The Second Earth

Humanity discovers a second Earth, sends a signal, and awaits a reply.

It began, as many great discoveries do, with a flicker on a screen.

Dr. Amina Calder stood in the observatory’s control room, eyes fixed on the data flowing across her console. For months, her team had been sifting through the readings from the new generation of deep-space telescopes, machines sensitive enough to sniff out molecules of water vapor in atmospheres light-years away. Most of the time, the results were disappointing, too hot, too cold, too small, too barren.

But this was different.

The planet, provisionally labeled Kepler-452c2, circled a yellow star almost identical to our own sun. Its atmosphere showed strong traces of nitrogen, oxygen, and carbon dioxide. It wasn’t just “potentially habitable.” It looked habitable. Blue oceans reflected from its surface. White cloud systems spiraled across continents of green and brown.

It looked, unnervingly, like Earth.

“How far?” whispered Amina’s colleague, Jin Park, leaning over her shoulder.

“Thirty-eight light years,” she said. “Farther than Proxima b, but close enough.”

The word “close” was relative. Thirty-eight light-years meant that the light now reaching them had left the planet before many of the researchers were even born. To reach it with today’s propulsion systems would take tens of thousands of years. But in cosmic terms, it was a neighbor.

The news did not stay in the lab for long. Within weeks, the discovery was splashed across every screen on Earth. The media dubbed it “Eden.”

World leaders convened at the United Nations. Scientists testified. Religious leaders offered interpretations, some cautious, some exultant. The public buzzed with questions: Is there life? Can we go there? Do they know about us?

President Gabriel Ortiz of the United States addressed the General Assembly in a speech broadcast to billions:

“Humanity has always looked upward. We are no longer asking if we are alone, we are asking what comes next.”

The question of “what comes next” fractured into three camps.

The Observers argued for caution. Eden was a scientific miracle, but to rush toward it without understanding could be disastrous. “Look what we’ve done to our own planet,” Amina told a BBC interviewer. “We cannot afford to repeat those mistakes elsewhere.”

The Voyagers dreamed of expansion. Space agencies proposed long-term missions, generation ships, cryosleep technology, or theoretical faster-than-light drives still buried in equations. “Eden is our second chance,” declared Elon Reyes, a billionaire-turned-space-philanthropist. “If Earth falters, we must have another home.”

The Connectors went further. They wanted to send not just observation probes but messages. “If Eden looks like Earth, perhaps there are people there looking back,” said UN Ambassador Aisha Mbaye. “Do we not owe them a greeting?”

The debate raged for months. Scientists warned that any signal could reveal our presence to unknown civilizations. Historians reminded the Assembly of first contacts on Earth, many ending in conquest and tragedy. Still, the idea of silence felt unbearable. Humanity had always reached out, paintings on cave walls, radio waves bouncing into the cosmos, rovers etched with golden records.

Finally, the decision came. It was not one nation, but a vote of the United Earth Council, a coalition formed specifically to address matters of planetary significance. After weeks of argument, the resolution passed by a slim margin.

Humanity would send a message.

The world held its breath as a transmitter array in the Atacama Desert beamed the first signal. Simple, deliberate, chosen by committee:

1. A sequence of prime numbers to show intelligence.

2. Maps of our solar system.

3. The double-helix of DNA.

4. Greetings in fifty languages.

And finally, an image; Earth itself, a blue-and-green sphere floating in darkness.

The signal traveled at the speed of light, a message in a bottle cast across the stars. Arrival at Eden: thirty-eight years. A reply, if any, would take another thirty-eight. Seventy-six years, at minimum, before humanity would know if someone had waved back.

For most, life went on. Wars simmered, elections came and went, cities bustled. Yet the knowledge of Eden lingered like a second moon. Students painted its continents in school art projects. Philosophers argued about the ethics of colonization. Engineers sketched propulsion systems that might, someday, bridge the gulf.

And in quiet moments, people looked up at the night sky, wondering if, on that other world, someone else was looking back.

Dr. Amina Calder retired before the signal even reached its destination. She grew old in a world that now lived with one eye turned outward. On the day she died, her granddaughter sat beside her and whispered, “Grandma, do you think they’ll answer?”

Amina smiled faintly. “If they’re anything like us...they already have.”

Word Count: 761
Prompt: Write a story or poem about the day we discover another planet that seems to look very much like earth. How far away is it? What do we do? Who makes the decision? Do we attempt to make contact?
Written for: "The Writer's Cramp" 
Prequal to: "Letters from home"