Earth Era

In a room in a residential building somewhere in the center of Watson City, Zhao Lan, who was sleeping, was awakened by a rapid ringing of the phone. Zhao Lan opened her hazy sleepy eyes, took out her phone from under her pillow, pressed the button, and a video call message that had been recorded long ago appeared in front of her.

Because the distance between Mars and the Earth is too far—the closest distance between the two planets is more than 50 million kilometers, it takes more than three minutes for electromagnetic waves to complete a one-way trip—which means that the distance between the two planets is over 50 million kilometers. The minimum communication delay is more than six minutes, so real-time communication between the two places is impossible. Therefore, if people have communication needs, they usually record the information and send it there. The message Zhao Lan received now was such a video message that was recorded in advance and then sent.

Zhao Lan took a look at the contact information and found that it was a message sent from the Xinghai Sky Survey Observation Base. The specific sender is Zhang Ya, his colleague at the Xinghai Sky Survey Observation Base.

"Zhao Lan, there is an emergency. You must end your vacation and come back to work early."

In the video message, Zhang Ya's always delicate face looks a little dull here, and her hair is a little messy - obviously, this is because the matter is too urgent, so Zhang Ya sent this message without having time to put on makeup. reason.

As a friend, Zhao Lan knows what it means to Zhang Ya to go out without makeup. That must be the case if there is an extremely urgent matter. So the lingering sleepiness in Zhao Lan's mind finally disappeared at this moment. Zhao Lan sat up on the bed, gathered his energy and continued watching the video.

"Zhao Lan, did you know? Eta Carinae finally erupted, just half an hour ago! We received extremely strong gamma rays and X-ray bursts from Eta Carinae. This is different from the false eruption in 1843. Exploded, now we are extremely sure that Eta Carinae really exploded this time!”

"What?" Looking at Zhang Ya's face full of excitement and hearing her voice that became hoarse due to excessive excitement, Zhao Lan also covered his mouth in shock.

Eta Carinae is a very famous star. Observing the evolution of this star plays an extremely important role in human beings' well-constructed supernova explosion mechanism and stellar evolution mechanism. Therefore, people have never relaxed their observation of it. It's just that the predicted eruption of Eta Carinae will probably occur within 10,000 years. No one has ever thought that Eta Carinae will erupt now.

foreseeable. This will surely be the most significant event in the history of the development of human civilization. It is not that human civilization has not experienced supernova explosions in history - the most famous supernova explosion was observed in the Song Dynasty of the National Era, and that explosion formed the famous Crab Nebula - but when human civilization has enough precision It is the first time that a supernova explosion has occurred so close to the earth and with such good observation conditions. The supernova explosion of Eta Carinae will surely attract the attention of all mankind in an instant and become the hottest topic in human society. Compared with Eta Carinae, famous figures such as entertainment stars or sports superstars will all have to give way.

The most critical point is that Zhang Ya's words confirmed the authenticity of this outbreak. This is a real explosion. Rather than the false supernova explosion that has occurred in the past.

Supernova explosions can also be classified as real or fake. In 1843, Eta Carinae had a false eruption. During that outburst, Eta Carinae was even brighter than Sirius and could be seen during the day. However, that explosion was eventually proven to be false. After observation and research, people finally believed that it was because the internal activity of Eta Carinae was too violent, causing its luminosity to exceed the Eddington luminosity limit and the internal radiation pressure to exceed Due to its own gravity, matter equivalent to one-fifth of the mass of the sun was ejected by it. And ultimately caused an abnormal increase in its luminosity.

But this outbreak is anything but the same. This is a real explosion. A huge star is instantly turned into fly ash, and endless stellar matter will be ejected into interstellar space. A black hole representing its corpse will form inside it...

The explosion of Eta Carinae will drive astronomers and physicists around the world crazy. As a member of the astronomers, Zhao Lan is naturally no exception.

In the video, Zhang Ya's excited voice was still heard. But Zhao Lan no longer cared to listen. Zhao Lan got up from the bed as quickly as possible, put on clothes, washed his face casually, picked up his suitcase and left here.

Through the large and transparent fully enclosed glass shield of Watson City, Zhao Lan saw the bright star in the sky with his own eyes. In Zhao Lan's eyes, the star seemed to possess some kind of strange magic power, which made Zhao Lan just want to look at it closely, not wanting to take his eyes away for a moment.

