Chapter 13: Like Nothing On Earth

The apparently inexhaustible Professor Ovis Jopp has done it again. Speaking yesterday to a select gathering at his home, the lean, seven-foot-two, green-bearded ‘Sage of Trondheim’ dropped yet another blockbuster onto the scientific world, revealing that he had discovered a planet circling, or perhaps one should say ellipting, the Sun in the same orbit as ours.

“I must confess,” said Jopp, “that I got the idea while watching a film which purported to show that there was a ‘mirror’ Earth on the far side of the local star, but always out of our sight because it is constantly in precise opposition to us. Why not, I thought. You know that I am accustomed to discovering, even conceiving, planets, so this project was not a totally new experience for me. I worked on the Hardanger Plateau. My equipment comprised twenty skilfully arranged and ingeniously connected empty oil drums, painted green, a simple megaphone and an army surplus transmitter/receiver, in which I implanted the vital component, a piece of an isotope of my recently invented element joppium, which you may recall I used in an earlier experiment.”

Calming his excited audience, Jopp continued: “Realising that any other body in our orbit must be regarded as leading or chasing us, I worked backwards to achieve the swiftest possible connection. Imagine my joy when I picked up the first message. I will not tax your minds by explaining the linguistics involved, but I established that there is what one might call a shadow Earth, matching our planet in size but consisting mainly of gases, so having very low density and mass. This body would not be observable by any of our space cameras, as it is enveloped in an occlusion zone, which both prevents direct sightings and neutralises gravity. The latter characteristic explains why the planet is able to maintain its course, despite its low mass. Incidentally, I have not yet given it a permanent name. Until I do so, Earth 2 will suffice.”