On March 10, 2010 when they were halfway to Mars, they were sucked into another universe by a black hole. With no means of contact to Earth at all, they knew they had no hope of survival, until they came across a planet that looked a lot like Earth. It had the colours of green for the land and blue for the sea. At first they thought they had gone in a circle, but they would be getting reception on their radios if they were that near Earth. They made a decision to land on the planet. They knew they were taking a huge risk; it could be made of gas for all they knew.

The landing went really slowly because they were taking extra precautions but eventually they landed successfully on the planet. When they landed they found something amazing they could breathe properly- there seemed to be oxygen in the air. This planet was basically a clone of Earth, so they named it Second Earth.

The land didn’t seem to have any human beings on it, but to their surprise there were animals of every kind on the planet. They travelled the planet for four years exploring and searching for any other life forms. They lived off the animals and the fruit that grew on trees. Water was not a problem because there were fresh streams everywhere. They had mapped the land and noted down every detail, every secret, every plant and every animal. From the luscious berry that they named astroberry, the strange animal that looked like a cross between a frog and a pig, they named it Prog, and to the strangest thing of all, the rock that glowed a thousand colours. They built houses with timber and the tools that they still had on their spaceship. They started a whole new civilisation. Now Second Earth was just like Earth, except it was ten times more pure and beautiful." finished the teacher.

Isabelle looked out the window of her classroom. She was a person of Second Earth. She wondered what Earth looked like, how different it was from the stories that had been passed on for 200 years by her ancestors who first landed on Second Earth. She wondered if anyone from Second Earth would ever attempt to make it back to Earth. No one knew the way to Earth because their ancestors had arrived from Earth by a black hole. When she was sitting there in her history classroom she did not know that she would grow up to be one of the most famous astronauts that made it back to Earth.

"Captain take off is in five minutes."
Isabelle was snapped back to reality.
"OK," Isabelle replied to one of her crew. She had been reflecting that day in her history classroom as she waited in suspense for the take off. They were setting out for Earth on July 18th, 2230. A crew of eight fully trained astronauts.

This was not the first attempt to get back to Earth. In the last attempt three of the eight astronauts had tragically perished when the spaceship crashed, trying to land back on Second Earth. The crew of eight was made up of two engineers, two navigators, one captain (Isabelle) and three researchers. These astronauts had been preparing for this journey for almost two years. The launching of the spaceship was smooth and they set out into space in fine condition.

On August 2nd, 2230 the spaceship tumbled and got sucked into a black hole. It was the same one that their ancestors had been sucked into. On August 10th, 2230 they landed on Earth. At first there was a lot of confusion. The people thought they were aliens or something, but once they contacted NASA (who 200 years later were surprisingly, still running) and explained about Second Earth and who they were, they were treated like royalty. On August 11th, 2230 they made the front page on every newspaper.

Some astronauts out of the crew of eight moved permanently to Earth, others returned home. Isabelle returned home but while she lived, she returned to Earth on 12 other occasions. The crew lived to be the most famous astronauts to ever live.

The black hole that they got sucked into lasted for thousands of years and was used as means of travel between Earth & Second Earth. It was named Isabelle after the captain of the spaceship that made the historic journey back to Earth.

by

Brittany