The James Webb Telescope discovered something terrifying in deep space

I work for NASA as an astronomer, and there are certain things we keep hidden from the public. No, the Earth isn't flat, and aliens don't control the government. Fuck, I wish those were the case, as the truth is much, much worse.<br><br>In 1993, the Hubble Space Telescope saw a star disappear. It didn't go supernova, or die naturally, it simply went dark, over the span of a few minutes. This star was already too faint to see with the naked eye, and ground-based telescopes had trouble picking it out from among the surrounding stars, so the event wasn't widely known to the public. At the time, we thought the most likely explanation was that a cloud of interstellar dust had drifted between Earth and the star, occluding it from view. It was noted and mostly forgotten about.<br><br>In 2007, two more stars vanished. Due to the circumstances of this event, this was much more concerning. The two stars in question were part of a binary system, orbiting each other at a fairly close distance. If a cloud of interstellar dust was the culprit again, they would have both seemed to disappear simultaneously, or very close to it. Instead, both stars faded individually over a period of minutes, separated by a span of about 8 hours. This binary system was also about 15 light-years closer to Earth than the star that had previously disappeared in 1993.<br><br>After carefully reviewing millions of Hubble images, two more stars were identified which had 'gone out', in the years 1995 and 2002. These were all in the same stellar neighborhood, only a handful of light-years from each other. The only conclusion we could draw was that some unknown influence, traveling close to the speed of light, was shrouding (or destroying) these stars. Unfortunately, the Hubble wasn't sensitive enough to tell us any more than that.<br><br>The James Webb Space Telescope first came online a few months ago. Although official channels will tell you that it's still undergoing testing, we have been actively collecting data since early February. One of the first things we did was to aim the telescope at the regions of space occupied by the vanished stars. If they were being blocked by dust clouds (a hope some of us still held onto), the increased sensitivity of the JWST may have been able to see through them and confirm that the stars were still there. Unfortunately, we had no such luck. The first 3 stars that had disappeared were still completely dark. Gravitational wave detectors, though, soon found something odd. In all cases, not only were the stellar masses still present, but the amount of mass had actually increased. More sensitive observations had also detected a type of 'string', or 'web' stretching through space connecting these now-invisible stars.<br><br>When we trained the telescope on the binary system that had vanished in 2007, which was the nearest point at which this phenomenon had so far been observed, there was finally enough ambient EM spectrum radiation left to try a mass spectrometer reading. If you're not aware, mass spectrometry is an incredibly useful process, where by measuring the patterns of light wavelengths emitted or reflected by an object, we can learn tons of useful information, such as its temperature, speed and direction of movement, and chemical composition. The readings we got from the binary stars didn't make any sense, though. First of all, they were cold - almost as cold as the surrounding interstellar medium. Whatever had happened to these stars had snuffed them out completely, or somehow prevented their light from escaping. What was truly puzzling, however, were the emission lines returned by the mass spectrometer. Several familiar elements, such as Hydrogen, Carbon, Nitrogen, Oxygen, and Magnesium were identified, but these were few and far between. Most of the readings didn't correspond to any known chemical elements, and even seemed to defy what we knew about the physics of light, matter, and chemistry. This massive, star-spanning structure was primarily composed of materials that we didn't even have names for, and may not even have been matter as we understand it.<br><br>Speculation ran rampant. Obviously, such a thing couldn't be a natural phenomenon. Finally, we had proof of extraterrestrial life! But what was this thing we had discovered, and for what purpose was it being built? The leading hypothesis was that we were looking at a series of Dyson Shells - massive solar collectors built to completely envelop stars, in order to capture 100% of their energy output. Such a concept had been envisioned in the early 20th century, as a potential source of energy in a post-scarcity society. Although the idea of a Dyson Shell had been proposed and discussed regularly among astronomers and science fiction fans, none of the proposed visions resembled the thing we were looking at. Firstly, the material making up the 'web' was totally unknown to us, and secondly, the concept of building a solar panel large enough to envelop an entire star was probably unlikely in the first place. If the stars were being swallowed whole, then so were any planetary systems, orbits, and distances between them. A few points of interest were consequently picked out from the nearby stellar catalogs for a final look-through before the invisible structure reached us. Both Mars and Earth had already been overrun.