ESA only sent married couples into space for these kinds of missions. Something about for better or for worse. Something about ‘til death do us part.

We held the fate of the Earth in our hands. Our vow was not only to each other but to humankind as well.

Paz and I traveled 91 million miles to get here, so far from Earth that it took eight minutes for a radio signal to reach there. We were suspended a ridiculous 315 miles from the surface of the sun, at the cool knife-edge of the chromosphere. My wife and I were the closest any human or human-made craft had been to the surface.

The sun had been heating up. The temperature change was only a hundredth of one percent of total output, but that tiny change wrought enormous changes on Earth. Coastal flooding consumed Miami, Bangkok, and Jakarta. Rainforests burned unchecked. Swarms of earthquakes and tsunamis battered Southeast Asia.

Scientists from all over the world convened to find a solution. Their solution was as extreme as the events. Some called it reckless; most felt it was our best hope.

We were going to drop a small artificial black hole directly into the center of the sun. Just enough to bump the temperature back down by one-hundredth of one percent.

The entire world was praying for our success.

Six weeks after blasting off from the Jiuquan Launch Center, our craft was in position, protected from the punishing heat of the sun by a mile-wide canopy made of pure gold nanofibers. I didn’t understand the science behind the black hole, but I didn’t have to. My wife understood all that. My job was to fly us there and fly us back home. All I knew about the Mass Accelerator was that it would create a tiny black hole, which needed to be dropped at the exact right time.

Paz was in charge of the countdown to the drop.

“Three. Two, One. Drop.”

I hit the switch. The Mass Accelerator fell away, silently, anti-climatically, disappearing into the vast sea of light before us.

That was Christmas Eve.

It was Christmas Day now. We were waiting. The whole world was waiting.  

“Zak, it’s snowing!”

“Huh?” I was busy staring into the digital readout of the surface temperature.

“Look out the window!” my wife implored.

I looked.

It was snowing.

Obviously, it couldn’t have been real snow. But Paz was right: bright white crystals floated past the window of our spacecraft.

“Merry Christmas!”

“Merry Christmas to you.” We kissed.

“So what is it really?” I asked her.

“Snow! It’s a Christmas miracle!”

I looked over to see her pressed against the window in childlike awe.

“You know it’s not really snow,” I said, gently. “Tell me what that big scientific brain is telling you.”

“You’re no fun.”  She consulted the monitor. “Remember those weird jets we saw as we left Earth’s gravity? Or those tornado things as we entered orbit? There’s all sorts of visual phenomena we can’t explain. It’s just one more weird thing.”

“Humor me,” I said. “What are the readouts?”

She went into professional mode. “Sun’s surface: 9,233°. Going down, as expected. We’re on target for a successful mission.”

“Probe?”

“4,002°. Going up. A little higher than expected, but well within norms.

“And the heat shield?”

Silence.

“Paz? What’s the heat shield temp readout?”

I heard her swallow.

“Paz?”

“It’s high.”

“How high?”

“Very. It might just be flawed data. Maybe the heat sensor is faulty.”

“Can Mission Control independently determine the temp?”

“They can.”

“Why don’t we ask them?”

She was the scientist, not me. My job was just to fly the craft to the sun, and fly it back home.

“We’re eight light-minutes away from Earth. It will take eight minutes for our message to be received. And eight more minutes to get a response. Sixteen minutes.”

“Paz? What’s going on?”

She turned away from the quiet beauty of the snow. “The snow outside. It’s gold.”

“Gold?”

“Gold nanoparticles. The shield.”

“The heat shield.”

“Yes. It’s failing. The snow outside the craft….”

“…are particles from the heat shield as it disintegrates.”

“Yes. By the time we receive the message….” She didn’t finish her sentence. She didn’t need to.

The lights went out. They didn’t really affect our operations, we could work in the dark.

Our computers went out next, a cascade of fading monitors. Those digital readouts were our eyes and ears.  

Paz was the scientist, but I didn’t need her training to understand what would fail next.

Life support.

“Spacesuits! Now!” Even as she spoke, Paz was on the move, uncoupling our equipment. We dove into our suits. The temperature in the craft was already rising, the air thinning. We attached our gloves and helmets, zipped in, and booted up.      

We looked at each other from across the expanse. I wanted to touch my wife one last time, but we were separated by the fabric of our suits, the glass of our helmets.

“Paz,” I called out, but she couldn’t hear me. Communications systems had failed. Silence. I couldn’t even hear my own voice.

I put my arms around Paz, and pressed my helmet against hers in the silence.

We had sixteen minutes.

I told her I loved her. I saw her lips moving and understood she was telling me the same thing.

What else was there to say, really?

We put our arms around each other and watched the snow come down in utter silence.

The silence was too loud, but in its echo I understood it all. The Earth was saved, our lives were lost. My arms were around my wife, my true love, my soulmate, my best friend. Our last act of life was to sit at our window together, hold each other close, and watch the snow come down.  

We’d taken a vow.

For better or for worse. 'Til death do us part.

Goodbye, planet Earth. Merry Christmas.

You’re welcome.