The Falcon 1 spacecraft, which has been in service for decades, has once again taken on this mission.
The Falcon 1 and 2 spacecraft are the only means to connect the human base and the Spark spacecraft. The destruction of any spacecraft is an unacceptable loss. During these decades, everyone has cherished and maintained them as much as possible. And their quality has withstood the test of time.
Until now, although they are a little older and worn out, they have not had any major faults.
After bidding farewell to the children, Zhao Changxing drove Falcon 1 alone and embarked on a long journey.
This is the first time in decades that Zhao Changxing has driven them away from Sedna.
Under Zhao Changxing's control, its speed was not very fast, with a maximum speed of only 10 kilometers per second. At this speed, it would take Zhao Changxing a full 6 days to reach the vicinity of the asteroid.
The reason why it is so slow is not because it does not have the ability to accelerate to higher speeds, but because Zhao Changxing must save fuel, otherwise he will not have the ability to return after the exploration is completed.
After all, this is a landing spacecraft, not an interstellar voyage spacecraft.
After the initial acceleration, the spacecraft entered the inertial navigation mode. Zhao Changxing waited silently in the small cabin, surrounded by stars and endless darkness all day long. Fortunately, during this period of time, he could communicate with the Spark spacecraft and the human base at any time, and keep track of the progress of the projects there, so he had something to do. Otherwise, staying in such a small space for such a long time would be unbearable for even the most mentally tough person.
Zhao Changxing did not stop people's demolition actions, but carried out everything according to the original plan.
The long voyage is finally over. The Falcon 1 spacecraft began to slow down and finally hovered just over a thousand meters away from the asteroid.
The gravity from this asteroid is close to zero, at least Zhao Changxing cannot feel it at all. Only the precision equipment showing how much the Falcon spacecraft "falled" a few tenths of a meter toward the asteroid every hour could let Zhao Changxing know that even such a small planet has gravity.
At this moment, under the sunlight, the asteroid showed a black-gray luster. Its surface is extremely uneven, with a large number of rocks and sharp edges. Against the background of the deep universe, it looks like a huge monster.
After the spacecraft maintained a rough relative motion with the asteroid, Zhao Changxing immediately controlled the several equipment he brought and started observing.
Amidst the faint beeping sound, a straight line was slowly advancing on the device screen. Suddenly, this straight line rose instantly and never fell down again. This made Zhao Changxing's heart beat hard.
"Alpha decay, helium core...this asteroid does have radiation!"
Alpha decay is a particle released when a radioactive element decays. It consists of two neutrons and two protons and does not carry electrons. Its penetrating power is weak, and just a piece of white paper can block it.
But here is the vacuum of the universe. Even if it is about a thousand meters away, Zhao Changxing can directly observe its existence through equipment. Of course, if the distance is too long, it cannot be observed even in the universe, just like the Spark spacecraft and Sedna, which are millions of kilometers apart.
The observation of alpha decay made Zhao Changxing instantly excited. Because this means that his guess has been initially confirmed. That is, there are a large number of radioactive heavy elements on this asteroid!
And this also means that the unusual "high temperature" on its surface - as high as minus 251 degrees Celsius - has been explained.
When radioactive heavy elements undergo radioactive decay, such as alpha radiation, they release decay heat. Then a reasonable guess can be made at this moment: the decay of a large number of radioactive heavy elements present on this asteroid has heated it, causing it to show a higher temperature.
After confirming the presence of alpha radiation, Zhao Changxing slightly manipulated the Falcon spacecraft to get it closer to the asteroid again, to a distance of only a few dozen meters. Then he opened the hatch directly, put on his spacesuit, and flew directly to the asteroid. Landed towards the asteroid.
After his feet actually touched the surface of the asteroid and maintained stability, he finally felt a little bit of gravity after feeling it carefully. But the gravity was extremely small, and he could even clearly feel that as long as he moved a little, he could directly obtain a speed higher than the escape velocity of the asteroid and move away from the star.
Its escape velocity is only a few centimeters per second, or even lower.
On the dim surface of the asteroid, Zhao Changxing carefully searched for what he wanted to see.
