When I reached home, my parents were watching the science fiction movie Martian. The movie is about an astronaut who gets stuck in Mars because his crew leaves him behind and his struggles to survive till he is rescued. If I ever become an astronaut, I will never go on expedition to planets that has no life. That will be my rule number one.
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| What do you mean my breath smells bad? |
My dinner was on the table. Looks like my parents have had their dinner without me. My rule number two will be : my parents cannot be in my crew. I don't want to be left behind in Mars because I am an hour late to get to shuttle.
"Do you want to watch this Matt Damon movie with us? It has lot of science in it," my mother asked.
I said I already had my quota of science in school. I took the dinner to my room. I was planning to 'go deep' on chemical equation but all I did was watch videos about magnets on Internet.
I heard my parents switching off the TV and going to bed halfway through the movie. I guess there was lot of science in the movie. I decided to go to bed too. But I wasn't able to sleep and lay staring into the dark and thinking about the day. I had a fight with the janitor, I did not understand chemical energy and Bhumika threatened to tell on me to the class teacher. I was feeling lousy. Eventually I drifted off to sleep, but it was very disturbed.
"We are almost done. I have to just go out and take one last soil sample," I tell my fellow astronaut and come out of the space shuttle. We are on a uninhabited planet far off from earth. The planet is revolving around a massive star, a star so massive that its gravity is pulling rocks off the planet. If a stone is dropped on this planet, it will not fall to the planet, but slowly drift up towards the star.
When I was young, my inspiration was a janitor. One day he showed me a video of a powerful magnet pulling off the magnetic balls that made another magnet.Well, this is same but due to gravity. The star is pulling off the stuff that makes this planet.Walking is tough on this planet, because if I don't take care I will drift towards the star too! I have a motorized anchor which drills into the solid ground for support. But one will never break their iPhone here, because it will just drift slowly up! I collect soil and come back to the shuttle. I am just few meters away from the shuttle. In a minute, our expedition will be done and we can go back to the safety and misery of earth.
"So long sucker! This is for replacing me in the inter school quiz team," my partner tells in my earpiece and the space shuttle starts off without me.
"Wait! I am sorry, Bhumika!" I shout. But I just hear her laughter. And then I start drifting. I realize I had dropped my anchor in panic and the star is sucking me in. I look around and see rocks small and big on their journey to fiery death. I have to stop drifting off if I want to survive.
How do I stop drifting? I think vigorously. How do birds and planes fly on sweet earth? I have to do the same here, but in the opposite direction, to stop falling into the star. I flap my arms. Nope! I still drift towards the star, the gravity of the star is stronger. I am drifting slowly now, but as I go nearer and nearer to the star, it will suck me harder and harder and I will become faster and faster. Pretty soon I will be flying so fast, that I will be shred to pieces.
"I will have lot of kinetic energy when I reach the star, my friend!" I wanted to tell the janitor. He was my inspiration to become astronaut. "But the total energy is still conserved. It is just my potential energy I have now that is getting converted to kinetic energy. It is just like a ball falling on earth. But now I am falling from a small planet into a massive star."
I start crying. But the tear drop won't fall to the planet. It is also drifting to the star. Suddenly I become strong. From somewhere, I hear the Martian theme music. I resolve I am not going to be sucked into the star. I look around and see a huge mountain some distance away. I just need to push myself towards the mountain. Once I reach that I can grab on to it. But how can I do that? Then I have an idea.
I use a big rock floating on my side to jump off towards the mountain. Like that tiger jumping off the falling rocks in Kung Fu panda movie, I jump off drifting rocks repeatedly towards the mountain. My only hope is that I reach the mountain before I drift off too much. I kick harder and harder against the floating rocks. The Martian theme music plays louder in my ears.
It is no good! I am almost at the level of the peak and I am still two hundred meters away from the mountain. I stop kicking against the rocks. What is the use? When I reach the mountain, the peak will be just one arm length below. One arm too low! "So, this is the end, my friend. I hope you are safe in earth cleaning the library somewhere," I telepathically tell the janitor and close my eyes.
Suddenly something hits me hard on my back startling me. I see a jet of rocks falling slowly towards the planet! Amidst all the rocks that are drifting towards the star, a jet of rocks are falling in opposite direction towards the planet! I am confused what is happening and then I realize. METEOR SHOWER!
These meteors have been travelling towards the planet very fast for a very long time. Remember the meteors that crashed into earth and finished off those dinosaurs. Well, these meteors would have done the same to me and the planet. But luckily, the massive star was pulling these meteors and they have slowed down like a braking car!! Now they will gently fall on the planet surface. If I can just hold on to a passing big meteor rock, I will land on planet and then I can hold on to the firm ground! Of course I might still die because of hunger, but I will have defeated the gravity of star at least. It is time for one more round of The Martian theme music.
I look around and see a boulder of a meteor coming down. I just have to time my kick on a rock so that I can latch to the meteor boulder going down. I wait for a second. Now! I kick and grab the meteor. I am hanging by nails on the meteor falling towards the planet where I will die of hunger. This is the happiest moment of my life!
"Get off the meteor!" Somebody is kicking my hand and trying to push me off the meteor. I lift my head and see who it is. It is my class teacher.
"Tell me what is chemical energy or I will push you off," he says.
"But I don't know what is chemical energy," I say. He kicks me hard and I leave my hold.
"Nooooooo!" I shout as I drift off again towards the star.
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