In Ascension

Leigh grows up in the Netherlands under the shadow of a difficult father and a changing climate, finding refuge in the sea. As a microbiologist she joins an expedition to a newly discovered trench in the Atlantic, far deeper than anything charted, where the crew senses something is wrong. That work draws her into a secretive space program preparing a mission to investigate an anomaly at the edge of the solar system, an object that may be of alien origin. Across ocean floor, laboratory, and deep space, In Ascension follows one scientist assembling the evidence for a first contact that reshapes her understanding of life, origin, and what waits beyond the reach of human instruments.