He saw the deep and dark canyons, the towering "peaks", and the rugged "earth", but his eyes never stopped on these things. After a long time, he jumped lightly and gained the speed to escape the gravitational field of the asteroid, and his body rose directly. Then, the spacesuit's propulsion system started, pushing it to start orbiting the asteroid at a height of only a few meters.
His eyes were like scanners, continuing to search for something he wanted to see.
He circled around the asteroid like this, going round and round, until he had searched almost half of the "surface" of the planet. He didn't stop until he saw a "hazy" area, and then Quickly flew over.
At the same time, this discovery also made his heart beat violently again.
It was a "fountain".
The fountain is located in a crack at the tip of the long asteroid. There was nothing at the crack's mouth, but just a few decimeters away from the crack's mouth, he could see with the naked eye some roughly blue or white crystals appearing out of thin air. These crystals floated out of thin air, or slowly drifted into space and disappeared, or slowly drifted and landed on the surface of the asteroid, where they piled up.
Next to the mouth of the crack, Zhao Changxing saw that its surface was already covered with a layer of such crystals.
This kind of crystal was often seen by Zhao Changxing on Sedna.
The white one is probably solid carbon dioxide or something else of the same color. The blue one should be solid oxygen.
This fountain clearly shows that there is high pressure and gaseous gas inside the asteroid. The higher pressure caused these gases to be ejected through the gaps, and then they lost heat and condensed into solids, either escaping the asteroid or falling to the surface.
In the dark and cold universe, usually they should have been frozen solid and should not exist in gaseous form. But since this asteroid contains a lot of radioactive elements, it is understandable that they changed from solid to gas under the action of decay heat.
In this way, the matter that the mass of this asteroid is so much lower than previously estimated and does not match its density has been answered.
It should really be hollow. And why didn't it collapse inwards? The reason is also very simple, and the fountain in front of you can answer it. That's because there's higher pressure and temperature inside it. Where do the higher pressures and temperatures come from? From radioactive heavy elements.
At this point, Zhao Changxing finally figured out the strange data that this asteroid had shown before.
But this raises another question.
The radioactive heavy elements that are enough to heat the entire asteroid must have a relatively violent decay rate, which means that its half-life will not be too long. At the same time, even if the interior of this asteroid is entirely composed of solid dry ice, oxygen, methane, nitrogen, etc., its inventory is limited. If you keep spraying it, it will be exhausted in a short time.
This all means that the state of this asteroid at this moment is only a short part of its entire life. This length of time may be only a few thousand to tens of thousands of years. Once this period of time passes, it will return to coldness and death, and will no longer be able to eject anything.
"Perhaps not long ago, another asteroid containing a large amount of radioactive heavy elements hit it and merged with it. So it gained the ability to heat itself, and appeared in front of us not long after."
Zhao Changxing made a guess about this. As for why there are so many radioactive heavy elements in the other star, it is unknown where these radioactive heavy elements came from - whether they came from the decay of other elements or due to some special physical changes. .
"Perhaps...this matter has something to do with the strange signals Xiaoxi received?"
Zhao Changxing's heart moved and he thought of a possibility again. But there is too little information now, and there is really no way to make further speculations. So he could only put this idea aside for now.
But no matter what, at this stage, it actually doesn't matter. The important thing is that Zhao Changxing finally proved his speculation. And this speculation means an astonishing possibility that may change the fate of human civilization.
——If the internal pressure of this asteroid is high and there is a large amount of gas, then is it possible that humans can use their own power to open a channel for the gas with high pressure inside and let them vent? ?
You know, the jetted gas also has reverse thrust. And, through this kind of reverse thrust, can we obtain the power to change the orbit of this asteroid so that it will not hit Sedna again?
Just like a balloon filled with air, if a hole is suddenly opened, the balloon itself will inevitably fly away under the reaction force of the gas.
Not to mention pushing it away completely, even making it orbit the Sedna Star and become a satellite of the Sedna Star would be fine, as long as it does not collide with it.
This possibility made Zhao Changxing's heart suddenly become hot.
