Showing results by author "Brandon Q. Morris" in All Categories

Robots are building a colossal telescope on the far side of the moon, with just two people supervising its completion. After a minor incident, these scientists become aware of an obstacle in the lunar soil. It's located outside the area reserved for the hypertelescope and is therefore none of their business. But their curiosity gets the better of them. The artifact seems to have properties that completely defy physics as they know it.

NASA finally made it. The very first human has just set foot on the surface of our neighbor planet. This is the start of a long research expedition that sent four scientists into space. But the four astronauts of the NASA crew are not the only ones with this destination. The privately financed "Mars for Everyone" initiative has also targeted the Red Planet. Twenty men and women have been selected to live there and establish the first extraterrestrial settlement.

A mysterious object threatens to destroy our solar system. The survival of humankind is at risk, but nobody takes the warning of young astrophysicist Maribel Pedreira seriously. At the same time, an exiled crew of outcasts mines for rare minerals on a lone asteroid. When other scientists finally acknowledge Pedreira's alarming discovery, it becomes clear that these outcasts are the only ones who may be able to save our world, knowing that the Hole hurtles inexorably toward the sun.

For many billions of years, humans - having conquered the curse of aging - spread throughout the entire Milky Way. They are able to live all their dreams, but to their great disappointment, no other intelligent species has ever been encountered. Now, humanity itself is on the brink of extinction because the universe is dying a protracted yet inevitable death. 

It is 2056. Mathematics professor Elisabeth Gabai is fascinated by multi-dimensional forms that have no equivalent in reality. Then, her boss sends her to the site of an artifact that might have come straight from her theories—or from the technology of an advanced civilization. Twenty-eight years earlier, physicist Max Webber is hell-bent on improving Einstein’s theories of relativity. His latest concept seems flawless, except it predicts the end of humanity. The extinction of Earth can only be prevented if Max can locate a multi-dimensional object.

No one has ever ventured deeper into space than the four astronauts of Shepherd-1. The aim of their mission is to witness the creation of the cosmos. Using the sun as a lens, they are to align a flock of probes in such a way that the moment of the Big Bang becomes visible. For astronomer Christine, this is a dream come true. So she is bitterly disappointed when the first images are obscured by a kind of veil that prevents any insight. She works obsessively to find a solution, but when she finally succeeds in lifting the veil, she sees something that would have been better kept hidden...

Is our sun behaving differently from other stars? When an amateur astronomer discovers something strange on telescopic solar pictures, an explanation must be found. Is it merely artifact? Or has he found something totally unexpected? An expert international crew is hastily assembled, a spaceship is speedily repurposed, and the foursome is sent on the ride of their lives. What challenges will they face on this spur-of-the-moment mission to our central star?  

Alone and desperate, Eve sits in the control center of an alien structure. She has lost the other members of the team sent to explore exoplanet Proxima Centauri b. By mistake she has triggered a disastrous process that threatens to obliterate the planet. Just as Eve fears her best option may be a quick death, a nearby alien life form awakens from a very long sleep. It has only one task: to find and neutralize the destructive intruder from a faraway place.

An intelligent robot and two young people explore Proxima Centauri b, the planet orbiting our nearest star, Proxima Centauri. Their ideas about the mission quickly prove grossly naïve as they venture about on this planet of extremes....

In 2005, the robotic probe "Huygens" lands on Saturn's moon Titan. 40 years later, a radio telescope receives signals from the far away moon that can only come from the long forgotten lander. At the same time, an expedition returns from neighbouring moon Enceladus. The crew lands on Titan and finds a dangerous secret that risks their return to Earth. Meanwhile, on Enceladus a deathly race has started that nobody thought was possible. And its outcome can only be decided by the astronauts that are stuck on Titan.

In the year 2031, a robot probe detects traces of biological activity on Enceladus, one of Saturn's moons. This sensational discovery shows that there is indeed evidence of extraterrestrial life. Fifteen years later, a hurriedly built spacecraft sets out on the long journey to the ringed planet and its moon. The international crew is not just facing a difficult twenty-seven months: if the spacecraft manages to make it to Enceladus without incident it must use a drillship to penetrate the kilometer-thick sheet of ice that entombs the moon.

