The last human in the universe

Chapter 149 Kinetic Energy Thief
Although Zhuang Yunwei has gone through hibernation many times to prolong his life, he is still an old man at this moment.His face was wrinkled and his hair was gray.

This is an aging that cannot be delayed even by the most advanced genetic modification technology.

Zhao Changxing very much does not want human civilization to lose this intelligent brain possessed by Zhuang Yunwei.After all, for human civilization, it takes too long to become a scientist and consumes too many resources.

This is just an ordinary scientist.An outstanding person like Zhuang Yunwei would only appear in an unknown number of years.

Zhao Changxing had already promulgated relevant policies for outstanding figures like Zhuang Yunwei.

Once their physical condition shows signs of irreparable and accelerated deterioration, then, before their physical condition really deteriorates, the human civilization government will come forward and implement a free and long-term hibernation policy for them first, so as to wait for the follow-up scientific development , They will not wake up until they have sufficiently advanced technology that can change their physical condition.

But... the hibernation duration is also limited, and it is impossible to hibernate forever.With the current technology, once hibernating for more than 50 years, it is very likely to cause irreversible damage to the body.

Even ordinary people who are hibernating at this moment will wake up periodically in batches to ensure that they will not suffer irreversible damage caused by long-term hibernation.

When even the hibernation quota is exhausted, but the development of technology has not yet reached a sufficiently advanced level, I am afraid that people like Zhuang Yunwei will have to really die.

But that is also impossible.

At this moment, in the main control room of the Yuanhang spacecraft, Zhuang Yunwei's actions attracted everyone's attention.

"Professor Zhuang, what do you remember?"

Zhuang Yunwei's tone was a little hasty: "I only calculated the energy of the electromagnetic wave band before, and forgot to calculate the neutrinos! Xiaoxi, give me the neutrino data about that explosion!"

Zhao Changxing was slightly puzzled, but did not continue to ask.

"Good Professor Zhuang. At present, there are three large neutrino detectors equipped in our ship. Normally, after providing as much shielding as possible, the muon flux is... at the time of the explosion , the observed data are..."

Xiaoxi reported a series of data.Zhuang Yunwei wrote quickly on the paper with the pen in his hand, and he didn't put down the pen until more than ten minutes later.

He raised his head and looked at Zhao Changxing.

Zhao Changxing knew that he must have discovered something.

"Leader, I accidentally discovered that the total energy released by this explosion is about the same order of magnitude as the kinetic energy lost by our spaceship."

"Ok?"

Zhao Changxing couldn't help being suspicious of the astonishing conjecture contained in this sentence.

"Give me the data."

Zhao Changxing took the pen and paper, and started the calculation himself.

It is very simple to calculate the kinetic energy lost by the Yuanhang spacecraft due to the speed change.It can be calculated as long as there are quality data and speed data.

The conclusion is that the Yuanhang spacecraft has lost about 4.6*10^28J of energy in total due to the change in speed.

However, it is also relatively simple to calculate the energy released by the previous explosion.People only need to add up the observed energy of each radiation band.

The observation equipment on the Yuanhang spacecraft can accurately measure the radiation received within a certain area.And with the distance, you can calculate what fraction of your own area is the total radiation area, and after a simple multiplication, you can calculate the total radiation area.

The conclusion is that if only the radiation energy of electromagnetic waves is calculated, there is undoubtedly a huge energy level gap between the two.But if, if you count the energy of neutrinos...

Then, the total energy released by this explosion is about 3.9*10^28J of energy.

This energy data is as high as about 84.8% of the energy lost by the Yuanhang spacecraft.

However, if the energy of this explosion really came from the energy lost by the Yuanhang spacecraft, then about 15.2% of the energy loss is also very reasonable.

The most critical problem is not the slight gap, but that the energy between the two is at the same energy level, which itself is a very strange thing, and it is hard not to make people think in this direction.

"Then... If this is true, the existence hidden in the dark stole the kinetic energy of our Voyager spacecraft before we were aware of it, and then released it with an explosion, it, What is it trying to do?"

what is this?Kinetic Thief - A Kinetic Thief?prank?What is the point of it doing so?
Professor Zhuang Yunwei's guess seems to have verified something, and it seems that nothing has been verified. Instead, people have fallen into greater confusion.

All that can be done at this stage seems to be to wait.

But people can't just wait forever.

