An Astronomer's Farewell (Stationed on Mars)
Short Story
Built on the Martian surface, the crewed RedScope Observatory is not bound by Earth’s dense atmosphere and artificial light. When the Sun sets on Mars, the telescope witnesses cosmic spectacles hidden from Earth. It traces the movements of asteroids in the nearby belt, watches over its neighbor, the gas giant Jupiter and its growing family of moons, and peers beyond the solar system to investigate black holes and the mysteries at the center of the galaxy.
*
“I have watched sunsets on two worlds, and have grown old in their light,” Malcolm said.
The old astronomer leaned back in his chair, watching the Martian horizon through the transparent dome. His face bore the mapped lines of a life spent looking at distant stars.
“RedScope is warming up,” Takota said, studying the central console.
The control room was a stargazer’s den, warm and worn, resting beneath the dome. Desks were scattered, their surfaces covered with faint scratches and coffee stains, old lamps with fabric shades cast halos over potted plants and dim consoles—it was a living room among the stars.
Images of distant galaxies and nebulae taken from the station hung on the curved walls between portraits of the first RedScope astronomers. Rows of clocks ticked: Earth Universal Time Coordinated, Coordinated Mars Time, and others set to the home cities of long-rotated astronomers.
“Just like the first time,” Malcolm said, watching the sunset for the last time.
He had once called them lifeless—the rust-colored sand dunes and jagged rocky mountains that were now sinking into long shadows. Dust swirling through the thin atmosphere scattered the light, the sky fading from orange to blue—the reverse of an Earth sunset.
The last light disappeared from the Martian surface.
The darkened landscape surrendered to the cold.
Mars had given Malcolm a front-row seat to the greatest light show in the solar system. Through the thin atmosphere (1% of Earth’s), faint stars revealed themselves, appearing as sharp, bright points of light and true to their actual colors, creating a colorful night sky of hot blue, white, yellow, and cooler orange and red stars.
Here the constellations shone brighter, forming a deeper cosmic sea.
The thin atmosphere was Mars’ gift to those bold enough to call it home.
Some nights, Malcolm had felt like the most far-flung explorer, sent farther into the cosmic wilderness than any soul before him. The stars were his companions, sending him messages waiting to be read to Earthbound minds.
But this time tomorrow, he would be sitting on a rocket heading on a six-month journey back to the blue planet.
The old astronomer looked at the wall clock labeled Cape Town. It was just past eight p.m. Beneath Earth’s heavy sky, his baby granddaughter would be asleep.
The black-and-white image was the greatest message he had received.
She had not even been conceived when he last launched from Earth. Now the baby girl was seven months old, born when Earth was on the other side of the Sun—during the great silence.
His desk was cleared. But one article remained pinned to a partition wall, the last piece, waiting to be packed for its return journey.
An old journal stuffed with clippings, printouts, and photographs lay open on the bare desk. The author of hundreds of papers, Malcolm had relayed RedScope’s discoveries to Earth during his four decades of astronomical research—a quarter of that time deployed on Mars.
This would be his last deployment, his remaining days bound to Earth, watching a different view of the same universe.
Turning the pages of the pieced-together journal, Malcolm landed on a handwritten quote from RedScope’s first chief astronomer—the same visionary who had recruited him to the Martian observatory many years ago:
When night falls on Mars, the cosmos awaken, and humanity steps further into the unknown.
“We’ve got Europa in our sights tonight,” Takota said, looking up from the control panels.
The telescope chamber, separated from the control room by a bulkhead, aligned itself for the night’s observations.
The telescope’s large domed roof rotated and opened.
“Europa,” Malcolm repeated softly.
He found the stapled dispatch in his journal, the one he had transmitted to Earth during one of his first deployments to RedScope—an image of Europa’s surface showed bright streaks marking eruption sites.
“The Ice Fountains of Jupiter’s Moon Europa,” Malcolm said. Each observation had felt like a message in a bottle.
He looked over the words he’d written for Earth almost four decades ago:
.
