THE ROCK

Charles H. Grooms

The boulder sized rock had been hurled into intergalactic space when it's parent star had turned into a super nova. There was nothing unusual about the rock as space debris goes. It was basically igneous with veins of metal running through it. During the millennia that had passed since it's expulsion into space, it had cooled to close to absolute zero. Other than that fact, nothing of significance had happened to it. Had it been sentient, it would have noticed a slight tug of gravity that slowly increased over the next few years. Suddenly, another slightly smaller chunk of rock smashed into it. The force of the impact, though not great enough to shatter the two metal veined rocks, did cause some melting and subsequent fusing of the two masses, along with some loss of matter. Then there was another period of cooling. During the next several millennia, there were other smaller impacts that slowly added to the size and mass of the rock.

Then the rock moved into a dust cloud, and the rate at which it's size and mass increased was speeded up. With the increase of mass, it's gravity field also increased. Whereas at an earlier time in it's existence, a grain of sand passing within a few inches of it at a relative speed of only a few feet per day would have continued on it's slightly altered way, would now find itself being attracted by the rock.

More millennia passed and the rock moved out of the dust cloud and left it far behind. The rock, now the size of a large mountain, went through another cooling period. Nothing significant happened to it for a long time as it traveled through the emptiness between galaxies.

Soon, (speaking in a galactic sense, not as men define "soon"), it started approaching another cloud. This cloud was different from the previous cloud through which it had passed. This cloud was over a five hundred thousand light years across and a ten thousand light years thick at the center and was basically a gas cloud with hydrogen being the major component of the cloud, although there were small bits of solid material ( nothing bigger than a man's fist ) in the cloud. There were also areas in the cloud where the gas was slowly swirling around gaseous centers. This was a medium sized galaxy in the making, although no contraction had yet taken place which would allow stars to start forming. The cloud was traveling in a similar direction as the rock so that the rock was approaching the cloud at an almost tangential angle.

Although the relative speed between the rock and the cloud was low as relative speeds between objects in space go, the rock still ripped into the cloud at several miles per second. Even at the periphery of the cloud, where the individual atoms making up the cloud were several meters apart, friction started heating the rock. There were soon impacts with the solid bits of matter in the cloud which added to the mass of the rock. Although the rock had a small mass compared to the overall mass of the cloud, it was still by far the most massive object in the cloud. As it penetrated deeper into the cloud, impacts became increasingly more frequent and the rock grew, both in size and in temperature. Soon, the rock reached incandescence and some of the more volatile materials boiled off, but by now the rock was massive enough to hold them as an atmosphere.

As the "rock" continued on it's way, it soon became completely molten, and as it's mass increased, the rate at which it grew in size speeded up due to it's ever deepening gravity well. Eventually, it's forward motion through the cloud had ceased, relative to the cloud, although the direction and speed of the cloud had also changed, but only minutely, due to the influence of the "rock." Besides it's forward motion which it shared with the cloud, it was also on a spiral course toward the center of the cloud.

By now, it's gravity well had become deep enough and strong enough that it was affecting the entire cloud. The atmosphere around it's molten surface was becoming increasingly compressed. With this compression came more heating, This heating caused even the least volatile elements in the "rock" to boil. Finally, two adjacent atoms of hydrogen fused, and fusing, released more heat. This additional heat (and subsequent pressure increase) was all that was needed for other fusions to start taking place. The "rock" was now a new star.

Since the rock had originally entered the cloud in a retrograde direction, it had, as it grew, affected the rotation of the cloud. This, among other factors, helped the rest of the material in the cloud to gravitate toward the new star. Eventually, a large amount of the material in the cloud was a part of the new star, and the rest was in orbit around it. Even as stars go, it was a giant. Due to the fact that it had not yet really stabilized, it would contract for a while, increasing it's internal pressure and consequently, it's temperature. That in turn would cause an increase in pressure, so the star would start to expand. As it did, the internal pressure would drop and with the drop of pressure, the temperature would drop. That would allow it to start to contract again. It would shrink to 400 million miles in diameter and swell to 600 million miles in diameter, with a mean diameter of 500 million miles.

The next major event that happened would not have happened had the rock and gas cloud not collided. The course of both the cloud and the rock had been changed from their original courses. The star headed on a collision course with a distant, rather large spiral galaxy. Without the cloud, the rock would have missed the galaxy. Without the rock, the cloud would have missed the galaxy. Adding the two together, the star had a new vector, straight toward a galaxy. Unfortunately, many of the stars of the distant galaxy had planets, and many of those planets contained life.

Time passed. Again, had the star been sentient, it would have noticed the distant tug of the approaching galaxy. It's forward speed very slowly increased.

