They also find that Rama's atmosphere is breathable. Massive cones, which are theorised as part of Rama's propulsion system, stand at its 'southern' end. A band of water, dubbed the Cylindrical Sea, stretches around Rama's central circumference. Rama's inner surfaces hold 'cities' of geometric structures that resemble buildings and are separated by streets with shallow trenches. The crew, led by Commander Bill Norton, enters Rama through a dual safety system consisting of two sets of triple airlocks, and explores the 16-km wide by 50-km long cylindrical world of its interior, but the nature and purpose of the starship and its creators remain enigmatic throughout the book. Endeavour manages to rendezvous with Rama one month after it first comes to Earth's attention, when the alien ship is already inside Venus's orbit. The solar survey vessel Endeavour is sent to study Rama, as it is the only ship close enough to do so in the brief period Rama will spend in the solar system. The resulting images reveal that Rama is a perfect cylinder, long, and almost completely featureless, making this humankind's first encounter with an alien spacecraft. It is named Rama after the Hindu god, and an unmanned space probe dubbed Sita is launched from the Mars moon Phobos to intercept and photograph it. The astronomers' interest is further piqued when they realise the asteroid has an extremely rapid rotation period of four minutes and is exceptionally large. Its speed (100,000 km/h - 62,137 m/h) and the angle of its trajectory clearly indicate it is not on a long orbit around the sun, but is an interstellar object. It is detected by astronomers in the year 2131 while it is still outside the orbit of Jupiter. The 'Rama' of the title is an alien starship, initially mistaken for an asteroid categorised as '31/439'. After an asteroid falls in Northeast Italy in 2077, creating a major disaster, the government of Earth sets up the Spaceguard system as an early warning of arrivals from deep space.

Rendezvous with rama review