Beneath Deep Space

The vastness of the starry sky is fascinating, and the beauty and vastness of every high-energy phenomenon in the universe are incomparable to the scenery of a small planet.

The scenery of the two is different, one is beautiful, the other is rough...

But on a small planet, you can always find the best in the world, such as the highest mountains, the deepest oceans, the largest animals, etc. But when this series of events is magnified to the entire universe, it is not necessarily the case.

You can always find more massive stars, more massive black holes, more distant starlight...it seems like everything will never end...

The deeper you go into the Milky Way, the denser the stars are and the more various high-energy phenomena there are.

According to the reasoning of scientists, there is almost no place for low-level civilizations in the depths of the galaxy.

Even if there are no interstellar civilizations to disturb us, the planet at the center of the galaxy will still be attacked by high-energy phenomena that occur from time to time.

Suddenly, a certain supernova exploded, and suddenly two more neutron stars collided. Even if the frequency is once in hundreds of thousands of years, it is too fast and too frequent for the long road of evolution.

In such a harsh environment, it would be difficult for even primitive life to be born, let alone the stable evolution of intelligent life.

But it is the paradise of interstellar civilization, and various high-energy celestial bodies are the best and most excellent natural teachers. Matter is also denser and easier to access deep within the Milky Way.

Of course, if the technological strength is not enough, it will be difficult to run to the depths of the galaxy. Maybe a random radio pulse from a certain pulsar could completely paralyze a fleet.

"I really want to see what high-level civilizations are doing there!"

Yu Yifeng looked at the white dwarf star not far away, his heart racing.

That's their next stop.

Well, this white dwarf, of course, is not the center of the Milky Way. The new human civilization is still far away from the center of the Milky Way. The straight-line distance is...about 18,000 light-years.

People's current position is still on the periphery of the cantilever. This cantilever is similar to the Orion cantilever. The environment is relatively friendly and a large number of low-level civilizations can be "easily" seen.

It is now February 599 of the New Human Calendar. After a year of sailing, people have left the legendary Trisolaran star and sailed to the vicinity of a white dwarf star in the Green Nebula.

There are certainly reasons for choosing this planet. First, it is located on the main route of the Hicks trading market; second, scientists want to observe the white dwarf more closely, collect more experimental data, and by the way Modify the spaceship and change its appearance.

For New Humanity, a civilization dominated by scientists, these reasons are enough.

As the most common celestial body in the Milky Way, white dwarfs theoretically account for about 10% of all stars. In terms of number, they do not seem to be unusual. But this is the first time that new humans have studied it so closely, and their hearts are full of curiosity and expectation.

This white dwarf star is about the same size as the Earth, but its mass is only slightly lower than the sun, about 300,000 times that of the Earth.

Its surface temperature is about 10,000 degrees Celsius, it is the most common type, and it also has a very high magnetic field.

"Speaking of the formation of white dwarf stars, it is much simpler and gentler than neutron stars..." A teacher was educating children at the observatory.

Because of the sharp decrease in the birth rate, the education burden of the entire civilization has also been greatly reduced. This is actually a good thing, it means that children can be educated in smaller classes...

Mid- to low-mass stars will turn into red giants at the end of their lives due to the exhaustion of hydrogen. The temperature and pressure inside the red giants are not enough to carry out higher-level nuclear reactions. This hard core is actually a A white dwarf star.

Therefore, the composition of white dwarfs is basically composed of carbon and oxygen elements. Some white dwarfs even have a large piece of complete diamond inside.

When the unstable state of this red giant reaches its limit, it will completely explode, ejecting matter outside the core. After the explosion, the red giant star disappeared, and the remaining core became a bare, round white dwarf star.

"It will enter the predetermined orbit in ten seconds, and the countdown will begin..."

"...Expand the Home flight platform!"

Under the orders, the ion engine on the Homestead continued to slow down, and finally docked on an Earth-like planet... 1.6 astronomical units away from the central white dwarf star.

