Homo sapiens

An Maidong and Hill were extremely wary of civilizations that made metal cuboids.

No civilization would create such a huge metal cuboid for no reason and then launch it into the universe.

Watching the supercomputing system constantly analyzing the patterns on the screen, An Maidong thought and murmured to himself: "What is their purpose?"

Hill has gone offline and is arranging relevant work at the Earth Headquarters.

Vice-captain Hatoyama Yui is also thinking, but he is not thinking about the opponent's purpose, but thinking about how to crack these "QR codes".

While they were thinking, of course.

Another deputy captain, Robert, was already controlling the landing craft to land slowly on the ice cap of Courageous Star.

The atmosphere of Courage Star is only 500 to 600 meters thick, and the atmospheric concentration is approximately equivalent to about 0.027% of the Earth's surface.

Robert controlled the synchronized robot and led a group of survey team members to appear on the ice sheet, and then began to use laser cutting equipment to dissolve the ice sheet in preparation for digging a channel.

The metal cuboid is closest to the ice sheet surface, which is also 587 meters away.

These ice caps cannot be entirely water ice, but also contain dry ice and methane ice, as well as a large number of silicate components.

After laser cutting and dissolution, a 5-meter-diameter channel appeared in front of everyone. In order to prevent methane, water, and carbon dioxide from re-condensing after dissolution, air and water pumps were continuously running.

The tunnel reinforcement machine on the other side also quickly pressed sections of pipes into the dissolving hole.

In less than five hours, the tunnel reached the vicinity of the metal cuboid. At this time, the bottom of the tunnel was no longer 10 meters away from the metal cuboid.

Robert shouted on the built-in communication channel: "Stop, let's use robots next."

"receive."

A professional excavator robot was sent to the bottom of the tunnel. This robot, which was similar to a shield machine, quickly started running.

The scene was like shaved ice, layer by layer, the billion-year-old ice at the bottom was peeled off.

In less than half an hour, the 10-meter distance was cleared.

The shield robot's cutting edge did not touch the metal cuboid, so it stopped working and was quickly pulled up.

Robert controlled the synchronized robot and went down the well himself.

He took the electric steel brush and brushed off the last few centimeters of the ice layer until a bit of the metal slope was exposed under the searchlight. Then he changed to a manual brush and gently swept the smoothie clean.

Even after more than 80 million years of freezing, the bevel of this metal cuboid still retains a bit of metallic luster. If he polished it with a wire grinder, he could probably polish it into a metal mirror.

But Robert is not that mean. Working with this alien creation is very dangerous and requires a cautious heart.

The assistant came down with a piece of equipment.

This is a contact mass spectrometer. At this time, the exposed part of the metal cuboid covers an area of ​​about 3.2 square meters. The assistant places something similar to a stethoscope against the surface of the metal cuboid.

Immediately, the detailed elemental composition and composition ratio appeared on the mass spectrometer's display screen.

"Dr. Qin Yu, how is the situation?" Robert asked curiously while secretly watching the surface of the metal cuboid.

Dr. Qin Yu, who was also busy using the synchronous robot, looked at the data: "This metal surface has suffered long-term impacts from cosmic rays and high-energy particles for about 128.27 million years..."

"This is similar to the detection data."

"There is a new discovery." Dr. Qin Yu said with some surprise.

"Oh? What's new?" Robert was a little curious.

Dr. Qin Yu conducted a hierarchical analysis of the depth of impact of cosmic rays and high-energy particles on the surface of the metal cuboid. Then, based on the intensity of cosmic rays and the density of high-energy particles in interstellar space, and substituting them into the calculation model, the exact nature of the metal cuboid can be obtained. It’s how far it sailed.

Although there is a certain error in this calculation model, the error is definitely less than 100 light years.

Based on this calculation model, Dr. Qin Yu analyzed that this metal cuboid traveled a total of about 283,900 light-years during 128.27 million years.

Robert was very shocked: "What? This thing traveled a distance of 280,000 light years?"

Qin Yu was also very surprised, but he continued to analyze it diligently: "There is a high probability that this thing is not from the Milky Way. After all, the radius of the Milky Way is not 280,000 light years."

The metal cuboid most likely relies on inertial flight, and it has no obvious impact marks. This shows that the metal cuboid did not encounter an impact such as an asteroid before it collided with the Star of Courage. This also represents another situation. , that is, the "ballistic" of the metal cuboid is very straight.

An Maidong and Hatoyama Yiyi, who were on the survey space station, were also looking at the excavation site.

"Youyi, what do you think?"

"First of all, we can rule out the ones inside the Milky Way. If the metal cuboid is emitted from the inside of the Milky Way, it will be pulled by the gravity of the stars along the way. It will be impossible for it to fly a 280,000 light-year journey in more than 100 million years." Hatoyama Yui said while calling up the Milky Way. star chart.

Then, with the solar system as the center, a spherical range with a radius of 280,000 light-years is drawn.

After calculating the light-year error, we quickly found a star system about 270,000 light-years away from the Orion Arm of the Milky Way.

An Maidong stared at the star map: "Did the metal cuboid fly from this star system?"

"The possibility is very high. After all, this is the only star system near the Milky Way that is 280,000 light-years away from the Orion spiral arm. Of course, the existence of rogue planetary systems and wandering planets cannot be ruled out."

An Maidong fell into deep thought about this.

If the metal cuboid really flew over from the star system 270,000 light-years away, it can only explain one problem. The civilization that made the metal cuboid encountered a very powerful enemy in that star system and could only give up its last hope. Towards the Milky Way.

As for why it's not for detecting the Milky Way.

The reason is very simple. Although that star system is smaller than the Milky Way, there are not a few stars in it. The other party is not even a second-level civilization. It is very likely that it has not even detected the star system it is in. How can it have the ability to launch detectors into the Milky Way.

If it is a rogue planetary system or a rogue planet wandering in the interstellar void, then there is actually no need to go to the Milky Way where the civilization that made the metal cuboid is located.

Because on the spherical boundary of 280,000 light-years, there are many star systems that are closer than the Milky Way, so there is no need to sacrifice the near for the far.

Based on this information, An Maidong quickly determined the starting point of the metallic cuboid in that star system.

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