Rocky Road
Due to his home planet environment, Rocky uses this to see.
What is sonar / echolocation?
After his work in academia studying speculative extraterrestrial / molecular biology and before joining Project Hail Mary, Grace held this job.
What is a middle school science teacher?
What is radiation / radiation poisoning?
Despite being surrounded by stars infected by astrophage, this unaffected star became the destination for the Project Hail Mary mission.
What is Tau Ceti?
This fictional, ultra-strong, and versatile material becomes Grace & Rocky's primary construction material on the mission, despite being primarily comprised of a noble gas.
What is xenonite?
Rocky asks for this as a gift from Grace.
What is a laptop?
After securing his own escaped taumoeba, Grace decides to do this before heading home to Earth.
What is find and rescue Rocky?
The Petrova line was discovered by observing this, which astrophage emit when in motion (be specific).
What is infrared light?
This star is the center of the system that Rocky calls home.
What is 40 Eridani?
The vessels aboard Grace's ship meant to send data back to Earth are named after this famous musical group.
What is The Beatles?
Eridians like Rocky breathe this gas instead of oxygen, which is fatal to humans.
What is ammonia?
Asserting this claim ended up getting Ryland pushed out of academia.
What is life can exist without water?
Together, Grace and Rocky breed taumoeba to develop a resistance to this element present in the atmospheres of Earth (Venus) and Erid (Threeworld).
What is nitrogen?
Astrophage travel from the sun back to Venus for breeding because the sun does not contain this element required for the complex proteins to sustain life.
What is carbon?
The crew members for Project Hail Mary are selected because they possess this gene marker.
What is coma-resistance?
Rocky's species have this many limbs - a number that Grace finds unsettling at first.
What is 5?
Once on Erid, Eridian scientists make meat for him to eat out of this.
What is his own cloned tissue?
Grace is disappointed when he discovers that astrophage are primarily made of this, as it contradicts his prior academic research.
What is hydrogen and oxygen (water)?
The unaffected star that Grace travels to on the mission is approximately this far from Earth.
What is 12 light years?
What is the Sahara Desert (Africa)?
Rocky and his crew of Eridians were the first to do this when they embarked on their journey?
During his initial astrophage research, Stratt congratulates Grace for being the first human to do this.
What is being the first human to kill an alien?
While studying astrophage's lifecycle, Grace discovers that astrophage travel between the Sun and Venus for this reason.
What is to gather energy near the Sun and reproduce near Venus?
Depending on how quickly the astrophage reproduce, scientists initially predict Earth's temperature will drop this much in the next 30 years?
What is 10-15 degrees?
This precursor to the Project Hail Mary mission sent a probe to Venus to gather samples and data from the Petrova line.
What is Project ArcLight?