One particularly hot evening Tintin is out walking with his dog Snowy. Tintin then notices an extra star in the Great Bear. When he reaches home he calls the observatory. They say that they have the phenomenon under observation and hang up. From his window Tintin sees that the star is getting bigger every minute. He walks to the observatory and after some trouble gets inside. He meets a man called Philippulus who proclaims himself to be a prophet and tells him that "It is a Judgement! Woe!" Puzzled Tintin proceeds to the main room with the giant telescope. There he meets the director of the observatory Professor Decimus Phostle who explains that the extra star is a meteor a vast ball of fire making its way towards Earth which will cause the end of the world tomorrow morning.In the end however the shooting star does not collide with the Earth but passes by it. A piece of it a meteorite lands in the Arctic Ocean causing an earthquake that lasts a mere few seconds. After an analysis of a spectroscopic photo of the meteorite Phostle deduces that it is composed of an entirely new metal. He names this metal "Phostlite" but is dismayed to discover that the meteorite has landed in the sea and therefore presumably is lost. Tintin however realises that the meteorite could be protruding above the surface of the water. The Professor is persuaded to organise an expedition to find the metal and to retrieve a sample of it for further research. The expedition consists of leading scientists as well as Tintin Snowy and their friend the alcoholic Captain Haddock (ironically serving as president of the Society for Sober Sailors) aboard the trawler Aurora.