Voyage of the Stars

Chapter 249 Diving Deeply into the Metal Ocean

The detection spacecraft continued to descend, and then humans saw magical scenes through the cameras and detection equipment on the detection spacecraft.

First, the pressure sensor on the spacecraft detected that the pressure on the spacecraft was increasing. From 0 atmospheres when it first entered the planetary clouds, it quickly increased to one atmosphere and two atmospheres.

In this area, humans can see from the optical equipment built into the spacecraft that the surroundings are surrounded by thick clouds. The rapid rotation of the planet turns these clouds into super storms. From a human perspective, it looks like pieces of solid cotton clouds hitting the spacecraft.

At this time, the outside temperature displayed by the temperature sensor was approximately minus 120 degrees.

The so-called clouds are not real clouds, but thick hydrogen gas that fills the entire spacecraft's perspective. Hydrogen is colorless and odorless, but here it appears like clouds above a storm, visible to the naked eye.

The detection spacecraft crossed the surface of this thick layer of hydrogen and continued to descend. The temperature sensor continued to soar, and the pressure sensor also detected that the pressure continued to increase.

Gradually, the humans on the scientific research ship saw that the surrounding scene gradually changed into another scene through the data sent back by the detection spacecraft.

Some ice crystals began to appear in the original thick hydrogen gas. These ice crystals mixed with the thick hydrogen clouds and continuously hit the outer shell armor of the detection spacecraft at a speed of hundreds of meters per second.

At this moment, the detection spacecraft seemed to be in a terrifying place. The mixture of hydrogen, ice crystals and hydrogen clouds coming from the bee pupae was like the legendary ice spell, constantly destroying the detection spacecraft.

Human beings know very well that this is because the hydrogen cloud layer rotates with the planet, so under the control of the intelligent program of the detection spacecraft, the spacecraft also accelerates in the direction of the planet's rotation, so that the spacecraft itself keeps as synchronized as possible with the 'cloud ice' storm layer. Meanwhile, the decline continues.

The ambient temperature continues to rise, the pressure continues to increase, and the concentration of hydrogen clouds continues to rise.

The hydrogen clouds at this moment can no longer be regarded as ordinary clouds, but present a cloud-like touchable state. If a person stands on these clouds, it is estimated that he can really be like the gods on TV. Walking on the clouds.

The resistance of such a thick hydrogen layer is naturally extremely huge. Therefore, under the control of an intelligent program, the detection spacecraft began to reduce the output power of the engine to ensure that the spacecraft can continue to descend under the action of gravity, rather than being embedded in the hydrogen cloud. It wraps around and spins.

The exploration spacecraft continued to descend, and gradually, humans discovered that the surrounding hydrogen clouds no longer looked like hydrogen clouds, but turned into a sticky fluid.

Human beings know that the detection spacecraft is crossing from the hydrogen cloud area to the liquid hydrogen area. When entering the liquid hydrogen area, humans saw from various detection sensors that the detection spacecraft was being devastated by various harsh factors.

First, the temperature of the outer shell of the detection spacecraft soared, reaching tens of thousands of degrees Celsius. Fortunately, the outer shell of the detection spacecraft is made of No. 2 alloy material, which can withstand high temperatures of up to 280 million degrees Celsius.

The detection spacecraft was not destroyed due to high temperature and pressure, but at this time, humans discovered that the detection spacecraft was facing another problem, that is, its engine had difficulty running and almost stopped falling.

After entering the high-temperature and high-pressure liquid hydrogen environment, the detection spacecraft is like a submarine. The strong external pressure has pressed the outer nozzle of the detection spacecraft engine to make it difficult to continue to emit tail flames. It also forced the internal pressure of the engine to rise sharply.

Humanity's material technology is very powerful, and the fusion engine reaction chamber will not be crushed by such pressure. However, the drastic changes in the pressure environment have destroyed the environment of the fusion engine. Therefore, if it continues to descend, the fusion engine of the detection spacecraft will Hence total damage.

In other words, the detection spacecraft at this time is no different from a submarine. The nuclear fusion engine cannot be used, and it will no longer have power to descend.

As the saying goes, going to heaven and to earth is countless times more difficult than going to earth. This was true in the earth era, and it is also true for human beings today.

If it is a normal situation, then there is nothing we can do about this detection.

However, since it is specially prepared for detecting the interior of gaseous planets, human detection spacecraft will naturally not be that simple.

Human scientists have already considered the high-temperature and high-pressure liquid hydrogen environment, so the next moment, the intelligent system immediately made a judgment.

The first is to throw all the components of the nuclear fusion engine out just like the booster separated from the rocket. Then, the secondary power system is started, the bow is turned, and the power system drives the propeller to rotate, pushing the detector to continue diving.

With the propeller push, the exploration spacecraft can continue to sail in liquid hydrogen and dive deeper and deeper. After crossing thousands of kilometers of liquid hydrogen, the exploration spacecraft entered a new environment.

Ultra-high temperature, ultra-high pressure.

Under the strong gravity of the gaseous planet, the pressure here has reached nearly two million standard atmospheres. The pressure is so strong that the outer shell of the detection spacecraft has undergone a lot of deformation. You must know that in the age of the earth, the deepest seabed reached by human creations is also Just one thousand standard atmospheres.

Here, due to high temperature and high pressure, the hydrogen atom has lost its binding on electrons outside the nucleus. Those electrons that were bound in the atom have now become free electrons.

When we were in chemistry class, we all knew that the characteristic of easily losing electrons is usually only possessed by metal elements, but now this situation has occurred with the hydrogen element.

So the hydrogen here is no longer normal liquid hydrogen, but has become metallic hydrogen, liquid metallic hydrogen.

Powerful material technology allowed the detector to continue diving. Not long after, scientists discovered through various sensors that the ambient temperature at this moment had exceeded 17,000 degrees Celsius, and the pressure had reached four million atmospheres.

At this time, the density difference between the detection spacecraft and the environment makes it extremely difficult to continue diving, and its propeller movement becomes extremely difficult, just like a steel shovel stirring in thick cement.

After collecting a lot of data here, the scientists drove the detector further down, and they still found a vast and deep world of metallic hydrogen, which was really bottomless.

"We can no longer descend. If we continue to dive, even if the detection spacecraft can withstand high temperatures and high pressures, it will be paralyzed due to damage to the internal drive gears and other structures of the engine." A scientist in charge of this project looked at the detection After reading the various data sent back by the device, I couldn't help but speak.

What he said made sense. At this time, the optical lens on the detection spacecraft had long since expired. This was especially true for other electromagnetic wave detectors, some of which were only neutrino detection systems built into the detection spacecraft.

The various power gears are not made of No. 2 alloy materials like the exploration spacecraft, so based on various data, if we continue to dive, we will really lose contact.

"It's okay. The neutrino detector detects the center of mass of the gaseous planet and then continues to dive. This detector is a one-time use. This mission is heavy and difficult to complete at once. Besides, one of the tasks is to test what we can achieve now. No matter how deep it is, as long as nothing is obtained, it is not considered a failure." Another scientist in charge shook his head.

They speculated based on theory that if they could cross this thickest layer of metallic hydrogen, they would be able to reach the true core of the gaseous planet.

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