1 Stargazing

So hot….

The heat has been a nightmare since the beginning of the summer,

As if it wasn't bad enough, the solar activity has been weird lately. I am majoring in astronomy, and I had an assignment about it. The only conclusion I came with was that there was some unknown source that was making the sun electromagnetic field, unstable.

The temperature inside the house is over 40°C right now. Even Dante, my cat, didn't want to leave the house and was sitting with my younger sister Hope next to the fan.

"Spence~... do you think G can fix our A/C?".

"Maybe, but he didn't do a good job with his last time."

Our A/C broke just earlier that day, so we are suffering from the heat.

People always compared Hope and me, I'm older by two years, but even if a look a little older some people still think that that we are fraternal twins. Same dark hair, not black, but almost, although Hope likes to dye hers sometimes. Right now, she had the ends of her hair purple colored.

Both of us got most of our appearance from my mom, a straight nose, oval face, but what people usually notice first are our deep green eyes. People tend to think that Hope's eyes are bigger, but I'm pretty sure it's because of the makeup.

We were looking at the HolTv, and just a 4D movie has ended. I couldn't resist the heat anymore, so I went to get some ice cream from the refrigerator.

I have searched for it a couple of minutes before asking Hope about it.

"Hope, have you seen my ice-cream?"

"I ate it"

It took me a couple of seconds to understand that there was no ice-cream.

"Wait, why did you eat my ice-cream!!, You had yours!!"

I turned around to look at her. She looked back at me trying to look innocent with her big and green eyes… ok, maybe they are bigger.

"I thought it was mine?"

"You don't even like pistachio!!!"

A terrible liar, but the ice-cream was already gone.

Even if I scold her, there's nothing I can get from it… and it's too hot to have a discussion, but I'll find a way to get revenge. Next time I buy ice cream… I'm not getting any of the flavors she likes.

In the end, I just took a lot of ice in a glass and put some juice on it… No, I didn't say the order wrong it was ice with juice no juice with some ice on it.

When I came back to the couch, she changed the subject.

"Hey Spence, you were working on an assignment about stars, right? I remember seeing similar photos on your computer?"

There was an astronomic 3D display of a quasar on the HolTV, and the reporter was with someone I recognized as one of my professors.

"To show us some light about what these discoveries mean we have with us Dr. Stephan Harting, Professor and Leader investigator of the astronomy department at the Aurora University. Dr. Harting how are you today."

"I'm great, as you said in the presentation this is a great year for astronomy. There are a lot of things going on, we even had to ask some student for help in exchange for extra credits".

Of course, I was one of those students, my investigation on the solar flares was an extra credit assignment, and I wasn't the only one who was assigned to do it.

"You have a lot of work ahead of you."

"Yes in the astronomy world is common to have events and discoveries from time to time, but this year there have been too many, but we are going to talk just about the most important. First, as everyone knows the sun activity has been unusual this whole year, we have been able to collect a lot of data regarding the current condition of the sun".

"Then I'm forced to ask what's on everyone's mind… are the solar flares stopping anytime soon?".

"We have some theories about the sun situation, but knowing which one is the correct is going to take more time and analysis. But we think the solar activity can be just a natural process, of course, we don't discard that this situation might be influenced by another event that is currently happening."

"Are you talking about the major discovery you were talking about?"

"Yes, this happened a couple of years ago, but this year is the most important for us. The AHK-11200547 it's a comet first noticed in May of the year 2047, it will pass near the earth and will be visible for a couple of days starting tonight".

"You mentioned that it can be involved with the solar flares?"

"Usually a comet gets detected by our equipment decades before it came close to earth, but this one has a peculiar electromagnetic field. This made us late in detecting it, and we think this could be one of the reasons for the solar flares, but we can't be sure".

"The flares are provoked by a comet?"

"It's a possibility because this comet has been invisible for us for a while already and we didn't notice that it was inside the solar system moving around the sun."

"But it's a comet enough to influence the electromagnetic field from the sun? you mentioned it is a major discovery."

"We think that the erratic lectures we are having are because of a weird electromagnetic field, this same EM field was found again in another asteroid from the Asteroids Belt that the comet passed by. We think that the comet provoked it, and the theory is that it's actually also affecting in some way the sun. the reason for it being a major discovery is because we think that this weird EM field is due to a new material that has not been discovered in nature until now."

After that the conversation continued, they talk about the characteristics of the comet and the history of the discovery. The asteroid also left the asteroid belt, so it was supposed to be wandering in the solar system too.

Both were supposed to be visible tonight.

I wanted to comment on the interview, but my sister fell asleep without me noticing.

I was about to drink my juice, but I found that the glass was empty… I looked at Hope… sleeping peacefully and was tempted to awaken her just to annoy her, but I had a more important thing to do.

After drawing a mustache on her face, I went to prepare for tonight.

I wanted to look for my telescope and camera for tonight. I was planning to look at the comet and make Hope come with me as punishment for eating my ice-cream and drinking my juice. Maybe she falls for astronomy too.

The afternoon went by slowly, Hope was sleeping till 8 with the cat. After Dr. Harting interview, there was nothing exciting on the HolTV. I started researching about the comet. Besides the place and some pictures, there was not much information about either of them, I saw more info at college when I was helping with the research at the university.

After dining with my sister, we went to the backyard where I have already set up the telescope, it was about 10 pm when the sun finally disappeared.

I had to wait for a while before the show began, so I started to look for other constellations, even if it was an amateur telescope, the capacity was beyond what you would expect… I have to save from my part-time job for a year while in college to buy it but it was utterly worth it, the comet should be visible about midnight.

While I was setting up the telescope, my sister was talking with my mom, she was with dad on a business trip.

"Yes mom, we are eating well… well, we are out of ice-cream… probably tomorrow morning …no… Spence wants to watch the stars, so we are outside… I can't hear you, where are you?... That's odd… yeah, he said there was a shooting star, and with the high temperatures I can't go out during the daytime, so it has been really boring… Yeah, I can't hear you well either… bye mom"

"Mom says don't stay up too late, and to buy more ice-cream for your cute little sister."

"She didn't say that, she probably said something about eating well and drink a lot of water" I answered while focusing the telescope.

"Yeah… but you will buy ice-cream, right?

"Of course, and a lot of it, maybe we can survive the summer that way."

"Yeah, the heat is really annoying none of our friends want to come over in the daytime."

"Actually, I talked with G and Rose while you were sleeping and invited them over for stargazing, they should arrive any moment since the sun went down."

Just as I finished saying that the doorbell rang.