This was Xiao Yu’s plan, but it had a major flaw: the issue of fuel consumption before reaching Titan.
With Earth’s current technology, spacecraft propulsion relies on rockets to achieve escape velocity. Once free of Earth’s gravitational field, spacecraft rely primarily on inertia for flight, using onboard fuel for minor orbital adjustnts and necessary speed changes. Xiao Yu’s spaceship, however, was entirely different.
Constructed in geosynchronous orbit, Xiao Yu’s ship relied on its own fuel reserves to escape Earth’s gravity and embark on its journey into deep space. Despite optimizing fuel usage to the utmost and initially storing as much fuel as possible, escaping Earth’s gravitational pull alone had consud 35% of the total fuel. Subsequent accelerations further depleted reserves, leaving him with only 60% of his original stock.
Maintaining a position behind Mars for an extended period would also demand significant fuel. Furthermore, decelerating to enter Mars’ orbit, accelerating to leave its gravitational field, and eventually decelerating again to approach Titan would all require substantial amounts of fuel.
Originally, Xiao Yu’s plan was to head straight to Europa, one of Jupiter’s moons. Europa, being the most likely place in the Solar System to harbor liquid water besides Earth, offered the potential to extract liquid hydrogen and oxygen for fuel using specialized techniques adapted to its unique environnt. Once Xiao Yu mastered nuclear fusion technology, he planned to collect enough fusion fuel from Jupiter to leave the Solar System and venture into deep space. However, all these plans had been disrupted by the impending collision between the Moon and Jupiter.
Reluctantly, Xiao Yu adjusted the engine’s thrust direction, altering the ship’s trajectory toward Mars.
Ten days passed swiftly. During this ti, the Moon had already crossed Mars’ orbit, hurtling toward Jupiter like a maddened behemoth. Xiao Yu’s caras kept a close watch on its path.
Another twenty days passed in a blur. The reddish hue of Mars ca into view as expected.
After decelerating, Xiao Yu’s spaceship reduced its speed to 4,000 ters per second. This deceleration consud an additional 5% of his remaining fuel, leaving Xiao Yu grimacing at the cost.
Nevertheless, the expenditure was necessary. Without slowing down, the ship would have bypassed Mars entirely. Only by reducing its speed to about 4,000 ters per second could the spaceship be captured by Mars’ gravity and enter an orbit around the planet.
At an altitude of 3,000 kiloters above Mars, Xiao Yu successfully established an orbital path. The spaceship began a leisurely rotation around the planet, awaiting the mont of the spectacular celestial collision.
This altitude had been carefully calculated as the optimal position. At this height, the ship could remain completely hidden behind Mars to shield itself from the energy burst of the collision while minimizing energy consumption for later escape.
The spaceship now revolved in a circular orbit around Mars, completing a full rotation in under two hours.
Even before the Moon collided with Jupiter, fragnts of Earth had begun to impact Mars. Over recent days, teor strikes on Mars had grown significantly in both frequency and mass. Watching flashes of light erupting on Mars’ surface from ti to ti, Xiao Yu couldn’t help but feel a growing sense of unease.
So of the teoric fragnts from Earth clearly bore signs of having once supported life. For instance, one teorite, 300 ters long and 50 ters wide, had an unusually high albedo of 0.7, indicating a smooth, reflective surface. Xiao Yu speculated that it might be primarily composed of steel.
He was tempted to claim the steel for himself, as it would be invaluable for future spaceship upgrades. However, the harsh reality was disappointing—at such high speeds, even a small teorite fragnt posed a danger akin to a grenade. At his current technological level, Xiao Yu’s ship couldn’t withstand these impacts.
This was the largest teorite Xiao Yu had observed during this period. By comparison, the Tunguska event on Earth—believed to have been caused by a teorite approximately 30 ters in diater—had released energy equivalent to over 1,000 Hiroshima atomic bombs when it disintegrated in Earth’s atmosphere. The steel teorite before him was dozens of tis larger in both mass and volu.
Fortunately, Xiao Yu’s ship was on the opposite side of Mars when the impact occurred. Nevertheless, through his optical telescope, Xiao Yu observed the massive effects of the teorite on Mars.
The collision produced a shockwave that increased Mars’ orbital eccentricity by 0.2%. A towering mountain over 10,000 ters high arose at the impact site’s antipodal point. Countless dormant volcanoes across Mars suddenly erupted, shrouding the planet in thick smoke and ash. The frozen polar ice caps lted, causing a rare phenonon—rainfall on Mars, an event unseen for millennia. anwhile, several violent earthquakes reshaped the Martian surface.
