A few millennia before Adam's time.

On a planet which was hosting a people still keen to explore the bitter emptiness of space, a team of scientists standing on the shoulders of their giant predecessors was about to make its own giant leap, therefore fulfilling every scientist's dream : leap frog.

'Professor, we have great news to report about the latest planet survey. Do you have a little time to look at the figures?'

'Well, it's not every day that I see you that much enthusiastic about exobiology. It must be good. Show me what you got!'

'Out of the five systems we studied this week, only one contains something interesting, which I think you will appreciate. Here,' he said handing over some notes, 'the report on the first four telluric planets of MR17487GU: a main sequence star in its middle life. As always we've first looked within the range of distances between the planet and its star that would be compatible with life, but there was nothing of value. On the opposite, we found that the planet just out of the range was answering with very weird spectrum. In fact, when the spectrogram came out, we thought the device had gone wrong in sizing. Look.'

'I suppose you've done the measure again', asked the dubitative professor. 'And I shall hope with another spectrometer. The result was the same, wasn't it?'

The only reply was an eager nod from his assistant.

'Hum... An absence of peaks which caused an unexpected vertical zoom from the device. Hum... I see it is weird indeed; it is the first time I've come across a spectrographic analysis proving me that an object is composed of absolutely nothing...' He kept on, slower but with an increasingly louder voice. 'And that makes me wonder why I accept to be surrounded by MORONS!' he finally shouted.

'But, Professor...'

'But what? Don't you realise there must be at least one peak specific to any chemical element or maybe a molecule,' he continued still upset. 'Have you thought about enlarging the range of frequencies to check?' he added more quietly.

He then paused for a long moment, staring at nothing. Cooled down, he finally sighed and resumed. 'That element, composing the planet, must be very unusual indeed to be outside the normal spectrum range. But, provided that the measure is reproducible, that's a discovery anyway.'

He sounded pleased with himself. 'We need a name for each discovery. Hey, I know,' he kept on positively excited now. 'I could call it the black matter. That's a little abuse of the word but it does fit the black spectrum at normal frequencies, doesn't it?'

And he became aware again of the team of students that surrounded him. 'What? Why do you look at me like that?'

'The thing is,' said hesitantly the most senior of the students, 'that we did check with all the devices at hand and we also broadened the frequency range. And the result is not black... It's white.'

'What do you mean?' snapped the professor.

'There are no significant peaks because there are no significant valleys. Or so it seems. We believe this planet is composed of myriads of chemical elements so that any single frequency checked by the scan happens to be the resonance frequency of some element. And actually, as you suggested, that fact is obvious when extending the range to the rarely studied frequencies. It then shows indeed little response which contrasts with the middle that...'

Interrupting the student, the professor shouted 'I'm a genius!' I have found alien life! Wooowoooo!'

'Life? We just thought...'

'Don't you see? A planet composed of so many elements cannot be natural. It must be life that has created such diversity.'

The students were as usual doubtful of any mood change from their professor, but some of them grasped his reasoning.

'Well, I'm going right to the Senate to announce my discovery and to immediately request some increased means of study and transportation.'

'You want to go on that planet? So soon?'

'Not me! The probes...' he replied dismissively. 'We will need to have a closer look of course. My breakthrough will attract all the scientists... And in fact everyone.'

He couldn't help but display the biggest and stupidest smile he had ever managed.

'Oh! I'm almost forgetting : you better start studying the Doppler effect again, because I really hope to have probes with fast engines, and I don't want the measures to be affected. We'll need to embed on the probes some auto-adjustable spectrometer that can endure both strong acceleration and half the speed of light. Come on boys! This is your chance to finally have your name associated with mine! Go, go! And in the meantime, I'm heading to the Senate - and towards glory.'

He stepped out of the lab, smiling broadly and started to think of several possible names he could give that little weird planet. "Blackstar" would be too weird, "Dirt" would only show a lack of imagination . Proposing my family name would be presumptuous. The name of the High Senator doesn't deserve the honour but it could get me some favours. Hum...

While he had grasped the possibility of life on that planet, he was far from imagining that the life-form in question could be intelligent and blessed with the ability of speech.

Hum. I know... I'll choose a simple precise and classical name: NeoCentauria.

Actually, in their native language, the inhabitants already called their planet "Earth", and themselves "Humans".