RH101:Mercury Anomalies

Back during the relatively calm years of the twentieth century, a set of perturbations in the orbit of the planet Mercury were explained by, and formed the first bits of proof for, Einstein's theory of general relativity. It was little-noted at the time, but during the year of 2011, the tiny planet's orbit changed, assuming the pattern one would expect it to follow if Newton's laws were fully correct.

Only a few astronomers noticed this first Mercury Anomaly. The second, in May of 2016, was unmistakable: the entire planet seemed to vanish completely. It was not until August that scientists at Copenhagen University's Observatory found it, somehow transported into an orbit at approximately the same distance as Pluto's. That October, Mercury was restored to it's original position, apparently none the worse for wear.

The third major Mercury Anomaly occurred on June 7, 2022, the day after the atrocity that came to be known as the Nineteen Detonations, in which the planet transformed into a smooth black sphere, polished to perfect reflectivity, a change which lasted exactly one year.

-- Zephyr Snowchilde