Solsphere (Part 1)

This means that some heavier elements should always exist. If there is not it means that fusion has not yet begun and a star should not yet exist.

So how can a star exist and still be composed completely of hydrogen? Sujit had no idea.

He took the data to Doctor Fazal reminding himself that as soon as the returned to Earth he could petition for a new advisor.

Fazal laughed. Not at the data, at Sujit. "You can’t do anything right can you?" Sujit’s hands clinched and his fingernails dug into his palm. This man could end his professional aspirations with a word and certainly would if he did not check his emotions.

"Forget it for now, I have a simpler job for you. Help me carry this to the launch bay."

This was a metallic sphere maybe one-meter across circumscribed by a thin black band about its equator. Sujit recognized it immediately as the Stargazer, a probe capable of penetrating the furthest depths of a star without being atomized and a significant source of Doctor Fazal’s arrogance.

Many years ago he developed the device and catapulted himself into the forefront of astronomical research. This was why Sujit had worked so hard to get this appointment. It is amazing how far idols can diverge from their public image.

After placing the probe on the launch tracks, Fazal and Sujit walked back to the observation deck. The glass was tinted allowing one to view the star without frying their eyes. In the distance Fazal VII erupted in a trillion directions every second. It was a "normal" star, a main sequence star. It was neither large nor small, hot nor cool, and blazed a brilliant lemon yellow. It was nothing to be excited about, except of coarse Doctor Fazal had discovered it and it therefore had to be mapped in excruciating detail.

"Check the launch heading Sujit, an be mindful of the probe’s cost. We don’t need any more mistakes."

Sujit did as he said. The probe would go directly through the center of the star and reemerged on the other side where they would rendezvous with it the next day.

The probe launched sending a slight tremor through the ship and vanished into the star’s overwhelming glare.

Half a Fazal VII year later, thirty-seven hours to Sujit, the Stargazer was caught in a rather primitive looking carbon mesh net and pulled inside.

The probe’s outer shell was still shiny as a mirror and for all Sujit could tell had never been touched. To think an object could survive the billion-degree heat of a star’s inner core. Unbelievable.

"Don’t just stand there, go get the cables and hook this thing into the computer." Fazal was so fun to work for.

Sujit quickly fetched the cabling. When he returned one hemispherical shell sat in the far corner and the probe’s insides were exposed. Wires and circuits of all kinds littered the contraption and in the center a crystal blinked in and out with blue light. Sujit had never seen the inside of the Stargazer, not much anyway. Doctor Fazal had always been so careful of who saw the guts of his miraculous device.

From his paper reviews Sujit knew that the crystal was the focal point of an immense magnetic field, a field of cosmic strength crammed into the space of a coffee mug.