The Great Red Spot

June 22nd, 2100. Time: 0300.

They say Jupiter is a star that failed—a sun that could’ve ignited if it were eighty times larger. We’re not sure why it never completed its cycle of transforming into a sun. But could you imagine if it had? Two gravitational forces on both sides of the Earth could have torn us apart. Maybe. Science is more of a practice than a mastery.

As we departed from Earth on April 2100, Jupiter was in a state of ambiguity. The perpetual storm once believed to be shrinking, had instead swelled to engulf half the planet. It grew hotter and brighter, and from our distant view on the surface of Earth, it appeared as a small, ominous blot of light in the sky. Concerns began to flurry, and the call for exploration became undeniable.

Were we all going to die?

Was the world as we knew it about to undergo an immense change?

Hell, I didn’t know. All I knew was that I was going to space.

Two months later, as I sit and write this log in a speeding hunk of nuclear-powered metal, I prepare to investigate the danger from afar. Our science has improved tremendously. I look at my spacesuit propped on a mechanical mannequin in the corner of my dorm. The only thought remaining in my head today is this: will the suits protect us if we decide to land? Or will I burn into a distant memory?

July 4th, 2100. Time: 1200.

July 4th. It would be a holiday in the United States. Fireworks, hotdogs, cheeseburgers, and cornhole are more than likely in high demand right about now. Even now, as we pass through magnificent colors and sights, marveling at the vastness of our galaxy, I miss the fireworks with my family. Sometimes, it is best to stare and wonder than jump at discovery.

As I was sitting to write this entry, our engineer had to make quick repairs to the eastern airlock. The high speeds at which we are traveling have taken their toll on the room. For our safety, the east wing is blocked off.

August 15th, 2100. Time: 0900.

Four months in, we have reached Jupiter. The technology performed better than all expectations. The eastern wing has been fully repaired, and now, we safely orbit Jupiter, staring down at the Great Red Spot. Now, it is more of a metastasizing cancer on the planet. Our ship's computer systems warn from getting any closer. The planet has become hot… almost comparable to our sun.

It has made my crew, and I wonder if Jupiter was never a failed sun. Could it be a sun in the making, proving our initial practice of space exploration wrong? Perhaps it even proves everything we thought we knew about space is wrong.

Captain O’Leary Jones. ASSET One.

As the Earth’s calendar closes the page of August 15th, 2100, Captain O’Leary closes his journal and shoves it gently into his desk. For the last four months, he has been religiously journaling the trip to Jupiter. His hair is graying, which he blames solely on the stress of navigating a spaceship. That kind of thing wears on a person. Especially if the destination is an unknown fate.

The ASSET One, short for Allied Scientists Space Exploration Team, is sent into a gentle propulsion backward to keep the vessel aligned with the storm's center. The readings on the thermometer in his dorm are spiking too high. They must back off the planet to cool down before returning to gather more readings.

So far, after a full day of letting the sensors scan and formulate the sonar readings, they know nothing of the storm nor the fate of Jupiter, let alone that of their home planet. It worries O’Leary. His wife and sons are back home. He hates the idea of them being engulfed in a battle between two suns. If science has one thing right, it is the strength of gravity. Two will surely spell ill fate.

Lost in the scary thoughts of possibility and death, a knock pounds from his closed dorm door. “Sir,” says a Russian-accented woman. “The navigation system has begun to back us off from the planet. It is lunchtime. Do you want the chef to whip you something together? I hear he’s making freeze-dried steaks.”

O’Leary fights the bile forming in his stomach. Freeze-dried steaks are always a little slimy. He’d rather eat MREs like he did during his stint in the Marine Corps.

He looks down at his pale skin and the dark red hairs on his muscular forearms. The ship’s gym has allowed him to retain most of his muscle mass and bone density. He can still grab three hundred pounds when lying on the bench.

Running a hand through his graying red hair, O’Leary stands from his desk, grabs the black hat that reads “Captain” on the front, and plants it on his head. He stares at his badge, a gold-plated circle with a spaceship orbiting a planet, sitting on his shelf. Sighing, he walks for the door.

The door glides open, and he is face-to-face with Alina Popov, the team's computer specialist. She ensures all computers are functional, accurate, and running. Any time reports return about planetary readings, Alina’s sole job is to report them. During the exploration, they’ve become something close to siblings. The narrow-faced woman wears long blond hair, bright blue eyes, and a charming smile. They agreed that they must let their families meet for a good old-fashioned American cookout when they return home.

O’Leary looks past her shoulder. The door opposing him is the engineer. He is standing in his doorway, rubbing sleep from his puffy eyes. If anyone were to have a more challenging job than O’Leary himself, it would be Fu Li, the slightly overweight Chinese engineer.

“Fu,” O’Leary laughs. “Go get some steak-slosh. It’ll perk you right up.”

Bobbing his head in acknowledgment, Fu Li places his crewman cap on his head. A formality that, while a little unnecessary by now, helps with morale.

