Earth Era

This is a fiery red little planet. Before human beings set foot here, it has been desolate and lonely for at least tens of millions to hundreds of millions of years. Originally, this number could be expanded to four billion years—this is the time when the solar system was born in calculations, but even if human civilization has established a large base on Mars that can accommodate hundreds of thousands of people, humans still cannot Completely confirm or rule out the possibility of life ever existing on Mars. Therefore, for the sake of rigor, this time frame should be defined as tens of millions to hundreds of millions of years. At least, human civilization can be sure that in the past tens of millions to hundreds of millions of years, life did not exist on Mars.

At this moment, more than three hundred years have passed since the sun crisis. After the crisis that almost destroyed the entire human civilization passed, the technology of human civilization finally ushered in explosive development again. This explosive development is not only due to the survival instinct in a desperate situation, but more because the reverse fusion layer produced by the solar civilization has brought great inspiration to human civilization on the technology of controllable nuclear fusion. Fifty years after the solar crisis, controllable nuclear fusion technology was finally developed. It was driven by controllable nuclear fusion technology that human civilization really stepped into space.

The moon base once built for Zhao Huasheng was the first time that human civilization built a human building on a planet other than the earth. After Zhao Huasheng returned to the earth, the lunar base became a landmark building and port for human civilization to enter deep space. Using the moon base and the sky laboratory as a springboard, with the help of a stronger impetus brought by controllable nuclear fusion technology, human civilization has finally printed its footprints on the desolate land of Mars, and in the following 150 years This great city on Mars, which can accommodate hundreds of thousands of people, was built in ten years, and the city was named after Zhao Huasheng to commemorate Zhao Huasheng's outstanding contributions to human civilization.

Not only Mars, but the footprints of human civilization have been printed on more planets. Astronauts have even landed on Vesta and Pallas in the asteroid belt, and there are semi-permanent space bases established by human civilization on the thick clouds of Venus within the earth. Human civilization is preparing to set off to a farther starry sky. Preparations for the manned landing on Jupiter and its satellite system have already begun. It is expected that the first team of astronauts will set off within fifty years...

This is an era of great technological development. It is also an era full of hope, full of desire for knowledge and exploration. The Age of Discovery once brought glory to Europe. At this moment, a new round of great exploration of the entire solar system is destined to bring human civilization to a new peak. It is believed that the construction of the first Mars base, Watson City, is only the first step for human civilization to colonize the entire solar system. In the near future, the footprints of human civilization will spread throughout the entire solar system. Even the distant and cold Pluto, and even Zina and Sedna, which are farther than Pluto, will one day be planted with the banner representing human civilization.

The advancement of productivity has brought extremely high welfare. Even the poorest people in human civilization don't have to worry about their survival being threatened by cold and hunger. Live a life so comfortable and rich that you could never have imagined before. At the same time, because of the opening of the era of great interstellar voyages, practitioners related to natural sciences have truly become the top class of society, and they not only have the most complete scientific research environment. It also has a social reputation that matches its contribution. It has been found that no matter how much the government and people attach importance to education, even school-age youths have a college enrollment rate as high as 97%. Even if graduates of natural science-related majors hit new highs every year, the relevant scientific and technological talents are still not enough. So under the stimulation of high welfare. The fertility rate has once again increased significantly, and the population has once again experienced explosive growth...

Controllable nuclear fusion can bring a nearly unlimited energy supply, and the exploration of the starry sky will bring a truly unlimited living space. What people are afraid of is that there will not be enough people to occupy the newly developed land. People have never been afraid of the problem of the compression of living resources and living space due to too many people.

Human civilization has never been more prosperous than it is now, and it has never been more hopeful. Watson is the most concrete expression of this prosperity and hope.

There is a busy commercial road connecting Watson City and the earth. Whenever Mars and the earth move to the same side of the sun and the distance between each other shortens, this commercial road will be opened, full of goods and materials. Spaceships and scientific research spacecraft will go back and forth between the two places at a speed of more than 100 kilometers per second. Materials from the earth will support 30% of the energy and material consumption of Watson City, and various specialties from Watson City will be sold at high prices on the earth.

This is the first interstellar channel opened up by human civilization. Under the support of this interstellar waterway. Taste the special food from Mars, or simply spend dozens of days to travel to Mars, see Sailor Canyon with your own eyes, look up at Mount Olympus, or feel the super storm on Mars, these Behavior has become the most fashionable way of vacation for the emerging middle class in human civilization.

But now is not a good time to travel to Mars. Because of the difference in revolution speed between Mars and Earth, the distance between the two planets is changing all the time. At this moment, the distance between Mars and Earth has exceeded 100 million kilometers. It is not a wise choice to travel or do business under such a long distance. So in this commercial route at the moment, except for some spaceships that must perform missions, there are no other spaceships.

The reduction in the number of spaceships directly led to the desertion of the space port above Watson City. At this moment, in this huge space port, except for some areas where staff are still on duty, most of the other areas have been shut off from energy supply, and plunged into darkness and ice.

Under the cover of the darkness, a beautifully shaped small spaceship quietly left the port and entered the space, and finally disappeared into the darkness under constant acceleration. During the entire process, the port's communication equipment maintained contact with the spaceship, and received a very compliant response. Therefore, the staff at the port did not receive an alarm from the electronic system, although the departure of this small spaceship was not so normal.

