Galactic Universe

                           Earth Edition
                           Annual 3003

In this Annual:
Worlds OF Wonder
A glimpse at many diverse worlds from archives of the Galactic Universe
-------------------------------------------------------------------------The Passing of the Airwhales
A species facing extinction is an enigma for scientists
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Diving in METHANE
A look at life in an icy methane ocean
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Astromining
How three species make starships from asteroids
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Mission to save a planet
The Federation attempts the rescue of a worl's lifeforms from an impending collison with a rogue moon
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Music of other Worlds
The University of music is examined in a series of articles
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Also:A meeting of Civilization
A supercivilization looms at the edge of the Milky Way
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                                   About Our Cover
Historic First Contact
A famous encounter is revisited for our annual issue.
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Chosen for the cover of our Annual from all the images in the Galactic Universe archives,"First Contact" typifies the spirit of our organization:Humans and extraterrestrial intelligences united in the pursuit of scientific knowledge.
                                                         The image,recorded in the year 2820,documents a young Federation's chance encounter with an alien race.In the picture three crew members from the sublight cruiser Magellan meet three alien crewmen.
   Writes Commander R.J Powers,captain of the Magellan,"We detected something that at first looked like an asteroid.But we knew the regions of the star formation seldom have rocky components.Of course once we tracked it at fractional light speed we knew it was a ship.
   "We sent out a hailing message on the SL wave and the photonics.Even tried Radio,but they didn't see us.It took a burn of our G-pulse for them to notice us."
            Powers recalls a cat and a mouse game that lasted for several days.
    "We were thousands of kilometers apart most of the time and finally broke the ice by slowly moving towards them.I suppose it was mutual curiosity that brought our ships together.
   "We decided an EVA was the best way to meet.We knew the risks,but it was worth it.In retrospect it was ominous that both parties brought along instuments on the EVA.Any of them could have been weapons.But somehow neither of us sensed a threat.
                "In the end we knew little more about the aliens than what the incident began.But one thing was clear to all of us.There IS intelligent life out there."
Today the Federation of Worlds includes five sentient spacefaring races among its members.Strangely,none of them is the mystery race that met the Magellan  almost two hundred years ago and became mankind's long awaited "first contact."
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Ashutosh*Galactic Universe