“Right away, sir,” groggily says Fu, dragging his flip-flop-covered feet down the hallway. “Maybe it’ll be more steak than slime!” he mumbles.

Alina laughs and follows Fu’s path through the hallway to the left. O’Leary follows her. Behind him, stemming from the rooms further behind his, he hears the sound of his fellow shipmates scuffling down the hall. Lunchtime on Earth is usually met with energy. In space, where it is always dark outside, it is always time to sleep.

When they gather in the cafeteria, Bo Carson waddles his slightly fat stomach from behind the kitchen area. It is a small square room on the ship with a single sink and options for hot and cold. Today, science has allowed for a specially crafted stove aboard the ship. On this stove, they can quickly heat things up but for no longer than ten minutes. Often, the food is lukewarm. Very rarely, despite Bo Carson’s expertise in cooking, is the food better than horrible.

Bo is holding a plate of rehydrated steaks. The room is warm, meaning he did his best to cook away the slime of rehydration. O’Leary holds the hope that the meat will be horrible or even a little better today. They have hit the rock-bottom equivalent of food. Can it be much worse?

The four of them gather at the small table, take their seats, and nudge one another with elbows to get some space at the metal table. Thanks to artificial gravity, nothing or no one floats.

“Well,” Bo says, setting the serving platter down on the steel. “I did my best, ladies and gents. I figured with everyone slaving away over Jupiter, it wouldn’t hurt to drool over some good, non-slimy steaks.”

Edward Harvey, a six-foot-four-inch black guy from the UK, laughs, reaches over the metal surface, and plops a steak onto his plate. Clapping his hands and scraping his utensils, he digs in with a quick “thank you” to Bo.

Everyone else follows suit.

O’Leary is amazed at the taste of the meat when he puts the first slab in his mouth. It’s no roadhouse steak from his hometown, but it’s better than it has been for the last four months. It beats the chili, the hotdogs, the soups, and even the MREs.

“What’s the deal with Jupiter?” Bo asks, plopping down onto a bench seat. “Heard the computers last night, chatting up a storm, they were. Something about rising heat, spreading storms, chaos, etcetera.”

Alina nods through a mouthful of meat and says, “I was up all night with the computers. Some sensors didn’t read the heat like the others, so they needed to be recalibrated before we burned up. For whatever reason, Jupiter is becoming the hottest planet in our solar system.” She leans her head towards O’Leary. “Almost makes me think that O’Leary was right about Jupiter being a sun in the making. Perhaps we never truly knew what made a sun.”

O’Leary’s muscles begin to turn numb at the remark. He stayed up all night, praying his hunch was wrong. It was two weeks ago that he first thought of the possibility. A week later, he shared it with the crew when he noticed Jupiter's heat rising steadily. And now, even Alina has agreed on the chance of generations of scientists being fooled by God’s creations. It doesn’t settle well with O’Leary Jones.

The only hole in the theory, the one thing that makes the captain believe he is wrong, is the size of Jupiter. While it is heating up and becoming too hot to handle, it is not growing in size. So far, all he has is a theory.

Fu adds his thoughts. “What if it is something like nuclear power, but natural? An accumulation of energy and power from a neverending storm. Maybe the planet has just entered a self-destruction.”

Edward nods. He is a recent graduate of the physics program at MIT. He left with his doctorate and could become the youngest professor at twenty-eight if this mission succeeds. “That is a prospect,” he says somewhat nervously. “I wonder how dangerous that could be, though. A self-destructing planet would still break ideas believed for decades in the scientific world. And what of the pieces? They’d be pulled toward the gravitational force. Towards Earth.” Shrugging, playing off the worries, he drinks some water and adds a cut of steak into his mouth.

O’Leary stares at his plate, kicking the food around with his fork and knife. Before embarking on this quest, he was appointed to control the entire crew. The mission coordinator said he was hand-picked due to his experience in leadership, stressful circumstances, and coursework in space. They told him they could think of no one better for such a mission. At first, it was exciting and an honor. With the last few months collecting in his head, he has come to find it a curse. Why him?

Overhead, coming from the many speakers on the ship, the computers begin to talk. “Temperature rising. External heat source too close.”

O’Leary squints at the words. They just moved back to the safe zone. How could the external heat still be hitting them? Dropping his utensils and sipping a quick gulp of water, he jogs through the winding hallways and passes the dorms. He sprints faster as the computers repeat themselves, declaring the external heat a hazard. Behind him, he hears the running of the other shipmates.

He enters the control room after coming too fast for the doors to open fully. His head pounds from where he hit it on the automatic doors. A massive window looks out at Jupiter and the darkness of space around them. Computers line the floor that sits five feet below from where he stands. Taking the ladder to his right, he drops to the floor with the computers. Now, the window appears to be bigger. It is rounded, reaching around the front of the ship like one giant visor.

Jupiter is entirely red. The darkness is not dark anymore. The planet has produced its own light, highlighting the vastness of space as if the ASSET One were orbiting the sun.

