In the Ocean of Night is a 1977 fix-up hard science fiction novel by American writer Gregory Benford.

[3] In 1999 (2019 in the second edition), Nigel Walmsley, a British scientist and astronaut for NASA, is sent to attach a thermonuclear bomb to a comet named Icarus which is on a direct collision course for India.

NASA insists that the demolition has to go forward, claiming Icarus would skip off the atmosphere and land in the Indian Ocean, causing widespread damage from the resultant tsunami.

As a probe vessel, the Snark's directing computer could not afford to ignore the satellites' radio emissions before it moved on to Earth.

It also reaches out through Nigel's medical implants to his dead partner's more elaborate ones, and commandeers her body to explore and learn about Earth.

As Nigel is already fully informed, he is assigned to pilot the space ship (armed with another nuke) and meet the Snark.

It says that organic civilizations and species are inherently unstable; they flash brilliantly and commit suicide sooner or later.

Meanwhile, on Earth, some surprising experiments in human genetics conducted by the aliens are discovered alive in North America.