There is a huge, bold black streak in the sky. Branches appear out of nowhere over North America, Southern Europe, and Central Africa. People who live beneath The Rift can see it. But scientists worldwide are distressed - their equipment cannot pick up any type of signal from it. The rift appears to consist of nothing. Literally. Nothing. Nada. Niente. Most people are curious but not overly concerned. The phenomenon seems to pose no danger. It is just there. Then something jolts the most hardened naysayers, and surpasses the worst nightmares of the world's greatest scientists.

Rachel Adams beobachtet das All mit Hilfe des Chandra-Röntgensatelliten. Als ihr Kollege Shawn Whitfield sie bittet, ein kosmisches Phänomen zu untersuchen, sagt sie zu – nicht ahnend, dass das Routine-Projekt ihr Leben dramatisch verändern wird. Denn schnell stellt sich heraus, dass Shawn keinen simplen Asteroiden gefunden hat – das Objekt scheint keinen natürlichen Ursprung zu haben. Rachels Neugier ist geweckt, und selbst, als man ihr das Projekt als nationale Verschlusssache wegnimmt, ist sie nicht zu bremsen. Und dann bewegt sich das Objekt auch noch auf die Erde zu!

Russian billionaire Nikolai Shostakovitch makes an offer to the former crew of the spaceship ILSE. He will finance a return voyage to the icy moon Enceladus. The offer is too good to refuse - the expedition would give them the unique opportunity to recover the body of their doctor, Dimitri Marchenko. Everyone on board knows that their benefactor acts out of purely personal motivations... but the true interests of the tycoon and the dangers that he conjures up are beyond anyone's imagination.

Jupiter's moon Io has an extremely hostile environment. There are hot lava streams, seas of boiling sulfur, and frequent volcanic eruptions straight from Dante’s Inferno, in addition to constant radiation bombardment and a surface temperature hovering at minus 180 degrees Celsius. Is it really home to a great danger that threatens all of humanity? That's what a surprise message from the life form discovered on Enceladus seems to indicate.

In 2014, the ESA spacecraft Rosetta lands a small probe named Philae on 67P, a Jupiter-family comet. The lander goes radio-silent two years later. Suddenly, in 2026, scientists receive new transmissions from the comet. Motivated by findings that are initially sensational but soon turn frightening, NASA dispatches a crewed spacecraft to the comet. But as the ship approaches the mysterious celestial body, the connection to the astronauts soon breaks. Now it seems nothing can be done anymore to stop the looming dark danger that threatens Earth....

A planet in the endless emptiness of space, far from the warmth of any sun. And yet there are people who populate its vast caverns, living, working and loving. Since time immemorial, they have been on course for Andromeda, the neighboring galaxy of the Milky Way. This is the prophecy of the ancients, the one goal that unites them all, their cult. But then the unthinkable happens: the journey stops because the planet enters the orbit of a mysterious object that can't be seen in any telescope.

Late in the 21st century, Earth receives what looks like an urgent plea for help from planet Proxima Centauri b in the closest star system to the Sun. Astrophysicists suspect a massive solar flare is about to destroy this heretofore-unknown civilization. Earth's space programs are unequipped to help, but an unscrupulous Russian billionaire launches a secret and highly-specialized spaceship to Proxima b, over four light-years away.

Chronicler Tsai Yini monitors the tachyon communication system, which transmits data faster than the speed of light. When classified results from an astrobiologist's research are leaked to her, she cannot believe what she reads. The report reveals that intelligent life forms exist on a tropical planet in the Gliese system. Their civilization is still in its infancy but revolves around an artifact of unknown origin that seems to influence their body chemistry.

Where life as we know it is impossible, the real adventure begins. Venus is a hostile planet, covered by active volcanoes, but NASA launches an expedition to search for life there anyway. Their specially developed airship cruises in the clouds of Venus to serve as a research platform for its four astronauts. When they discover dangerous activities on the glowing-hot surface, there can only be one explanation: A highly sophisticated life form must be at work.