It's time to think about the way forward.

"Assuming... Let's temporarily assume that this is just a prank of a passing super civilization, or, or a natural phenomenon that we have not yet understood the specific mechanism. In short, our kinetic energy is very likely to be in another way. It was released, and it cannot be retrieved. So, what should we do next?"

These words from a civilized leader have once again silenced the people.

The energy reserve on the Yuanhang spacecraft is not much.After supporting the acceleration of the Yuanhang spacecraft to 8% of the speed of light, and supporting the operation of the spacecraft for so many years, almost half of it has been consumed.

If the 20% more antimatter redundancy was not reserved at the beginning, the current energy reserve will be reduced to less than half of what it was when it was fully loaded.

But even so, relying on these energy sources to accelerate the Yuanhang spacecraft to 8% speed again, and then slow it down when it reaches the EZ galaxy of Aquarius, it is far from enough.

Comprehensive calculations, including the energy reserves that must be set aside to prevent accidents, the energy reserves that can be used can only support an acceleration and deceleration of about 4% of the speed of light.

But in this way, the time required for the remaining voyage will be expanded from about 80 years to about 180 years.The comprehensive evaluation report on the Yuanhang spacecraft tells people that the Yuanhang spacecraft may not be able to last for such a long time.

As its service time gradually increases, the probability of failure of its internal modules has been slowly increasing.At this moment, the overall perspective of the spacecraft shows that there are still as many as 1.6 faults waiting to be dealt with.

After the peak period of failures in the initial stage passed, in the inertial navigation stage, ten years ago, when the number of failures was the highest, there were only 1.45. Twenty years ago, there were only 20 at most.

Equipment is aging and faults are accumulating.After all, human civilization is not the Moyun Litar civilization, and it is impossible to achieve such a high-quality spacecraft structure.

"If there is really no other way, then we can only change the destination." Zhao Changxing said in a deep voice: "Based on our current position, we are still 5.7 light-years away from the EZ galaxy in Aquarius. But with another star, Laka The distance to Yi 9352 is only about 2.9 light years. Even at 4% of the speed of light, it only takes about 9352 years to sail to Rakai 100."

Compared with the original 80-year voyage, the extension of 100 years is not much.The Yuanhang spacecraft still has a fairly high probability of sustaining it.

Zhuang Yunwei smiled bitterly: "If the lost kinetic energy cannot be recovered, then changing the destination and going to the Lakai 9352 galaxy may be our only way out."

Rakaj 9352 is a red dwarf star.Its mass is slightly less than half that of the sun. It has been determined that there are three rocky planets orbiting it, and their masses are 6.5 times, 8.3 times, and 2.1 times that of the earth.

Compared with EZ Aquarius, Rakai 9352 is undoubtedly more suitable for the development of human civilization.But in order to prevent being chased and killed by the Moyun Litar civilization, the original people still chose the Aquarius EZ as the final destination.

But if you really have no choice, then you don't have to worry so much.

But at this moment, Zhao Changxing suddenly thought of a possibility.This possibility made his look serious again.

He considered the sentence, and said slowly: "Is there such a possibility? The fact that the kinetic energy was stolen this time was not an accident or a prank or some unknown natural phenomenon, but rather, it was an unknown phenomenon. Existence, in order to force us to take the initiative to change the destination of our voyage and go to the Rakai 9352 galaxy, it is..."

After all, there is a simple causal relationship between the two events. The cause of "kinetic energy being stolen" directly led to the effect of "the Yuanhang spacecraft changed its destination and went to the Lakai 9352 galaxy".

Zhao Changxing's guess made all the participants terrified.At this moment, in the originally vast, dark and quiet space, there seemed to be countless pairs of eyes silently watching the tiny Yuanhang spacecraft.

If this is the case, there is a lot of room for speculation and imagination.

But one of the most fundamental questions remains unanswered.

That is, what is the motive of that unknown being to do so.What purpose does it... want to achieve?
In a trance, Zhao Changxing felt that the entire human civilization had fallen into an invisible vortex.

At this time, the observers on combat readiness reported another piece of news to Zhao Changxing.

"Leader, we found something at 45.36 degrees on the port side of the spacecraft, at a distance of 2263 kilometers."

After obtaining Zhao Changxing's permission, the next moment, the observation image from the telescope was presented on the big screen in front of people.

(End of this chapter)