Had there been an astronomer around with sufficient data, i.e. star charts with exact positions, speeds, vectors, masses of the stars, etc. and with a computer capable of digesting all of that data, he would have concluded that the star would have passed through the galaxy but for one old dwarf on the very periphery of the galaxy.

This old dwarf was in the twilight of it's years, and was actually in the cooling process. Even as dwarf stars go, this dwarf was a very small, but very dense star. Once it had been a much larger star with a family of twelve planets. As it aged, it had slowly swollen in size and had slowly engulfed most of it's family. Later in it's existence, it had novaed and all but the outermost of it's planets had been swallowed. This last planet had been a gas giant of the Jupiter class. It had an iron-nickel core and that core was all that was left. The dwarf was rich in heavy elements because of it's age, but that really bears no significance to our tale. What is significant to our tale is this. Our hypothetical astronomer would have noted that the dwarf was changing it's course through space, and was heading off on a collision course with the approaching new star.

Compared to our young giant, the dwarf star was hardly more than a speck of dust, but even the smallest of stars is extremely massive. Even though the young star was being attracted by the entire galaxy, the dwarf was the closest thing to it, and affected it the most. Soon, the two stars, super giant and super dwarf were racing toward each other.

As they neared each other, solar flares towered outward from each of them. Even though it was very affected by the gravity of the dwarf, the giant's gravity was so much greater that it's effect was greater and the dwarf was soon being torn apart by the giant's gravity.

Massive as the huge star was, it's course and speed were still considerably changed by the collision with the dwarf. It had initially been speeded up by the dwarf, then it was noticeably slowed by the collision. It's course had been altered toward the center of the galaxy. Had it not been for the dwarf, the star would have slipped through the galaxy. Certainly, the orbits of many of the stars in the galaxy would have been perturbed, but that would have settled out. Now, it was moving slower but was headed into a much more densely populated portion of the galaxy nearer the center.

Inevitably, another star got in it's way. The same scene that was played out with the old dwarf was played out with a much younger star. This new victim was much larger than the dwarf, about a million miles in diameter, but still much smaller than the young giant. The added mass from the dwarf and the second star caused the giant's gravity to increase even more and actually resulted in some shrinking in the giant. Now it was pulsing from about 400 million miles in diameter to 580 million miles, with a mean diameter of 490 million miles. Still huge, even as giants go.

Now the giant headed even deeper into the more populated regions of the galaxy. There were more collisions and more growth. As other stars fell toward the giant, their planets were torn away from them. These planets were buffeted by storms of unimaginable ferocity and torn asunder by quakes even before they approached sufficiently close enough to feel the searing heat of the giant.

It was not long before the giant's gravity well increased to the point that distant stars that should have gone on their serene way were being pulled toward it. It's gravity became so great that even the intense light shining from it soon was unable to escape. It had become a black hole.

By now, every star in the galaxy was rushing toward the black hole which was now the gravitational center of the galaxy. Those stars which were the furthest from it achieved speeds that were a good percentage of the speed of light in their mad rush to their doom. Even neighboring galaxies were feeling the effects of it's presence.

By ones and twos and tens, the stars of the galaxy fell into the hole. Some of the stars collided with each other before they fell into the insatiable black hole.

The gravity of any star is great enough to cause some warping of the fabric of space. As the last star in the galaxy fell into the black hole, the mass, and as a result, the gravity of the hole became so inconceivably great, that the fabric of space was warped beyond endurance. When this happened, the very fabric of space was torn, and the hole simply "pinched" off.

Where once there had been an entire spiral galaxy, there was now - nothing. Not even a black hole. Not a single atom of hydrogen was left where once had shone an entire galaxy in all of it's blazing splendor.

Meanwhile, completely outside of the universe from which it had come, almost all of the matter of a gas cloud which would have become a medium sized galaxy, plus all of the material of a rather large spiral galaxy, was compressed into one solid mass of incomprehensible density. Even the densest of normal matter is mostly empty space. This mass was compressed so densely that there was no empty space in it. Protons and neutrons were pressed so tightly against each other that they were deformed and compressed. The gravity caused even more shrinking and compression untill the subatomic particles lost their individuality and flowed and became a single, giant particle the size of a basketball.

The pressure in this mass was unimaginable. No twisting of the human mind, no convolutions of numbers or mathematical symbols can begin to understand the pressure. It was simply inconceivable. It exploded.

Fifteen billion years later, an animal stood on it's hind legs and looked at the night sky and wondered what those specks of light were. In it's hand, it held a piece of rock.

One million years later, many of it's remote descendants made theories to explain the creation of the universe, such as steady state and big bang.

A few years later, one of it's remote descendants wrote this chronicle.

Fifty three thousand years later, a distant star in a remote galaxy became a super nova and a boulder was hurled into space.

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