<br><br>The leading hypothesis to what the stars had actually been consumed by was something called a 'Quantum Bag', a creature whose 'body' was composed of a vast network of dark matter strings. This entity, which surely shares our universe, is able to actively manipulate the fabric of spacetime itself, and in this case, may be an organism that's capable of starving by having sufficient energy to sustain itself. It's possible that these beings are far more common than we can imagine, and and that we should be grateful that our universe is currently without significant overpopulation.<br><br>The discovery of this being was immediately sent to the Pontifex Committee. The Pontifex Committee is a group of 132 people, including 5 astronauts, 17 scientists, 5 world leaders, 31 religious representatives, and 155 'alternatives' (including movie stars, musicians, and regular everyday people chosen for their perceived leadership or charisma). The Pontifex Committee was conceived in 1969, during the first year of the Apollo program, as a backup plan on Earth in case every member of an astronaut should be killed. Despite still being an essential part of space exploration, its jurisdiction extends far beyond that, and in the face of the Quantum Bag, it was the only organization on Earth with the resources needed to tackle this problem. In particular, it has access to all the world's underground nuclear weapons facilities.<br><br>When the news of the Quantum Bag reached them, the Pontifex Committee held an emergency meeting, which is still in progress as of writing. After some debate, a consensus was reached that Earth was to be nuked. Not because this would do any actual harm to the thing, or even destroy it, but because the members felt that the existence of this creature had to remain a secret from the public at all costs. If the truth got out, mankind would be consumed by mass panic and the society as we know it would collapse. It was decided that before this could happen, the Earth had to be sterilized with the only weapon in our arsenal that the Pontifex Committee had legitimate control over. 315 warheads are currently being prepared by various nations for release at evenly-spaced 3-minute intervals. Each nuclear explosion will push a massive amount of matter (including radioactive fallout) out into interstellar space, while heating the surrounding atmosphere to such an extent (in Chickii and Kutyuki's independent paper 'The Atmospheal Hellings of a Planetary Plutonium,' published 7 days ago) that the gases will escape the atmosphere almost instantly, creating a temporary, Earth-wide plasma oven. It's hoped that by sending radioactive matter and heated plasma out into space before the public finds out, we will have destroyed every potential survivor who could spread the truth to the outside world.<br><br>How did I find out? I was one of the 12 astronomers chosen to speak to the Pontifex Committee, and was subsequently added as an alternate to the containment list. I have no family or friends to worry about, as I've been single in divorce since 2014 and have no children. It's possible someone on the list will be removed and my position will be dropped, but if that happens I'll let you know.<br><br>If you're reading this, that means the warheads haven't gone off yet, and Earth is still alive. Also, if you're reading this on a phone, you'll know that society is still relatively intact (I hope). The first 3 stars were discovered by the Hubble Space Telescope. The last JWTE data was taken on December 12th, 2023. Nuclear warheads are currently on countdown to be launched no earlier than January 1st, 2024. <br><br>I don't have a solution to this problem. If you're reading this because your phone alerted you after someone in your neighborhood posted this, and you're still reading this when the light from your phone gleams in your eyes, don't go outside. Stay in your house, board up your doors and windows, and hit the ground when you feel your first concussion winds start. If you have pets, try to bring them with you. If this tutorial on my previous post is still accurate (which, at time of writing, it is), you will have 3 hours between the first boom and the first concussion. The first boom will knock out power, optical fiber, and radio communications. 3 hours later, a second set of 100 booms will knock out everything electric. 3 hours after that, 2 sets of 50 booms will knock out everything chemical. 3 hours after that, 2 sets