After leaving the space port, the small spaceship began to accelerate continuously until it reached one hundred and thirteen kilometers per second. For a small private spacecraft, this speed is already quite fast, and under the limit of the fuel it can carry, this speed is basically close to the limit. at such a high speed. It only takes ten days to come to the vicinity of the earth and complete an interstellar journey across Mars and the earth.

However, this small spaceship was not developed as it had been developed long ago. The fixed commercial roads filled with navigation satellites and material supply points are laid forward. Shortly after leaving Mars, it deviated from its course, even deviated from the plane of the ecliptic, and moved along an unfamiliar space where only scientific research and military spacecraft would come.

In front of you is the huge and bright sun, and behind you is the vast sea of ​​stars. Surrounded by such a beautiful scenery, the small spaceship hovered silently and stood still—only through the ever-changing numbers on the electronic instrument could it be noticed that the small spaceship was moving forward. If one only looked at the surrounding environment, no one would be able to notice that the spaceship was moving forward.

In this silence and stillness, thirteen days passed quietly. The sun became bigger and brighter, and the light blue star in front finally changed from a point to a disc. If the line of sight is a little bit off, you can still see the blue planet not far away, emitting A pale moon.

It is less than five million kilometers away from the earth. After the era of interstellar voyage kicked off, the distance of five million kilometers is not too far away, and it can even be considered quite close. Not far ahead will appear space patrols and supplies built by human civilization. As well as inspection bases, any spacecraft trying to approach the earth has no way to escape the observation of these bases. At this moment, the pilot of this small spacecraft has prepared a whole set of deception and concealment procedures to deal with these bases.

But right now. Just when the pilot was about to approach the earth, in the distant starry sky on the left side of the direction the small spaceship was facing. A dim star that cannot even be directly seen by the naked eye suddenly becomes brighter in a very short period of time. Its brightness increased so rapidly that in just a few seconds, its apparent magnitude increased from 6.21 to minus 13th magnitude—this brightness is almost brighter than the full moon.

Therefore, in the eyes of the pilot of the spaceship, besides the sun, the earth and the moon, the bright stars he can see also have this star.

The bright star appeared so suddenly that there was no sign of it changing. It just showed up there. With a distance of thousands of light years, they projected their own light into this small star system. Into the eyes of the spaceship pilot.

The spaceship pilots knew the star as Eta Carinae. Eta Carinae is a star system located in the constellation Carina. This star system is composed of two stars. However, because of the occlusion of too thick interstellar dust clouds, humans have not directly observed the companion star of Eta Carinae. Eseamount 2 can only be observed by people because it is too big and too bright.

Eta Carinae is a blue supergiant star with a minimum mass of 120 times that of the Sun and a luminosity of over 5 million times that of the Sun. Such a strong luminosity is already close to the Eddington luminosity limit, which will cause the radiation pressure on its surface to even approach or even exceed the gravitational force of the star itself. This would make it extremely unstable, allowing it to eject large amounts of matter in bursts at extremely high rates. In fact, scientists estimate that it has ejected the mass of at least thirty suns since its birth.

It's a young and cranky massive star. Generally speaking, such a star has a very short lifespan, and will end its life with a heroic big bang after tens of millions, or even only a few million years. People call this star's death process a supernova explosion.

And obviously... Just now, the star Etamount 2 exploded and died. It ended its life in such a heroic and indescribable way, with a light so intense that it still looked like a full moon even if it was separated by more than 7,000 light-years, it transmitted its death message to the solar system, and was recognized by human civilization. Noticed.

The pilots of the spacecraft knew that the explosion of Eta Carinae also announced the birth of a black hole. It's so massive that an outburst of this magnitude would create a black hole directly at its core rather than a neutron star. Part of the material ejected due to the energy of the explosion will fall back into the black hole to become its food, and the other part will form an accretion disk orbiting it. The debris from the faster explosion spreads and eventually forms a nebula.

Although the eruption of Seamount II is heroic, it will not have much impact on the earth or the solar system. Because the distance is too far. Except for interstellar voyages that need to increase their anti-radiation power a bit, ordinary people will not notice anything other than seeing a star that is as bright as a full moon in the sky.

But Eta Carinae's eruption was a boon for the pilot of the tiny spacecraft. The pilot of the spaceship knew that after the eruption of Eta Carinae 2, the attention of the entire human civilization would be drawn to it, and almost all observation forces would be directed there, and correspondingly, the efforts to check the spaceship would also be reduced. This helps the pilot of the spacecraft to get away with it more safely.

But the little spacecraft ended up not coming close to Earth. After the distance between the earth and the earth was shortened to three million kilometers, it suddenly disappeared from here, without any warning, just like the eruption of Eta Carinae, it just disappeared out of thin air.

No one other than the original owner of the spacecraft will know that a small spacecraft left Mars to come to Earth, and finally disappeared here. Because it didn’t leave the departure record in the Martian port, and it didn’t leave the entry record in the earth port either. None of the navigation satellites or detection stations on the trade route left any communication records about it.

The starry sky is still quiet, as if this small spaceship has never appeared before. (to be continued ~^~)

PS:  Volume 2: The Calamity of the Stars was finally conceived, and the first chapter was coded out before 12:00... A new journey has begun, ask for tickets~ask for tickets~