Alina comes beside him. She gasps. “Is that good?”

“No,” says Bo, standing beside a series of weather-detecting computers. “The storm is picking up.” Before becoming a chef, Bo was a weatherman. That was why he was picked to join the expedition. If they were to monitor a storm on a foreign planet, why not have an astrologist onboard?

“Picking up, how?” O’Leary snaps, hurriedly running to the nose of the ship, stopping at the glass to look down at Jupiter. “The planet is blazing red. No storm can cause that.” Pattering against his chest like a jackhammer, O’Leary’s heart circulates too much blood and makes him dizzy. He extends a hand on the glass to steady himself.

Sweat drops off the tip of his nose. It shocks him. He hasn’t sweat from fear since his first deployment. Shaking relentlessly, his knees threaten to give away.

“Shit,” he murmurs. “Someone,” he shakily says, “Someone check the temperature readings.” Against his hand, the glass is starting to feel like a stovetop busy cooking dinner. Removing the palm of his hand from the glass, he leaves his fingertips on the surface. “Our glass is warm. Actually, it is burning.” The words leaving his mouth are hushed and restricted by the pounding of his heart.

Alina talks from the temperature screens. “It’s nearing a million degrees Fahrenheit. Still not as hot as our sun, which is twenty-seven million.”

O’Leary nods. “Bo, is this possible from the weather?”

Fu talks. “A neverending storm. I swear it! All that chaos and never a single moment of rest. It was bound to end badly!” He runs a hand through his bald head, massaging the wrinkles in his scalp. “What can we do?”

“Nothing,” O’Leary breathes. “We are not God. We do not control the weather or decide when planets do whatever they do.” He backs up and looks down at his fingers, all holding blisters on the tips. “This has gone horribly wrong.” He looks out at the distant planet, strangely marveling at the beauty of the red-hot surface. “Edward, check to see if our satellites are still reaching our comms.”

“Yes sir,” the young graduate responds, quickly walking to the communication station off to the back left of the room. The sound of the fans and virtual linkage whirs and dings in O’Leary’s ears.

He begins to grind his teeth, a habit he’s had since boot camp.

“I’ve got mission control,” Edward says.

“Good. Put them on for me to talk.”

Edward exhales a shaken breath and turns the internal speakers on. The coordinator's voice enters the room like a smooth drum. “What is your status, Captain?”

“The investigation is still ongoing. So far, Jupiter has risen to a million degrees Fahrenheit and is climbing. Our ship is backing us off due to a pre-installed safety protocol. Jupiter is toiling in heat.”

“Is the whole planet red?” gulps the coordinator.

“I can’t see the backside, but I’d believe it safe to assume so.”

Alina comes to O’Leary’s side with a tablet. On the screen are two side-by-side images of Jupiter. One is marked from the year 2024, and the other is just seconds ago. According to the planet's scannings, Jupiter has grown in size.

Sweat forms at his hairline.

Everything that once kept him doubtful of his fears has now evaporated in the intense heat of Jupiter.

“Captain,” asks the coordinator. “Any information?”

O’Leary turns his head and looks back at Edward. Pausing, he thinks of his kids and his wife. They are probably at home right now, enjoying their time together by watching television, playing a board game, or even tending the farm. The same goes for other families. Looking at Alina, he ponders the same thing about her family.

He looks out the window. Despite the fear in the coordinator’s voice, the man is experiencing hope.

“Captain,” repeats the man a million miles from his location.

He slices his throat with his hand, silently telling Edward to silence his line. When the man nods, O’Leary sighs and talks aloud. “When Jupiter reaches its final stage, we’ll have already been dead. Or, that is what I assume our chances are. We could hightail it back to Earth, hope to see our families, and put them into pure fear before demise. Or, we can sit here together as friends and allies and watch the end. It is a group decision.”

“Captain!” shouts the coordinator.

“But our boss is getting impatient.”

“What will you tell him, Captain?” asks Alina.

“I’ll tell him the truth. We aren’t sure what Jupiter is doing, so we’ll stay and monitor it.” He shrugs. “Hold onto some hope. Maybe it will find stability, and all our fears will be for nothing.”

Acceptance pours into Captain O’Lear Jones’ heart and mind. Even if they put the ship at full speed, they’d never return to Earth if Jupiter decided to morph into a sun or self-destruct.

“This is a once-in-a-lifetime event, isn’t it?” Alina asks, pulling a chair up to the window and sitting down, facing the planet.

“I knew something would go wrong,” Fu says, sitting on the floor by the glass and watching the heat rise through teary eyes. “I knew it.”

O’Leary looks at the last two members of the crew. Edward says nothing. He walks to the glass, folds his hands behind his back, and stares into the red abyss.

Bo tells them it was an honor to cook and study the weather. He always wanted to see something magnificent.

For O’Leary, he shakes at a sudden realization. Jupiter will expand, heat up, and before gravity can form, it will explode. Its transformation was too quick.

Broken, he watches the new sun's first and last sunrise.