"Super-Neutron" is a

science fiction Science fiction (sometimes shortened to Sci-Fi or SF) is a genre of speculative fiction which typically deals with imaginative and futuristic concepts such as advanced science and technology, space exploration, time travel, parallel unive ...

short story A short story is a piece of prose fiction that typically can be read in one sitting and focuses on a self-contained incident or series of linked incidents, with the intent of evoking a single effect or mood. The short story is one of the oldest ...

by American writer

Isaac Asimov yi, יצחק אזימאװ , birth_date = , birth_place = Petrovichi, Russian SFSR , spouse = , relatives = , children = 2 , death_date = , death_place = Manhattan, New York City, U.S. , nationality = Russian (1920–1922)Soviet (192 ...

, originally published in the September 1941 issue of ''

Astonishing Stories ''Astonishing Stories'' was an American pulp magazine, pulp science fiction magazine, published by Popular Publications between 1940 and 1943. It was founded under Popular's "Fictioneers" imprint, which paid lower rates than Popular's other magazi ...

'', and included in the 1972 collection ''

The Early Asimov ''The Early Asimov or, Eleven Years of Trying'' is a 1972 collection of short stories by Isaac Asimov. Each story is accompanied by commentary by the author, who gives details about his life and his literary achievements in the period in which he w ...

''. Asimov originally intended the story to be the first in a series, but was unable to come up with any further story ideas.

Plot summary

In the year 2144, a group of four friends who call themselves the Honorable Society of Ananias meet for lunch once a month, during which one of the members tells a story. The story must be a complex and fantastic lie, but one which sounds like the truth. The other three members are free to heckle and attack the supposed veracity of the tale. At the seventeenth meeting, Gilbert Hayes, a guest, requests that he be allowed to tell a story. His tale is that, fifteen years before, as an

astronomer An astronomer is a scientist in the field of astronomy who focuses their studies on a specific question or field outside the scope of Earth. They observe astronomical objects such as stars, planets, natural satellite, moons, comets and galaxy, g ...

, he discovered that a planet with no gravitational field had entered the

Solar System The Solar SystemCapitalization of the name varies. The International Astronomical Union, the authoritative body regarding astronomical nomenclature, specifies capitalizing the names of all individual astronomical objects but uses mixed "Solar S ...

from the region of the

south celestial pole The north and south celestial poles are the two points in the sky where Earth's axis of rotation, indefinitely extended, intersects the celestial sphere. The north and south celestial poles appear permanently directly overhead to observers at ...

and remained undiscovered by other astronomers. Hayes compares the planet to a "super-neutron", and he claims that it is heading for the Sun and will strike in just over an hour, destroying the Sun the way a

neutron The neutron is a subatomic particle, symbol or , which has a neutral (not positive or negative) charge, and a mass slightly greater than that of a proton. Protons and neutrons constitute the nuclei of atoms. Since protons and neutrons beh ...

causes a

uranium Uranium is a chemical element with the symbol U and atomic number 92. It is a silvery-grey metal in the actinide series of the periodic table. A uranium atom has 92 protons and 92 electrons, of which 6 are valence electrons. Uranium is weak ...

nucleus to fission. The story Hayes weaves involves complex astronomical observations and theories, and at the end of the tale, he hands around pieces of exposed film-negative, through which the members gaze into the sky and see - or think they see - a small dark spot against the sun. At 2:09:30 pm Hayes announces that the super-neutron has struck the sun, and that the Earth will be destroyed in eight minutes. He calmly announces the destruction, first of

Mercury Mercury commonly refers to: * Mercury (planet), the nearest planet to the Sun * Mercury (element), a metallic chemical element with the symbol Hg * Mercury (mythology), a Roman god Mercury or The Mercury may also refer to: Companies * Merc ...

, then of

Venus Venus is the second planet from the Sun. It is sometimes called Earth's "sister" or "twin" planet as it is almost as large and has a similar composition. As an interior planet to Earth, Venus (like Mercury) appears in Earth's sky never fa ...

, and finally counts down the last thirty seconds to the end of the Earth. When the Earth is not destroyed, Hayes theorizes that this is because the Sun is like a

cadmium Cadmium is a chemical element with the symbol Cd and atomic number 48. This soft, silvery-white metal is chemically similar to the two other stable metals in group 12, zinc and mercury. Like zinc, it demonstrates oxidation state +2 in most of ...

nucleus among the uranium nuclei of other stars—able to absorb the super-neutron without undergoing fission. Out of sheer relief, the members vote him in as Perpetual President of the Society, but the narrator has misgivings. He thinks that the story was in fact true and that therefore Hayes should have been disqualified.

References

*Asimov, Isaac, "Super-Neutron" in ''The Early Asimov'' .

External links

* {{The Early Asimov 1941 short stories Short stories by Isaac Asimov Works originally published in Astonishing Stories Fiction set in the 22nd century Rogue planets in fiction