IN 2008, astronomers discover a planetary system orbiting a distant star which looks much like our own. Two years later, Dr. David Green of the National Space and Aeronautics Institute develops a light-refracting telescope that enables him to actually see the planets, and discovers that they are not just similar to ours, but are in fact a reflection of our own solar system. He has long been fascinated by the Iranian cosmology of the Zarvanatic tradition, cited by Mircea Eliade in The Myth of the Eternal Return: the idea that every terrestrial phenomenon, whether abstract or concrete, corresponds to a celestial, transcendent invisible term—not simply the Platonic “idea,” Eliade was quick to point out, but the notion that everything had a double. “Our earth,” he wrote, “corresponds to a celestial earth.” What does Dr. Green wish to find? Simply, that there is a celestial prototype upon which we can pattern this unhappy earth, and thus find our true mission. Using ever more powerful telescopes to probe this mirror image deeper, he sees the earth’s reflection in great detail, every mountain, every tree, every face, but fails to find this heavenly counterpart. In the end he realizes a simple but inexplicable axiom, that this earth of ours is itself the celestial model he is searching for, and there is nothing beyond the constant reflection of these two worlds, all their joys and atrocities, which repeat each other endlessly.