After a dozen generations of men had passed away without seeing a body of this kind, it goes without saying that the news from Mars of a coming dark star excited universal interest. Where is it? What does it mean? What is a dark star? The Himalayan astronomers were nearly buried under telegrams asking these and other questions without numbers. They could only reply that they had not yet succeeded in finding the object, but that the constellation to which the signal pointed was the head of the Dragon.
There was no likelihood that the object was yet visible, even through powerful telescopes, but this did not prevent the family telescope being brought out in every dwelling in the world, in order to scour the heavens for the new star. For some time it evaded the scrutiny even of the Himalayan astronomers. When a week had passed and it had not been sighted, men began to ask whether there was not some mistake in interpreting the signal, and whether it could be possible that the telescopes of another planet were as much better than ours as this failure would seem to indicate. The conviction began to gain ground that the signal had been misinterpreted, and that there was no dark star or anything else unusual coming. But when interest in the subject had about died away, it was suddenly renewed by the announcement that the object had been photographed very near where the signals had indicated it. It was about half-way between the head of the Dragon and the constellation Lyra, moving very slowly toward the East and South.
The problem now was to determine the orbit of the new star, and for this purpose the astronomers began to make the most accurate observations possible. Owing to the slowness of the motion, several days, perhaps two weeks would be required. While waiting for more news curiosity was excited by a new announcement:
“Mars appears to be in a state of extraordinary excitement. The five signal lights which have been seen from time to time ever since the dark star appeared are flashing in a way never before recorded. We cannot imagine what it means.”
Our world could only ask: “What can it mean?” and wait patiently.
The astronomers were much puzzled about the orbit, and a month passed before they could reach a decision on the subject. Then Himalaya sent out an announcement more startling than any that had preceded it:
“The dark star has no orbit. It is falling straight toward the sun with a speed that has already reached 30 kilometers a second, and which is continually increasing as it falls. It will reach the sun in about 210 days.”