Earth Era - Chapter 38

Chapter 38: Observation Mission

After Zhao Huasheng made this prediction, the three of them waited here for a while, and the information about Li Qi was faxed over. Meng Zhuo picked up the stack of documents, glanced at it, looked at Zhao Huasheng in slight surprise, and then read aloud, “The Solar Twin Exploration Program, which launched two exploration satellites towards the Sun about a year and a half ago. Of the two satellites, one orbits around the equator of the sun, and the other around the poles… The leader of the program was not Li Qi, but Li Qi served as the scientific advisor in this exploration program. Among them, Satellite A, which orbits around the equator of the sun, lost contact with Earth due to a technical failure before reaching the sun. According to the trajectory calculation at the time, scientists predicted that this satellite would directly fall into the sun. Satellite B successfully reached the sun, but after three months of exploration, about eight months ago, it also lost contact with the earth due to unknown failure.”

After Meng Zhuo spoke out this information, Li Wei let out a low sigh. Because Li Wei found that these things were exactly the same as what Zhao Huasheng said, without any deviation. But Zhao Huasheng seemed to have already anticipated this, so there was no trace of surprise on Zhao Huasheng’s face.

Zhao Hua’s initial guess was confirmed. But that was not enough. Zhao Huasheng still needed evidence, something solid that nobody could refute, and without any loopholes to perfect his deduction.

“Very good, now let’s wait,” Zhao Huasheng said. “Let the Crimson Heart transmit back the luminosity data they observe, and meanwhile, you contact some linguists and logicians, as well as cryptographers; I want them to judge whether the luminosity data transmitted back by the Crimson Heart has a logical structure. If the luminosity data in a certain region of the sun has a logical structure, then order the Crimson Heart to continue to observe that area, and… I want the logicians, linguists, and cryptographers to decipher the logical meaning behind these data.”

Meng Zhuo didn’t understand what deduction Zhao Huasheng had, but he still faithfully carried out Zhao Huasheng’s orders. Meng Zhuo hurried away, and Zhao Huasheng once again stood by the window, looking at the distant, dim sun.

Zhao Huasheng murmured that the first stage of deduction had ended and he should now move on to the second stage. The work in the first stage was to investigate what had happened on the sun, what connection Li Qi had to it, and what role he had played in the event. Now Zhao Huasheng thought he had found the answer. The second stage was to figure out how to resolve the solar crisis. Zhao Huasheng realized he hadn’t used the hints that Li Qi had left him during the first stage. The blank paper he had been given and the words Li Qi said before passing away had yet to be utilized. This gave him reason to believe that the hints would be useful in the second stage and that they were telling him how to solve the solar crisis. Zhao Huasheng fell into contemplation once again.

Wang Tang and Zhao Huasheng established a real-time connection. Wang Tang was responsible for finding linguists, logicians, and cryptologists to interpret the signals from the Crimson Heart spacecraft. As soon as there was progress, Wang Tang would inform Zhao Huasheng.

At this time, radio signals from Earth crossed the distant distance of nine hundred million kilometers and arrived on the Crimson Heart spacecraft. The Crimson Heart spacecraft floated silently in the boundless universe, like a lone boat drifting on the sea.

It was close to the orbit of Mercury. Although the radiation level of the sun was reduced by more than fifteen percent, the sun was still powerful. At this distance, if there was no heat shield protection, the Crimson Heart spacecraft would be instantly roasted.

Ragel strapped his body to the seat, looking blankly at the picture of the sun in front of him. This is the real-time picture taken by the Crimson Heart spacecraft, of course, after a large amount of dimming. If the brightness is not reduced, Ragel’s retina will be instantly burned by strong light, and he will be blind forever.

On this lengthy journey, the astronauts’ most frequent activity is waiting since they haven’t yet reached their destination and their work is not too heavy. In their spare time, watching the sun silently and feeling its warmth and strength has become a habit of Captain Lager, the commander of the Crimson Heart spacecraft.

Interference from the sun is very strong, but the high-gain antenna on the spacecraft still clearly receives signals from Earth. After the electronic assistant reported the content of the message to Captain Lager, he unfastened the safety belt on himself and floated in the spacecraft with the help of the auxiliary propulsion device.

Yes, the Crimson Heart spaceship does not have artificial gravity equipment, so the astronauts are in a state of weightlessness. Long-term weightlessness can cause a large loss of calcium in the bones, greatly reducing the strength of the bones. Even if the astronauts run on a treadmill for two hours every day with elastic ropes, they can only temporarily delay the process. It can be predicted that after returning to Earth, the astronauts will not be able to stand up like patients with osteoporosis. But before the departure, the astronauts had already made a commitment to devote their lives to this journey, and a small amount of calcium loss seemed insignificant.

Under Captain Laggel’s leadership, five astronauts—three men and two women—started their collaborative work. The commands sent from Earth were strange, but they didn’t question them.

The side of the Crimson Heart spacecraft facing the sun was covered by a thick, protective umbrella-like thing. Made of high-temperature and heat-resistant ceramic material, this layer of shield protected the spacecraft from the intense heat and radiation of the sun, allowing the instruments inside the spacecraft to operate normally and the astronauts to sustain their lives.

Under the astronauts’ manipulation, the edge of the umbrella slowly opened a slit. A specially treated optical lens protruded from the crack. The high-temperature resistance of the material allowed it to work normally even at a distance of less than 60 million kilometers from the sun. Compared with the considerable aperture and the distance from the sun at this moment, it became the strongest solar telescope ever made in human history.

The resolution of this optical telescope is up to one square kilometer, while the highest resolution of the FireGod sun telescope on Earth is nine square kilometers.

This optical telescope can take one hundred images per second, and other instruments will record the luminosity of each image and create a table to present to the astronauts. Three minutes, that’s eighteen thousand images, eighteen thousand data.

But these data were disorganized. Neither Captain Rager nor the other astronauts could detect any useful information from the data. The astronauts sent the data back to Earth; after a five-minute journey, the data was received by a deep space antenna network on Earth and presented to the workers’ desks.

The telescope adjusted to an extremely small angle and then pointed to another place on the sun. It also took 18,000 pictures here and then turned to the third place.

The shooting lasted for fifteen days. During this two-week period, the astronauts kept repeating this tedious work. Although the Crimson Heart spacecraft had achieved a high degree of automation, this task still required direct human involvement. So the astronauts had to divide into five teams to take turns in this task.

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During these fifteen days, the Crimson Heart spacecraft crossed Mercury’s orbit. The resolution of the images increased as it got closer to the sun, from one square kilometer to forty thousand square meters, or a two hundred meter long and wide area.

However, no command to terminate the mission or any other command had been received from Earth. The astronauts just kept taking photos and sending signals, over and over again.

Fifteen days of shooting yielded nothing. Logicians, linguists, and cryptographers could not extract any useful content from the data. It seemed to be only gibberish, just meaningless data about the ionized plasma motion in the sun’s outer atmosphere.

Wang Tang found Zhao Huasheng fifteen days after the mission began, which is now.

Wang Tang said, “The Crisis Coordination Handling Center is preparing to hold a joint meeting and wants you to speak at the conference to explain the reasons and reasons for doing this. You should know that the Crimson Heart spacecraft is getting closer and closer to the sun, and it is about to enter the orbit around the sun. Many scheduled observation tasks have been scheduled, but because of your request for observation tasks, those observation tasks have all been delayed. The spacecraft has less than four months of observation time, and human society still hopes to use the Crimson Heart spacecraft to get some useful data from the sun. So…if you cannot present compelling reasons, the Crisis Coordination Handling Center is preparing to suspend your observation request.”