The Black Cloud
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The Black Cloud is a science fiction novel written by famed astrophysicist Fred Hoyle. Published in 1957, the book details the arrival of an enormous interstellar cloud of gas that enters the solar system and threatens to destroy all life on Earth by blocking the Sun's radiation.
In an act of desperation, a cadre of astronomers try to communicate with the cloud, which leads to surprising results. Though the presence of a sentient cloud of gas may seem patently absurd, the basis of this story is grounded in hard science. The detection of the cloud is described using physics equations, all of which are included in the book. Hoyle was, after all, Director of the Institute of Astronomy at Cambridge, a Fellow of the Royal Society, and responsible for, among other things, the term Big Bang (ironically, Hoyle himself did not believe the Big Bang theory). In an ironic plot twist that would foreshadow Hoyle's stance on panspermia, the cloud expresses surprise that intelligent life is capable of forming on planets.
At one point the astronomers ask the cloud what its life form believes to be their origin, it replies that they believe that they always existed. One of the astronomers says something like "Well! Wait till the Big Bang boys hear about this!". It seems that Hoyle could have been fantasising about a deus ex machina to disprove the Big Bang theory.
[edit] Cultural references
- In the 1976 novel by Terry Pratchett, The Dark Side of the Sun, a sentient planet, ocean and sun speculate about the existence of an intelligent gas cloud