The Ice Fountains of Jupiter’s Moon Europa
Another night of Europa’s spectacular display.
It has been nine consecutive nights of water vapor plumes erupting from the icy surface. The cold jets shoot from the subsurface ocean, through the ice crust, freezing, forming sculptures on the surface.
What a marvel of cryovolcanism.
Day 7’s eruption remains unmatched, rising 245 kilometers, 152 miles above the surface.
Spectrographic analysis confirms sodium traces and possible organics.
Something is happening beneath that ice.
The sustained eruptions suggest either: a major geological event or intensified tidal heating. Perhaps increased hydrothermal vent activity? A new fracture in the ice crust?
The moving currents beneath the icy crust of Europa indicate an active and complex oceanic system. If these oceans are kept warm by tidal heating, as Jupiter’s gravity stretches and squeezes the moon generating heat within, what might be thriving down there? Could microbial life have adapted to dark, pressurized environments, feeding on minerals from hydrothermal vents?
If life is discovered hidden in the subsurface oceans of Jupiter’s moons—Europa, Ganymede, and Callisto—could these life forms be closely related? Or could they have evolved into different species from a common ancestor? Or exist as completely alien organisms to one another, despite orbiting the same gas giant?
*
“The ice fountains,” Takota said. “I studied your papers during my doctoral research.”
Being the resident exogeologist, Takota had distinguished himself with his work on geological processes shaping extraterrestrial environments. When not monitoring planetary activity, he could be found organizing his collection of solar system rock samples.
“My first RedScope assignment was to capture the eruptions on Io (another one of Jupiter’s many moons),” Takota said. “I discovered eight undocumented volcanic sites and saw the creation of three newly active eruption vents.”
“The most volcanic body in the solar system. You’d think we’d have found life by now,” Malcolm said, his attention drifting as he flipped through the scrapbooked pages of his journal.
A series of photographs showed Jupiter’s faint ring system. Penned red circles highlighted tiny moons that had been invisible before RedScope’s powerful gaze.
“The Hidden Moons of Jupiter, the beginning of it all.”
“From here on Mars, we see Earth’s tenderness, a delicate blue marble,” Malcolm said, reading the dispatch he had written on the importance of studying Jupiter.
“How small we are, and the life we hold, shielded by Jupiter’s majesty and its growing bloodline of moons. The largest, Callisto, Ganymede, Europa, and Io, known as the Galilean moons, are humanity’s next frontier—because after Mars, the moons of Jupiter are the next chapters in humanity’s journey into space. Future generations will stand on Callisto and Europa, and look back to Mars and Earth—and forward to Saturn.”
*
The night stars drifted above the transparent dome.
Malcolm mapped the cosmic sea in his mind—he found Orion’s belt and traveled through the twin lights of Gemini, arriving at one of the brightest points in the sky, the blue dot—his compass homeward.
“There you are,” he whispered.
Illuminated in the warm light of the desk lamp, one final piece still hung on the partition wall, waiting to be taken down. It was the very first dispatch he had written and published, with a faded photograph of his younger self standing outside in his spacesuit below the RedScope telescope.
The article was full of images he had captured showing Earth going through its phases. Just like the moon when seen from Earth, Earth—when seen from Mars—cycles through phases: crescent Earth, half Earth, and full Earth, shaped by the positions of the Sun, Earth, and Mars. The colors of the blue planet shift with every rotation—land and ocean, clouds and snow.
Mars had offered Malcolm gas giants, newborn stars, the unseen hearts of black holes, and the center of the galaxy. But turning inward, close enough to touch, he saw one planet painted in green and blue, brighter and whiter—its ever-changing face, a signal of life unfolding.
Somewhere beneath its swirling clouds, a baby girl was dreaming.
*
An Astronomer’s Farewell is one of the stories in the collection: The Garden Telescope and Other Short Stories (Ebook), which is available to purchase here.
J.Barry / Between Worlds
A series of sci-fi short story-essays and short stories. New piece every week.
With every fading sunset, a new world calls.
Such a tender, beautiful story!