Voyage of the Stars

The time of sailing is always boring, but humans would rather sail on in such a boring way, because it means that no civilization has discovered their route, which means that they are safe.

When we arrived at the Perseus Arm, the density between stars gradually increased, but because it was still at the edge of the spiral arm, it was not too dense. The average distance between stars was about 70 light years, which was close enough for the route across the spiral arm, which also made humans not worry about resources.

With the technology of the fourth-level civilization, as long as there is a star system, energy can be obtained. Even if there is no rocky planet, enough light elements such as hydrogen, helium and hydrogen can be obtained from gaseous planets, and then they can be used for light nuclear fusion to obtain energy, and then the light nuclear fusion energy is used as a reactor to separate and obtain the antimatter of hydrogen molecules.

Of course, if there is no rocky planet, heavy metal elements cannot be obtained, but the universe is so big and there are so many stars in the Perseus Arm, humans don’t have to worry at all. If there is no such thing, just continue to go to the next star system. After all, every voyage will not use up all the fuel.

Faced with the average stopover of 70 light years, humans do not plan to go to each star one by one, but each voyage will cross at least 300 light years. The human fleet can travel 500 light years at a time with full fuel. The main reason for traveling more than 300 light years is to save some fuel to deal with possible emergencies, and not traveling 70 light years one by one is for concealment and time saving.

In this way, the human fleet sailed along the edge of the Perseus Arm, year after year.

Suddenly at a certain point in time, Tianqin received a message from the exploration team, saying that a medium-mass black hole was found near the route, less than 5 light years away from the route, and asked Tianqin whether to change the route.

Less than 5 light years is very close, and getting too close will affect the warp speed navigation, so of course it has to change the route.

After receiving the news, the Tianqin immediately asked the "Light of the Milky Way" to change its route according to the detection information. It did not change the entire route directly, but turned a corner in the void, bypassed the black hole and continued to move towards the destination. The human fleet had surplus fuel every time it sailed, so it was not a problem to turn a few corners in the universe.

After conveying the order to the entire fleet, human scientists were not idle. After the application was approved, they sent more detectors to the area where the black hole was located.

Black holes, the most mysterious celestial bodies in the universe, were observed by humans from afar before. After setting foot in the starry sky, humans have been busy and have no time or experience to get close to a black hole for observation. This time is an opportunity.

The fleet passed by a black hole, and scientists certainly did not want to miss the opportunity to observe the black hole up close as before, so this black hole detection mission was launched.

Unmanned detectors are one aspect. Scientists also dispatched three scientific research ships after obtaining approval from the new government departments, and as scientific researchers and scientists, they themselves were also on the scientific research ships.

Of course, since the black hole needs to be observed at close range, the new government cannot just send three research ships and unmanned exploration spacecraft to go there. Some escort warships are still needed. A warship squadron led by a planetary-class warship and thousands of sea-class warships performed the escort mission.

However, although it is a close-range observation, in fact, with the current technology of mankind, it is impossible to get very close. The close distance is only relative to the previous observation of black holes by mankind.

This is a medium-mass black hole. After preliminary observation, human scientists preliminarily estimated that its mass is about 130 times the mass of the sun. Medium-mass black holes belong to a type of black hole predicted by astronomical theory in the human earth era, and have also been confirmed by observations in the earth era, but this is the first time that humans have observed it at such a close distance.

According to the mass classification, the next level is a stellar-mass black hole, and the next level is a supermassive black hole. In theory, there are also primordial black holes with the earliest birth period and extremely small scale and mass. Yes, that's right. Primordial black holes are not the extremely huge black holes in the impression of ordinary people. On the contrary, their scale and mass are extremely small.

According to the definition of human physics today, the mass range of medium-mass black holes is between 100 and 100,000 times the mass of the sun.

A black hole with a mass of 130 times the mass of the sun obviously belongs to this category. It is not a stellar black hole. As the name suggests, it is not formed by a supernova explosion of a star. Humans have long speculated and obtained relevant data in cosmic observations, believing that the formation of such black holes is the result of black hole mergers.

The purpose of this trip by scientists is to collect more data on the formation and evolution of medium-mass black holes, so as to improve the human theory of cosmic evolution and add more scientific observation data to the human scientific treasure house. Such scientific investigation actions are crucial for a scientific and technological civilization. It is the accumulation of quantitative changes in scientific development.

Generally speaking, when a very massive star runs out of fuel, its core will collapse under the action of gravity, and then a supernova explosion will occur to form a black hole. However, the traditional theory of human astronomy believes that when a star collapses, it will not produce a black hole with a mass between 65 and 135 solar masses.

The reason is that when the core mass of a star is greater than 65 times the mass of the sun, the high-energy gamma rays inside it are effectively converted into electron-positron pairs, a phenomenon known as pair instability. The pressure generated by these particle pairs is much weaker than the light pressure of photons, allowing gravity to prevail.

In this way, the outer layer of the star will collapse inward, and the nuclear fuel of the star will accelerate in an uncontrolled way. As a result, the star will not leave any trace of the black hole after the explosion, but will explode completely.

Humans have naturally never seen such a process, but scientists can confirm the correctness of this theory from another aspect by observing various types of black holes, and the black hole in front of us is a good object for observation.

For example, collecting optical images of the complete accretion disk of the black hole, etc.

For safety reasons, the human scientific expedition team watched the black hole from a distance of one light year away, and let the unmanned probe continue to approach to explore the various phenomena manifested by the black hole.

This space is very empty. Judging from the age and distribution of stars in the nearby star field, it is indeed possible that the two black holes merged. However, according to the current preliminary observation data, the time when this black hole merged should have been a long time ago, at least more than 100 million years.

After humans began to observe this black hole seriously, they soon discovered some wonderful phenomena.