Annihilation of the solar system

Next to the Near-Earth Object Telescope of the Capital Observatory, Xia Lan and Wei Xu also stood up from their chairs excitedly because they received a successful calibration signal a dozen seconds before the end of the countdown. They looked at each other and raised their hands to high-five in celebration.

After the excitement gradually faded, they still looked into each other's eyes. They seemed to be attracted by something in each other's eyes. At that moment, only the gentle sound of wind and each other's heartbeats were left in the air.

"Beep...beep...beep..."

The computer connected to the near-Earth object telescope sounded a beep. This beep meant that the telescope had changed from a fixed tracking mode to a moving tracking mode. Xia Lan and Wei Xu turned their heads to look at the same time. The Taichi satellite that was originally prohibited from moving on the screen was now

It is rolling on the screen. If you look closely, you can see that one of its posture-adjusting nozzles is continuously spraying a large amount of white gas!

"What's going on!" Wei Xu exclaimed.

Xia Lan was about to reach out to grab the phone on the table, but the phone rang on its own.

"This is the Space Control Center. What did you observe over there?" The person on the phone sounded very anxious.

"The satellite is rotating, as if there is an attitude-adjusting nozzle that is constantly ejecting gas." Xia Lan replied, looking at the satellite rolling on the screen like a diver in the sky.

The other party was stunned for a second.

"knew."

Xia Lan quickly asked:

"Are there any observation results?"

"The predicted gravitational waves were not detected in the preliminary analysis results. In-depth analysis is ongoing, but there are no results yet."

The other party hung up the phone.

Xia Lan still put the phone with only busy tone to her ear, staring blankly at the satellites still rolling on the screen.

The attitude adjustment of the satellite is achieved by ejecting compressed air from the attitude adjustment nozzle. What controls whether and how much high-pressure gas is ejected is a valve on the nozzle. This valve has been designed with more than 1 times the design strength.

The amount of safety redundancy.

But tonight's eight consecutive laser interference target calibrations made the valve's working intensity far exceed its safety margin, and eventually it was overwhelmed and burst. High-pressure gas continuously gushes out from the breach, pushing

The satellite rotates away from its original position until the gas is exhausted. And the satellite will continue to roll like this forever.

"Let's go back to the Space Control Center!" Xia Lan put down the phone and quickly packed up the information on the table while saying to Wei Xu.

"Okay...Okay!" Wei Xu was still a little confused, but he quickly stood up and helped Xia Lan pack her things.

The lights of cars shuttled rapidly among the trees in the mountains, the sound of roaring engines roared on the empty suburban roads, and the scarlet brake lights flashed frequently on the urban roads.

With a shrill sound of brakes, they arrived under the aerospace control center building. Wei Xu opened the car door and immediately felt the heat wave escaping from the engine, and then the smell of high-temperature rubber hit his nostrils.

At this time, a group of people walked out of the door of the Space Control Center. They were Minister Zhong, Xia Jigang, Director Yin and several people from the Space Control Center. Xia Lan and the others strode forward to greet them.

"Do you have the final analysis results?"

In fact, she already got the answer from the livid expressions on the faces of Minister Zhong and his group.

"I'll send Minister Zhong back first. Director Yin will tell you the specific situation." After Xia Jigang finished speaking, he and Minister Zhong walked down the steps. Xia Lan turned her head and looked at Director Yin with the last glimmer of hope. And Yin, who looked pale

The director just shook his head slightly.

"The detailed analysis results are in the data analysis room. If you want to see it, go and see it."

Xia Lan and Wei Xu walked quickly to the data analysis room. Several computers here were empty. However, the dents on the chairs in front of the computers caused by sitting for a long time had not completely dissipated. A staff member was already waiting for them here.

Already.

"This is the coordinate image of this observation." The staff member pointed to the computer screen and said.

What is displayed on the screen are curve function images of several coordinate systems. Generally, when a gravitational wave signal with a predicted amplitude is detected, the result can be analyzed by comparing the displacement of the red line and the white line of this graph phenomenon. But at this time they saw

The red and white lines in the image almost overlap.

"Do you have a waveform chart?" Xia Lan asked.

"Yes, there is, but it's of little value." The staff member replied, while calling up several graphs that looked like an electrocardiogram, with twists and turns. The staff member pointed at the messy waveforms and said:

"At the same moment when the gravitational waves arrived, something went wrong with one of the satellites. The interference waveforms formed by the other two satellites alone are basically of no discernible value. The waveforms and function diagrams we derived from the basic data have reached the same conclusion.

in conclusion."

Xia Lan and Wei Xu stared at the waveform graph on the screen for a long time, and they changed several images in the process. The staff member walked to the side to close the computers that were still open.

"Sister, this... this may not really be valuable data."

Xia Lan still stared at the images intently and asked:

"Can you give me a copy of the Taiji satellite's test data, past observation data, and all the raw data of this observation record?"

The staff member was in trouble, and she hesitated and said:

"Um...this...must have formal approval documents."

"Copy everything they want to them." Director Yin's voice came from the door. He was in a very low mood. Just as Xia Lan was about to say thank you, Director Yin waved his hand:

"Xia Lan, you should go back and rest early. We are all tired these days. Let's think about the solution slowly."

After saying that, he turned around and left the data analysis room.

After copying the information, Xia Lan and Wei Xu walked out of the door of the Space Control Center. As soon as they walked down the steps, Wei Xu smelled the rubber smell that had not completely dissipated. He quickly said to Xia Lan:

"Senior sister, we have to drive slower when we go back!"

Xia Lan walked directly to the co-pilot and said:

"You drive."

After the car started, Wei Xu asked:

"Where are we going now!"

Xia Lan answered while dialing the phone:

"Go back to school."

Wei Xu frowned in confusion:

"Ah... Go back to school, it's so late... No, it's almost dawn. Why are you going back to school?"

"Let's analyze and compare these basic data and see if we can find out anything." Xia Lan replied.

The wrinkles between Wei Xu's brows deepened:

"Hasn't the data analysis computer in the Aerospace Control Center already analyzed it? What else should we analyze?"

Xia Lan cut off the unanswered call and dialed another number.

"The data analysis system program of the Space Control Center is designed according to the conventional working distance of Taiji satellites. In this observation, the distance between the satellites was already very extreme, and there was a problem midway.

I have just carefully compared the function image and the waveform graph. Regarding the data of the satellite that had the problem, the function graph shows that the time when the satellite had the problem coincided with the time when the gravitational waves arrived.

But from the waveform diagram, it seems that the fault occurred just after detecting a little trace of gravitational waves. From the accuracy of the waveform diagram, it is impossible to tell whether it is a gravitational wave or a clutter caused by the stress deformation of the machine before the failure.

If we integrate the past detection records and perform renormalization, and then use them as filtering conditions to filter out the interference data in this observation data, we may be able to get a clear result."

Wei Xu suddenly became energetic:

"You mean, maybe their analysis is not accurate enough. Or is there a misanalysis?"

Xia Lan pressed the phone again and said:

"This is just my guess, and it may not be correct. I just think that the analysis results of the function image and the waveform image at the location where gravitational waves occur are different. This at least shows that there is room for us to continue to deepen in terms of calculation accuracy and analysis methods.

Neither Wu Fan nor Mengzhu answered the phone, so we are the only ones working."

Wei Xu made a playful expression and joked:

"Wouldn't it be nice to be alone with senior sister all night?"