Chapter 3, Reentry Summary

Harkening back to the previous novel, the author recounts how the mission to Jupiter worked out. A non-human intelligence had gone through the Solar System four million years before. The intelligence had left behind a black monolith buried in the Moon, which humankind excavated but kept secret except among a chosen few. When a monolith was discovered orbiting Jupiter, the Leonov goes to investigate. During this mission, the orbiting monolith produces many other monoliths in Jupiter's gases, which increase the mass of the planet to the point where nuclear fusion occurs, and Jupiter becomes a new star named Lucifer. Irrefutable evidence that the ancient intelligence associated with the monoliths is aware of humankind comes in the form of a broadcast message. The message warns that humans are not to attempt landings on Europa, a former moon of Jupiter and now a...