Xiao Yu deeply appreciated the truth of a simple phrase: “The Solar System is an intricately balanced structure; disturbing one elent affects the entire system.”
The explosion of Earth wasn’t just Earth’s tragedy—it was destined to have a profound and far-reaching impact on the entire Solar System.
Watching all of this unfold, Xiao Yu couldn’t help but feel an inexplicable sadness, a kind of shared grief: “If there were any lifeforms on Mars, they’d likely be wiped out by now.”
Apart from narrowly dodging a few fragnts from the Mars impact, the collision itself had minimal direct effects on Xiao Yu. However, the event had significantly elevated his expectations of the consequences of the Moon’s collision with Jupiter.
As his thoughts wandered, Xiao Yu found himself feeling a faint anticipation: “A collision of this magnitude—maybe not throughout the galaxy, but at least in this sector of the third spiral arm—is certainly rare. Witnessing such an event… it makes this life worth living.”
Twenty days passed swiftly. Only ten days remained until the estimated impact.
Xiao Yu gradually reduced his speed. To avoid being pulled into Mars’ gravity, he increased his engines’ thrust directed toward the planet. Finally, a day before the collision, Xiao Yu positioned his spaceship securely behind Mars.
Now, Xiao Yu’s spaceship, Mars’ center of mass, and Jupiter’s center of mass were roughly aligned. This arrangent maximized his shielding from Jupiter’s influence.
Fueled by curiosity, Xiao Yu couldn’t bear the thought of missing such a cosmic spectacle. Thus, he launched a small satellite into orbit around Mars ahead of ti. This allowed him to monitor the collision via the satellite’s broadcast, even while he remained hidden behind the planet.
At this distance, Mars was approximately 500 million kiloters from Jupiter. This ant that, once the collision occurred, the visual effects and impact would take about half an hour to reach Mars.
Based on his latest observations, Xiao Yu began silently counting down in his mind.
In truth, the collision had likely already occurred by this point. The visuals, however, were still traveling across the vast distance of space. Imagining the awe-inspiring scene to co, Xiao Yu was filled with anticipation.
“Ten, nine, eight… two, one!”
Everything unfolded exactly as he expected.
An astonishing scene appeared before Xiao Yu.
On the ecliptic plane, sunlight was almost completely obscured by the debris from Earth’s explosion. As a result, the Solar System was shrouded in darkness.
But amidst this blackness, a massive light source suddenly erged on the distant horizon. Its intensity was more than ten tis brighter than the Sun! The colossal light source illuminated the entire Solar System in an instant.
The image lasted only for a mont before the signal abruptly cut out. Xiao Yu knew that the intense radiation from Jupiter had lted the small satellite.
Before Xiao Yu could recover from his shock, the effects of the Moon’s collision with Jupiter began to manifest.
A surge of light, heat, and high-energy radiation swept across Mars, creating utter chaos.
Previously, the iron teorite from Earth had covered Mars’ atmosphere with a dense layer of dust, plunging the planet into darkness. Now, the imnse energy from Jupiter’s collision rapidly heated Mars’ already chaotic atmosphere. The imbalance in pressure triggered superstorms, with winds so powerful they hurled rocks into Martian synchronous orbit.
Simultaneously, the surface of Mars facing Jupiter began to lt. Rocks and sand turned into rivers of molten red, flowing violently across the planet’s surface.
Confronted with such overwhelming cosmic forces, Xiao Yu dared not make a single move. Hidden behind Mars, he silently observed the unfolding events.
For the first ti, Xiao Yu felt a profound gratitude for his decision to use Mars as a shield. Without it, he would likely have been reduced to a pool of molten tal.
The high-energy radiation didn’t pause. After sweeping past Mars’ orbit in an instant, it continued toward Earth’s forr orbital path at the speed of light.
At present, Earth’s orbit was ho to a collection of cots. Under the Sun’s radiation pressure and heat, these cots had developed long tails. But as Jupiter’s trendous energy reached them, countless cot tails were instantly scattered. For a brief mont, the Sun appeared to brighten as if a veil had been lifted. However, in the next mont, Jupiter’s energy temporarily overpowered the Sun’s, forcing the cot tails to point directly toward the Sun.
By observing the light reflected from the cots, Xiao Yu estimated Jupiter’s current luminosity.
At this mont, the absolute magnitude of Jupiter had surpassed the Sun’s by at least tenfold. In other words, if Jupiter and the Sun were at the sa distance from Xiao Yu, Jupiter’s brightness would exceed the Sun’s by an order of magnitude.
Such imnse power was awe-inspiring beyond asure.
User Comments
0 comments from readers