This is the planet closest to the center. There may have been a few closer ones, but they have long been swallowed up by the original red giant.

Equivalent to the past solar system: if the sun really burns out its fuel and turns into a red giant, then Mercury and Venus will be completely swallowed up, and the earth may be severely damaged or may be swallowed up.

The gravitational disorder caused by the red giant star has made the entire planetary system still full of various large and small meteorite fragments.

"Look! Look!" At this moment, there was a sudden commotion at the observatory.

Because this white dwarf star suddenly shines brightly!

People observed that a fifteen-kilometer-long meteorite quickly fell into a white dwarf star, producing a huge explosion of a trillion tons.

This light is like a cosmic firework to welcome new humans!

Huge discussions broke out, and the storm caused by the entire explosion spread directly to the interior of the Noah. The mad scientists cheered as if they had found a huge bargain.

It seems that only explosion... is the highest level of art, bringing them unparalleled beauty.

Meteorites are flying everywhere in this place, and the speed of the spacecraft must be slowed down, but everyone still likes this kind of "welcome ceremony".

Because of this explosion, many people instantly fell in love with this place.

According to observations from the astronomical telescope, most of the meteorite had been burned away by the surface atmosphere when it approached. The remaining parts crazily hit the inner core, triggering the big explosion. 【1】

But at that moment, the meteorite had been broken down into atomic levels by the huge gravity of the white dwarf.

After the bright light dissipated, a shallow pit seemed to appear on the surface of the white dwarf, which disappeared within a few rotation cycles.

"Because of the huge magnetic field, it is constantly capturing passing iron meteorites. Theoretically, it could take a few years or a few months before such an event would happen again..."

Various data are displayed on the screen, and various detection instruments are fully turned on, trying to discover something deeper after this explosion.

"This white dwarf star is worthless, it's too common! It's okay to expand the knowledge base, but it has almost no industrial use!"

Hei happened to be at the observatory and witnessed this scene. He sighed: "The most valuable white dwarf star is much more valuable than any metal planet!"

Sure enough, his exclamation quickly attracted the attention of many people.

The flesh on his black face shook, and he said triumphantly: "Theoretically, although the smaller the mass of the white dwarf, the larger the volume, the easier it is to transform. But... the lifespan of a star with a small mass is too long, a mere 13.8 billion years. With the age of the universe, there are no dead small stars. How do you think we should get such... small-mass white dwarfs?"

These words caused everyone present to think.

"Small mass? The smaller the mass, the larger the volume, and the more valuable it is?" Yu Yifeng also thought curiously.

He suddenly discovered a problem. The upper limit of the mass of a white dwarf is the lower limit of the mass of a neutron star. It can be calculated through parameters such as the Pauli exclusion principle and Planck's constant. It is approximately 1.44 times the mass of the sun.

But people... don't know the lower mass limit of white dwarfs? !

Theoretically, white dwarfs must have a lower mass limit. If their own gravity is too small to maintain electron degeneracy pressure, they will explode immediately.

"But what is the lower limit? The lower limit..." Many scientists began to build models and analyze and calculate.

As a result, another difficulty arises: when the average distance between particles is much larger than the Compton wavelength, there is no need to consider quantum mechanics, and degeneracy is approximately considered. There seems to be no clear limit?

Could it be that the mass of the sun is 0.08... This is the limit that stars can form.

Others are discussing how to destroy a white dwarf star and how to break a large one into several smaller ones so that they can be sold for money.

All kinds of wonderful ideas come to mind.

The first is to use a more massive celestial body such as a black hole to forcibly tear the white dwarf apart using centrifugal force. The feasibility of this solution is unknown... because the white dwarf is already an extremely solid object, and it is actually very difficult to tear it apart and requires a lot of force.

Second, use antimatter. If a way to shield the gravitational force is found, it might be possible to slice up the white dwarf with antimatter.

Of course, neutron stars can also be cut in this way, as long as there are enough antineutrons.

【1】The surface of the white dwarf also has a small amount of atmosphere, hydrogen or oxygen.