The barren, icy world of the comet is the only known home of the Therm-trap, a meter wide "greenhouse" housing an entire community of diverse organisms who live in ecological balance, surviving on light and the comet's water, gases and minerals.
Comet Stubbs is called a "virgin" comet because it has never passed close to a star. Stubbs is a permanent traveler in the vast, dark regions of interstellar space, orbiting two stars, Sol (Sun) and Alpha C. Despite its isolation, Stubbs' shattered surface and tiny moonlet testify to a past collision with another comet.
The comet pictured here is named for its discoverer, Professor. Harold Stubbs of Earth, who has discovered comets with over 2000 thermtraps using detection gear of his own design.
The hard-to-find thermtrap produces a waste product that remains fluid in the cold of space, thus it is an ideal lubricant for machines used in space or other supercool environments. Also discovered by Stubbs, the thermtrap is an ecosystem centering on an odd creature that supports a lenslike organ. It keeps this moving "eye" focused on the brightest light in the sky, continually absorbing energy.
The Thermtrap's overall system is delicate and slow, producing less than two grams of lubricant each Earth year. It seems also to have a tenuous grasp on life, slipping easily into long periods of dormancy. Such periods are triggered by loss of light and seem to be a natural defense against total destruction. If too much lubricant is removed from the base of the bubble, or if the system is disturbed in any way, dormancy will occur. For this reason, the origin and functions of the Therm-trap remain a mystery to frustrated biologists who study them only from safe distances.
A survey of Comet Stubbs, which is large by cometary standards, revealed only four nondormant thermtraps. Chemists in four star systems are trying to formulate a synthetic substitute for the lubricant. Until it is found,the Therm-trap will be the object of comet hunts throughout the galaxy and may become listed as an endangered ecology.