Chapter 59: Target! Meteorite Belt!
Trantor: Lonelytree Editor: Lucas
Man has never been so anticipatory of darkness.
Simrly, man has never been so cornered to have all of their hopes ced on one singr group of 120000 people.
At this moment, the Hope was leaving the nebulous cloud and entering the darkness-suffused space. Witnessing the world darkening around them, everyone on the Hope breathed a collective sigh of relief.
The few months the Hope was travelling around the neb, things were working out ording Yao Yuan’s n. Since he knew suppression wouldn’t work, his policy was to try to assimte the people into the Hope’s governmental duties. The aim was to imnt into the people’s minds that there was no difference between the government and the civilian, that they were all people of the Hope.
The first step was to relocate people from the campgrounds into simple tenements. Simultaneously, this encouraged job applications because that was the prerequisite for better housing. The second step was to purposely leak some information into the public... However, the leak was, for the most part, excessive. People’s new jobs had offered them an inkling to the reality that some crisis was assailing the Hope.
The leak merely confirmed their suspicions. After all, these 120000 citizens weren’t dummies. They could draw logical inferences from observations. Rather, the people who underestimated them were the dummies.
Even before the ground-breaking recruitment policy, a section of the public had guessed that the Hope was facing some problems...The fact that their jobs allowed them ess into all areas within the Hope with the exception of the Barracks and the biomes only aided more people into understanding the predicaments facing the Hope.
Due to all of these reasons, the public had figured out how many more years the Hope could still linger around in space. Granted their prediction couldn’t be as urate as the experts’, they weren’t so far off. Therefore, all of the Hope was of one mind that they could only survive five more years in space withoutnding.
And thanks to the sense of loyalty cultivated by Yao Yuan’s policy, even without direct orders, the public started taking steps to care for the Hope. For example, they started policing their food and electricity wastage. There was a general sense of renewed vigor on the Hope to do the best by the people’s temporary home.
However, many realized this vigor belied an underlying fear. If they couldn’t find more supplies soon, the Hope was definitely on itsstp towards death.
Hope, though, came ever so suddenly. After a few months of circling around the neb, the bluish glow that had be familiar to the residents of the Hope was suddenly reced by the deep darkness of space.
The moment the Hope got far enough from the neb’s static interference, all of its scouting devices were instantly activated. The reconnaissance took almost nine hours toplete, and its result was promptly collected and sent to the main conference room to be discussed. The discussion was between Yao Yuan and representatives from the Academy.
"As we had anticipated, this is a newborn star system. The star is evolving from its protostar stage to its main sequence star stage. To be precise, ording to our readings of the nebulous cloud, the star could very well be right in the middle of that process. In other words, this is a very young star we’ve happened upon," an astronomer read from his report.
The birth of a star, ording to current understanding, started with the umtion of nebulous clouds. In its initial stage, the cloud was so widespread that with the naked eye, one would not be able to tell that it was happening. Perhaps from a distance of 100 light years away, at most, one would be able to detect a barely discernable misty fog.
To be able to witness its glow with man’s naked eye meant that the umtion had reached itstest stage where the concentration of the neb was at its highest. The next step, ording to scientists, would be preparation for the birth of a new star.
The main constituent in a neb was the element of hydrogen. When enough of it umtes, its mass bes sorge that the gravitational energy between the hydrogen atoms will be transmuted into thermal energy. At this stage, a protostar is born. Its core will continue to heat up until it reaches about 7000000 degrees, where nuclear fusion will ur. This reaction increases the protostar’s temperature to about one billion degrees, where the surrounding neb matter is absorbed into the formation of a new star.
And ording to the Hope’s surveince, the star of the system they were in was reaching the end of its formation process. It was collecting thest of the neb matter around it.
"You mean to tell me that while we were trying to find our way out, we could have wandered into an unstable burning star?" questioned Yao Yuan, with a hint of fear in his voice.
The famous astronomer who stood on the podium replied with a smile, "Don’t worry, Major. Heating from a star would be so pronounced that we would have picked up on it through even the neb. We would not blindly steer the ship into it. Furthermore, it is rather fortunate that a star is forming. It’s because it is in such ate formation stage that the neb cloud around us was so thin. If not, we would not be able to escape it in our lifetime."
Nodding his head, Yao Yuan continued, "Alright, let’s put that aside for now. What about intergctic storms? Is there danger of intergctic disasters during this stage?"
The astronomer on stage hesitated before breaking into another smile. "I don’t think that’s possible... Of course, Major, you have to understand that this is the first time we are able to observe this miraculous process at such close range. To witness a burning star absorbing neb matter, that’s every astronomer’s dream...
"In any case, the star is currently absorbing matter at a stable rate, which means that its inner temperature is on a slow rise. Until it reaches the main sequence stage, there won’t be any changes that would concern us. In other words, this means that this sr system is also still forming. ording to our satellite pictures, there is no observable within our observable range. However, there is a cluster of neb matter half a month of sailing away from our current location. And incidentally, there is a meteorite belt surrounding it.
"ording to our observations and calctions, there is a high possibility that this neb clump will give birth to a gas giant. This means that the meteorite belt will most probably be an asteroid belt simr to that of Jupiter’s. Of course,paratively speaking, the meteorite belt is much smaller in size, and this leads into the most interesting part of our surveince..."
The astronomer excitedly punched in some buttons on the podium and soon after, a picture was projected on the wall behind him.
Barely containing his glee, the astronomer pointed at a spot on the picture, saying, "Everyone, please focus your attention on this spot here. Wait, let me erge it...
"What you’re seeing here is a more concrete and substantial meteorite belt. In fact, as you can see, most of the meteorites are slowlying together [1]! See, right there!
"This represents the initial stage for the formation of a terrestrial! As time goes on, interaction between mass and gravity will pull all of these materials together and coagte into a. Of course, that might take a few zillion years toplete...
"But what is most important to us is this cluster of meteorites, where thergest is ten times bigger than the Hope. It is our belief that they are rich in minerals like iron, copper, and zinc. Furthermore, it is certain that they contain radioactive substances like uranium ore. Also, I dare say that since this is a forming terrestrial, it might even contain minerals that we have not seen before, minerals that disappear after a is formed... These are all valid possibilities!"
The astronomer’s final sentence struck a chord with Yao Yuan.
"Then let’s start moving! There’s where we can refill our stockpile!"
1. I’m assuming we’re talking about another meteorite belt now, since this is now about a terrestrial.