A Warning of Doom
It was on the third day of May, 1994, that the world received its first news of the strange behavior of the sun. That first news was contained in a brief message sent out from the North American Observatory, in upper New York, and signed by Dr. Herbert Marlin, the observatory's head. It stated that within the last twenty-four hours a slight increase had been detected in the sun's rotatory speed, or rate of spin, and that while that increase might only be an apparent one, it was being further studied. That brief first message was broadcast, a few hours later, from the Intelligence Bureau of the World Government, in New York. It was I, Walter Hunt, who supervised the broadcasting of that message at the Intelligence Bureau, and I remember that it seemed to me of so little general interest that I ordered it sent out on the scientific-news wave rather than on the general-news wave.
Late on the next day, however—the 4th—there came another report from the North American Observatory in which Dr. Marlin stated that he and his first assistant, an astronomical student named Randall, had checked their observations in the intervening hours and had found that there was in reality a measurable increase in the sun's rotatory speed, an increase somewhat greater than had been estimated at first. Dr. Marlin added that all the facilities of the observatory were being utilized in an effort to determine the exact amount of that increase, and although it seemed at first glance rather incomprehensible, all available data concerning it would be gathered. And at the same hour, almost, there came corroborative reports from the Paris and Honolulu Observatories, stating that Dr. Marlin's first observations had already been confirmed independently by their own observers. There could be no doubt, therefore, that the sun was spinning faster!
To astronomers this news of the sun's increased rotatory speed became at once a sensation of the first importance, and in the hours following the broadcasting of Dr. Marlin's first statement, we at the Intelligence Bureau had been bombarded with inquiries from the world's observatories regarding it. We could only answer those inquiries by repeating the statement already sent out on the scientific-news wave and by promising to broadcast any further developments instantly from our Bureau, the clearing-house of the world's news. This satisfied the scientifically-minded, while the great mass of the public was so little interested in this slight increase in the sun's rate of spin as not to bother us with any questions concerning it. I know that I would have taken small interest in the thing myself, had it not been for a personal factor connected with it.
"Marlin!" I had exclaimed, when the Intelligence Chief had handed to me that first report for broadcasting. "Dr. Herbert Marlin—why, he was my astronomy prof up at North American University, two years ago."
"Oh, you know him," the Chief had remarked. "I suppose then that this statement of his on the sun's increased rate of spin is authentic?"
"Absolutely, if Dr. Marlin gave it," I told him. "He's one of the three greatest living astronomers, you know. I became good friends with him at the University, but haven't seen him for some time."
So that it was with an interest rather unusual for me, that I followed the reports on this technical astronomical sensation in the next few days. Those reports were coming fast now from all the observatories of Earth, from Geneva and Everest and Tokio and Mexico City, for almost all astronomers had turned their interest at once toward this unprecedented phenomenon of the sun's increased rate of spin, which Dr. Marlin had been first to discover. The exact amount of that increase, I gathered, was still somewhat in doubt. For not only did the sun turn comparatively slowly, but the problem was complicated by the fact that it did not, like the Earth or like any solid body, rotate everywhere at the same speed, but turned faster at the equator than at its poles, due to its huge size and the lack of solidity of its mass. Dr. Marlin, however, stated that according to his observations the sun's great fiery ball, which had rotated previously at its equator at the rate of one rotation each 25 days, had already increased its rate of spin, so as to be turning now at the rate of one rotation each 24 days, 12 hours.
This meant that the sun's rotatory period, or day, had decreased 12 hours in three Earth-days, and such an unprecedented happening was bound to create an uproar of excitement among astronomers. For to them, as to all, who had any conception of the unvarying accuracy and superhuman perfection of the movements of the sun and its worlds, such a sudden increase of speed was all but incredible. And when on the fourth day Dr. Marlin and a score of other observers reported that the sun's rotatory period had decreased by another 4 hours, the excitement of the astronomers was unprecedented. A few of them, indeed, sought even in the face of the recorded observations to cast doubt on the thing. The sun's rotatory speed, they contended, could be measured only by means of the sun-spots upon its turning surface, and it was well known that those sun-spots themselves often changed position, so that this sudden increase in speed might only be an illusion.
This contention, however, found small support in the face of the indisputable evidence which Dr. Marlin and his fellow-astronomers had advanced in the shape of numerous helio-photographs and time-recordings. The sun was spinning faster, that was undoubted by the greater part of the world's astronomers—but what was making it do so? Was it due to some great dark body passing the solar system in space? Or was it due to strange changes within the sun's great fiery sphere? It was the latter theory, on the whole, that was favored by most astronomers, and which struck me at the time as the most plausible. It was generally held that a great shifting of the sun's inner layers, a movement of its mighty interior mass, had caused this sudden change in speed of rotation. Dr. Marlin himself, though, when questioned, would only state that the increased rate of spin was in itself beyond doubt but that no sound theory could as yet be formed as to the phenomenon's cause.