaining light from
the distant star.
By that point, everyone in the room had realized
the truth. The phenomenon we had been tracking
for so many years wasn’t some hyper-advanced
alien megastructure. Hydrogen, Carbon, Nitrogen,
Oxygen, and Magnesium, some of the few
familiar elements we had detected? They were
all components of chlorophyll.
It was a plant. An enormous plant that spanned
across light-years. And, much like terrestrial
plants, it sought out light to fuel itself. The
filaments connecting the stars across interstellar
space were stems - branches. It would grow in
the direction of the nearest stars it sensed,
completely enveloping them and then moving on.
Any life inhabiting planets orbiting those stars
would be left to freeze to death, or perhaps even
worse, it was possible that the plant would
devour those planets to add to its mass as well.
Everyone was silent as the telescope continued
to gather data. Eventually, after what seemed
like an eternity, a young astronomer spoke up
from the far end of the room, addressing our
supervisor.
“Sir, we’ve begun to detect the formation of
another tendril, leaving the system. Its vector
is…” he gulped. He didn’t need to say any more,
but he did anyway. “It’s heading directly for our
sun.”
“How much time do we have?” the supervisor
replied grimly.
“Judging by the time lag, distance, relativistic
properties, and previously observed speeds of
this… thing, I’d estimate no more than twenty-
seven years, sir.”
Twenty-seven years. We had just watched this
galactic weed overwhelm a civilization that was,
at the very least, thousands of years ahead of us
technologically, and we had less than three
decades.
I’ll probably be found and silenced for posting
this. But I don’t care. I have to tell someone. I
can’t keep this a secret any longer. When the
sun turns black and the world begins to freeze,
at least you’ll have some idea of what’s going
on, small comfort it may be.
Wait for 9th August and elect Wajakoyah. You have a lot in common.
nimedhania ni NASAya azimio
You already lost me there didn’t go further:D:D
NASA yenye tunatambua ni ya Asimio. Hii ingine ni jaba story
Hizi ni zile fictitious stories huandikwa na wasee pale Reddit. The guy has very good comprehension of astrophysics and cosmology as well as better imagination. Lakini apo pa plants ndo alichoma. Very unrealistic.
For those not in the know, spectrometer is the answer to questions pertaining to how scientists detect distance between celestial objects. Every celestial body emits some sort of radiation that gives details about its composition. Regarding the Dyson Sphere, I had actually envisioned it to work in the same manner. We had a similar discussion couple of months ago.
Lost me at component of chlorophyll.Hii ni bangi ya Busia inaongea.Reality is that we are not alone in the universe.
JaKuon kumbe wewe huwa nerd sometimes 
Yeah, right.
Summary: The sun will soon get eaten up by a giant plant, and the end of the world shall have come. We will trash this fiction in 2049 when we wake up to enjoy sunshine as usual.
In short anasema black holes ni vegan.
I think I’m going to binge watch star trek this weekend.
Why won’t that stupid plant go to Antares or Belteguese where it can have an ample supply of light energy for a millennium.
Earth is flat
Pombe bangi repeat
Naambianga watu hivi hawaniamini
Yea
I love doom porn. The allure of it fascinates me, just to know we can be obliterated in a matter of seconds.
Ama witnessing how they will orchestrate blue beam an the masses to believe it.
August 27 tunangoja. Kama mbaya mbaya.
Interesting times to be alive.
So the 3rd World war will be between man and some alien plant?
Spooky.
What war? As it stands now man cannot even defend himself against an asteroid impact sasa a “plant” siphoning fuel from stars ndo wataweza??
:eek:Can you imagine resisting Carol, Diana na maMary wa mtaa + hawa Luwere wa hii kijiji and then getting obliterated by a plant?:eek: