In response to Yi Feng’s inquiry, Professor Luo Meng explained: “Because the Green Light Civilization’s spacecraft has a non-zero 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 from a medium... 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 catapult device, the carrier aircraft has a relatively high initial speed before taking off.
The electromagnetic gun has a very wide range of uses. It can not only be used to launch artillery shells, but also to launch unmanned aircraft and the like. The electromagnetic gun is also a research hotspot in Noah. The ion cannon and the Gauss cannon are essentially electromagnetic guns.
Just a variant.
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 the direction, I think you can use the new ion engine to push the Noah. This is more effective and more controllable than nuclear bomb 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 to himself.
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 already 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, solar activity has gradually weakened, and it is 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 ship.
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 slightly hurried. Although these human elites were well-educated, their behavior and expressions still could not hide the deep feelings in their hearts.
anxiety.
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 developing vigorously, and one year is equivalent to 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 will determine 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 to fly, 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 the consumption of resources through collective hibernation and survive this long voyage! The relevant hibernation chamber technology has long been developed in secret, but it has not been made known to the ordinary people.
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 facts. 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 large series of numbers jumping on the screen is the startup environment detection and data correction work of the gravitational wave telescope, just like starting a computer. However, it takes a long time, about an hour.
Taking advantage of this time, many scientists chatted casually. They tried to relieve their nervousness through chatting.
They all talked about the universe, star maps, sublight speed ships and the theory of 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 are discussing issues related to sub-light speed. Human beings can currently see such a landscape.
Sitting in a sublight-speed spacecraft, the scene outside the window is very strange. All the stars in space are gathered in the direction of the head and tail of the spacecraft. If you look at it with the naked eye, the stars at the head are bluer and the stars at the tail are reddish.
.
Of course, currently human radio telescopes can only hide behind Noah and can only see the situation in the middle and rear.
From time to time, sporadic stars fly out from the light cluster in front of the spacecraft, flying back quickly across the dark space. Their colors continue to change, from blue to green, then to yellow. When they pass over the spacecraft, they turn into stars.
became red.
This is because the light waves are stretched and red-shifted...
Moreover, assuming a spacecraft flies at sub-light speed, an astronaut inside can still observe the Earth behind him. What he sees is a slow-playing image of the Earth, as if a clock has slowed down.
When he moved 1 light-year away from the earth, what he saw was not a real image, but something from 1 year ago. Time was inexplicably stretched by a light-year. In fact, this was just an illusion seen by humans.
.
"A very interesting astronomical phenomenon."
"Yes……"
As people talked, time passed by and the gravitational wave telescope was activated and the official search began!