But Zhao Lan knew that nothing could be seen with the naked eye alone. Rush to the Xinghai Sky Survey Observation Base as quickly as possible. It is most appropriate to use the instruments there to conduct observations and then perform data analysis. As an astronomer, in this heroic event. Zhao Lan must fulfill his responsibilities.

Zhao Lan stopped a car and quickly rushed to the air-to-sky interactive base. There is a space elevator in the space interaction base that connects the ground and the space port. Through the space elevator, people can quickly leave the ground and enter space, and then take a ship to the earth in the space port.

In the early days of the interstellar age, designs for a spacecraft capable of both near-Earth and space use were explored, but such designs were ultimately abandoned by scientists and engineers. It's not that the technology of human civilization is not up to standard, but that the construction cost of a dual-purpose spacecraft is too high - it must have an extremely tough armor system to withstand the high heat caused by atmospheric friction, and it must also be equipped during takeoff and landing. An extremely sophisticated ship control system is required. This would cause its construction cost to more than triple. Not only that, it also has to carry fuel for breaking away from the gravity of the planet and for acceleration and deceleration when re-entering the atmosphere. This causes it to be designed to be very large, which in turn will make the design of the outer armor and overall structure several times higher. a difficulty. For various reasons, people had to give up this design plan.

What replaces the dual-purpose spaceships for near-Earth and space are the design models of air-space interaction bases, space ports, and single-purpose spaceships. In this transportation mode, the air-space interaction base connects the ground and space ports, and the space ports connect starships. The interstellar spacecraft does not have to enter the atmosphere directly. It will directly enter the port and berth. The cargo or personnel loaded on it will enter the ground from space through the space elevator in the space-space interaction base.

This design solution has proven to be efficient and reliable. It is precisely because of the two giant space ports that exist above Watson City on Mars and the capital city on Earth that the space channel connecting Mars and Earth can be opened, and Watson City can prosper.

Zhao Lan's Sylvia spacecraft is parked in the space port. It was a private small spacecraft with advanced equipment and gorgeous appearance. Its speed can reach up to 120 kilometers per second, and the energy and survival supplies it carries can support a person's comfortable life for at least ten years. Within the category of civilian spaceships, the Sylvia spacecraft can already be regarded as the most top-notch personal vehicle.

It was absolutely impossible for Zhao Lan to afford such an expensive spaceship, even if Zhao Lan was a member of the highest-paid group of scientists in human civilization. However, Zhao Lan is the only direct descendant of Zhao Huasheng. She inherited the honor and material rewards awarded to Zhao Huasheng by the human civilization government, and only then got this expensive small spaceship.

Zhao Lan is now on his way to the air and space interaction base. Although the driver had driven the car very fast, and in the low gravity environment of Mars, the car was almost flying, Zhao Lan still felt that it was too slow. Under the current situation, every second of time wasted is a crime against Zhao Lan's interest and career.

A supernova explosion will release the most information in its early stages. As the explosion process calms down, less valuable information will be observable. Zhao Lan has already missed the most heroic initial stage of the outbreak, and cannot miss the subsequent outbreaks. Otherwise, after returning to the Xinghai Survey and Observation Base, Zhao Lan would probably be left in a daze facing the debris of the explosion.

While waiting anxiously, Zhao Lan finally arrived at the air-sky interactive base. After verifying his identity, Zhao Lan took the nearest elevator and left Watson City, embarking on a journey to the space port.

The total length of the space elevator is 48,503 kilometers. It is made of the latest developed ultra-high-strength material, which is extremely strong and lightweight. One end is connected to the ground and the other end is connected to the space port. The space port has the same rotation rate as Mars, which means that the speed of the space port in space has exceeded the orbiting speed of Mars, so it will always hang in space and never fall down.

The space elevator began to accelerate slowly, which made Zhao Lan feel a little more dizzy. Zhao Lan stood up, left his seat and walked to the viewing window, looking at the ground through the huge glass window.

Watson City began to shrink rapidly in Zhao Lan's eyes, and eventually merged with the vast land of Mars and could no longer be distinguished. What awaits Zhao Lan ahead is a three-hour space journey. (To be continued ~^~)

PS: The second update will come later~