Beneath Deep Space

In response to Yi Feng's inquiry, Professor Luo Meng explained: "Because the Green Light Civilization's spacecraft has a different initial take-off speed. This unmanned spacecraft may be in the form of an electromagnetic gun, shooting from the main ship like a cannonball. It was launched... that’s why it flies so fast.”

"The energy inside it and the ion engine are only used for reverse deceleration..."

Yu Yifeng calmed his head, imagined the picture, and understood.

Similarly, some aircraft carriers on Earth also have a catapult. Using this ejection device, the carrier aircraft has a relatively high initial speed before taking off.

Electromagnetic guns are very versatile weapons and can be used not only to launch artillery shells, but also to launch unmanned aircraft and the like. The electromagnetic gun is also a hot research topic in Noah. The ion cannon and the Gauss cannon are essentially variants of the electromagnetic gun.

He was wondering whether he should also build a large-scale electromagnetic gun system that could launch nuclear bombs and high-speed drones... just like the one in the Green Light spacecraft.

With new materials such as superconductors and superalloys, as well as scientific developments in recent years, such a weapon system should be feasible, but the energy consumption is a bit high...

Professor Luo Meng continued: "Captain, if you want to change direction, I think we can use a new ion engine to push the Noah. This is more effective and more controllable than nuclear bombing."

"However, due to the wonderful characteristics of Noah, plasma is also a substance with mass. If it is sprayed outward, it will ineffectively reduce the speed of the spacecraft..."

"...Or you can move the engine and the working fluid that needs to be injected to the outside of the spacecraft in advance. This is feasible, but it will also lose a certain speed."

Professor Luo Meng thought deeply and began to ponder.

Change the trajectory of the spacecraft?

This incident reminded Yu Yifeng. According to the time experienced by humans, it has been a year and a half since people left the solar system. Taking into account the effects of relativity, it has been about seven or eight years since the outside world!

Noah is moving at a near-light speed of more than 0.98 times, which means that humans are seven to eight light years away from Mars!

Seven to eight light years away, it is already very far away from the sun. And after so long, the solar activity gradually weakened, and it was difficult for high-energy gamma rays to hit Noah.

He remembered a report at an astronomy conference years ago: The time has become relatively mature. It is time to use a gravitational wave telescope to determine the correct position of Noah!

Thinking of this, he suddenly felt uneasy.

After all, this matter is still a matter of life and death for everyone. Human beings always have to find a place to stay.

Action is worse than excitement. After discussing the new spacecraft with Xu Yunjin and others, Yu Yifeng immediately ran to the observatory and discussed with several astronomy experts for a while.

After obtaining their consent, he immediately ordered: start the detection plan of the gravitational wave telescope!

Of course, this work requires several days of preparation... I won’t go into details about the process.

Three days later, a large number of high-level government officials and scientists gathered at an astronomical observatory somewhere on the Noah.

Today is the day when the gravitational wave telescope is restarted!

People gathered together in twos and threes and discussed in low voices. Their speech speed was slightly fast, and their expressions and movements were also slightly hurried. Although these human elites are very well-educated, their behavior and expressions still cannot hide the anxiety deep inside.

They... are not optimistic about this detection!

The universe is really vast, and the distances between stars are so incredibly large that they are often measured in light years, which is daunting.

If it weren't for the explosion of the sun, which gave Noah extremely powerful kinetic energy, no one would have thought that humans would really be able to leave the solar system one day...

So far, even if human science and technology is booming, and one year is worth the past twenty or thirty years, there is still not much power to interfere with the Noah. At most, it can only change the direction of movement a little bit.

This tiny bit is really only a tiny bit!

Everyone, including Yu Yifeng, could only resign themselves to fate and pray to the God of Luck, hoping that there would be a planet on the path of Noah that humans could get, and that humans would have such good luck.

Although the probability of this is very small...

However, such a small probability event determines various survival policies in the future!

If the observed planet is very, very far away from the trajectory of Noah, so that human navigation technology will take thousands or even tens of thousands of years, then... people must implement a more frugal life policy, implement family planning, and strictly control population!

We even need to study large-scale hibernation chamber equipment! Reduce resource consumption through collective hibernation and survive this long voyage! The related hibernation chamber technology has been secretly developed for a long time, but it has not been made known to the general public.

Well, human beings may not necessarily perish, but it is very troublesome... maybe they will perish if something unexpected happens during hibernation!

No one wants to go down this road!

Yu Yifeng was also very worried at this moment. Tens of thousands of years is too long, and the serious history of human beings has not even lasted ten thousand years!

However, subjective will cannot change objective facts. No matter how bad the outcome is, people have to accept the fact that if they really can only rely on hibernation, then they can only hibernate.

The moment the gravitational wave telescope was turned on, his mind calmed down inexplicably, as if he had accepted his fate.

A long string of numbers jumped on the screen. It was the startup environment detection and data correction work of the gravitational wave telescope, just like starting a computer. But it takes a long time, about an hour.

During this time, many scientists chatted casually. They tried to ease their nervousness and anxiety by chatting.

They talked about the universe, star road maps, sublight-speed spacecraft and relativity. It was very profound, but also very interesting.

With Yu Yifeng's current level of knowledge, he could understand it. He also stood aside and listened with interest.

Two scientists were talking about sublight-speed related issues. Humans can now see such a landscape.

Sitting in a sublight-speed spacecraft, the scene outside the window is very strange. All the stars in the space are gathered in the direction of the head and tail of the spacecraft. If you look with the naked eye, the stars at the head are blue, and the stars at the tail are red.

Of course, at present, human radio telescopes can only hide behind Noah and can only see the situation in the middle and rear.

From time to time, there are scattered stars flying out from the light group in front of the spacecraft, crossing the dark space and flying backwards quickly. Their colors keep changing, from blue to green, then to yellow, and when it passes the spacecraft, it turns red.

This is because the light waves are stretched and redshifted...

Moreover, assuming that a spacecraft flies at sub-light speed, an astronaut inside can still observe the earth behind him. What he sees is a slow-motion image of the earth, just like a clock slowing down.

When he moves to 1 light year away from the earth, what he sees is not a real image, but something from 1 year ago. Time has been inexplicably stretched by one light year, but in fact, this is just an illusion seen by humans.

"A very interesting astronomical phenomenon."

"Yes..."

As people talked, time passed by, and the gravitational wave telescope was started and began to search officially!

The moment that determines people's fate has arrived!