The Milky Way is so vast that even with a stargate as a bridge between two points, it still takes less than a month to reach the solar system.
During this period, Bai Yi's relationship with Arel became increasingly close.
Through chatting, Bai Yi learned that the other party was only 22 years old. According to the average human lifespan of 400 years, this age could only be considered as just entering adulthood.
The reason why he joined the Solar System Guard at such a young age and climbed to his current position, in addition to Arel's own intelligence, was also thanks to his father who was in charge of the Solar System Defense Force Command.
I didn’t expect that in the future, people would also have to rely on their fathers.
Bai Yi felt a pang of sadness in his heart.
Finally, after the shuttle flew through the star gate again, they finally arrived at the end of this voyage - the solar system.
The Stargate is located at the edge of the solar system's gravitational field, one light-year away from the sun, in the Oort Cloud, a cloud of material left over from the formation of the solar system 5 billion years ago. It is home to many comets and is therefore believed to be the source of some distant comets.
At this distance, the Sun cannot be distinguished from the background starry sky with the naked eye. It appears to be just a slightly brighter star, no different from other bright stars in the night sky, such as Sirius and Proxima Centauri.
The shuttle then began approaching the solar system in warp mode. When it reached the Kuiper Belt, the gravitational pull of the stars forced it to exit the warp and use the first jump mode.
At this time, the spacecraft is 30 astronomical units away from the star.
An astronomical unit represents the average distance between the Earth and the Sun, which is 150 million kilometers. Light from the Sun takes eight minutes to reach the Earth's surface.
In the first-level jump mode, the spacecraft will travel at nearly the speed of light in this universe, so it will take four and a half hours to pass by the sun.
Also, because Jupiter is currently moving to the other side of the sun, it will take longer to reach Europa, one of Europa's two moons.
When Bai Yi first entered the solar system, he felt a little excited, but this excitement was quickly extinguished by the unchanging scene outside the window.
On a cosmic scale, the speed of light is pitifully slow. Over an hour passed, and apart from the sun growing slightly larger and brighter, the view outside the window remained unchanged.
It wasn't until the star got closer and closer and retreated behind the spacecraft in a few seconds that the shuttle began to slow down. Bai Yi felt excited again.
He could already see Jupiter.
As the distance continued to shorten, Europa began to appear in sight.
Its surface is covered with an endless ice sheet that is at least 20 km thick. Beneath this ice lies an ocean of liquid water that is at least 150 km thick.
Europa's core is still active, emitting heat continuously to keep the ocean temperature stable, so this vast underground water world can exist stably for at least the next 50 million years.
A long, long time ago, when humans first began to explore the solar system they live in, Europa was considered the planet most likely to have extraterrestrial life.
Later, they did discover the first alien life here. Unfortunately, initial exploration showed that there was no advanced intelligence in Europa's ocean, only some simple plankton drifting with the waves.
In subsequent further exploration, humans also discovered the existence of underground hot springs.
These vents are similar to those on Earth's seabed. They are cracks in the rock layer at the bottom of the ocean. Magma from the core rises through these cracks, heating the surrounding seawater and forming an upward flow of heat.
These swirling hot currents usually carry sulfur methane and other ingredients that can support life. And around him, humans have indeed discovered some simple multicellular organisms and even some two-inch-long primitive fish.
Scientists optimistically estimate that within the next 100,000 years, large fish exceeding 30 cm in length may evolve on Europa.
But no one plans to actually wait 100,000 years.
The predecessor of the Supervisory Commission Office that Bai Yi was going to visit this time was the Europa Ocean Exploration Laboratory. The purpose of this laboratory was to observe and study the characteristics of the Europa marine life and how to interfere with and promote their evolution.
Scientists believe that this will help further understand the formation and development of intelligent life and provide new insights into the nature of consciousness.
Later, when the Milky Way entered the Defense Era and Project Borderguard was implemented, the Ocean Exploration Laboratory was merged with several other facilities to form the Office of Supervision to safeguard the entire project.
The shuttle landed not far from the office. When Bai Yi jumped out of the hatch, the first thing he felt was a sharp gust of wind.
Unlike the small satellites people imagine, Europa has an atmosphere.
Because of its distance from the sun and the protection of Jupiter's magnetic field, the solar wind cannot strip away Europa's atmosphere like it did Mars.
Europa itself has a diameter of more than 3,000 km and has enough mass to retain these gases.
The main component of this thin atmosphere is oxygen. However, the source of oxygen is not produced by plants like on Earth, but by charged particles from the sun hitting the ice to form water vapor, which then decomposes into hydrogen and oxygen. The hydrogen escapes and leaves behind the oxygen.
Endless ice stretched from his feet all the way to as far as the eye could see, and a chilly wind whistled past his ears. Since the office was near the equator of Europa, the perceived temperature here wasn't cold at all, only 110K, or -163°C. This temperature had no effect on Bai Yi, and even made him feel somewhat refreshed.
There were footsteps behind him. Arel came out wrapped in a heavy space suit. He had just finished decompressing to adapt to the relatively low pressure inside the space suit.
"I envy you so much."
Seeing Bai Yi standing alone in the snow in a short-sleeved shirt, Arel raised his hand and patted Bai Yi's shoulders twice.
The bionic fiber skin still maintains its toughness in this environment, but the fabric that makes up the clothes cannot.
Since the clothes Bai Yi was wearing were just cheap street vendor goods, Arel's two slaps directly smashed a large piece of fabric on his shoulder into pieces.
Arel smiled awkwardly and pointed to some lights in the distance.
"Look over there, the office people are here to pick us up."
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