General Physics Lab

[tomcat]

On the Columbia's port side, deck 7, was the General Physics lab along with Quantum Mechanics. Since the orders had come from the bridge to commence deep scans of the star KC01 with the intention to find a presence there, the lab had been bustling with activity. The sensor array that they controlled had been given operational priority and the physicists had collected an encyclopedia of data from the radiation of the stars in the Katyon Cluster.

It was in the seventh hour of work that readings began to make clearer sense and that what Downer was looking for might possibly be there. Radiation describes a process in which energetic particles or waves travel through a medium or space. There are two distinct types of radiation; ionizing and non-ionizing. The word radiation is commonly used in reference to ionizing radiation only (i.e., having sufficient energy to ionize an atom), but it may also refer to non-ionizing radiation (e.g., radio waves or visible light). The energy radiates (i.e., travels outward in straight lines in all directions) from its source. This geometry naturally leads to a system of measurements and physical units that are equally applicable to all types of radiation.

The chief radiation level that the physics lab had been focusing on was Ultra-violet. It was outside the range of visible light by a factor of sixteen, and it was heavily emitted by KC01. It was within the geometry that creates a system of measurements that the lab teams began to notice inconsistancies. The stars emissions, in the general area of both starships were full of inconsistant measurements of the same radiation as it should be if it were traveling in its path or wave away from the star. No, these changes in measurement were localized and static within an area around the starships, but not static in the sense of non-moving. The measurements fluctuatated around the ship in a liniear, but haphazard fashion, moving between (or through) the waves of radiation.

The lab techs began to map the fluctuations on a three-dimensional graph. When enough data was collected, they played back the changes in slow-motion time-elapse and watched as four large energy fluctuations moved, or danced, around the ships.

"It looks like a fish swimming in a tank," one of the lab techs opined. The lab team leader hit his comm, "Physics lab to Bridge... Mr Marshal, we have some interesting data that we are sending to you now."