Chapter 145 Equilibrium
Next, the two civilizations fell into a strange state of equilibrium...
After the Green Light Civilization settled on Sedna, it began to collect resources and repair spacecraft on a large scale. With the attitude of less trouble than more trouble, they did not want to have too much communication with this seemingly more powerful "new human civilization".
They did not know whether casual communication would anger the other party. In order to reduce unnecessary trouble, they even hid behind Sedna and let a planet block themselves.
Similarly, the human Noah has been floating in the atmosphere of Mars, drifting with the rotation of Mars. Humans do not want to have too much communication with the Green Light Civilization.
But if Noah is to land on Mars, it must overcome the buoyancy of the air, that is, a large amount of heavy objects must be mounted outside Noah. This landing method is really too strange, and the Green Light Civilization may see something.
For the sake of caution, Yu Yifeng never issued a landing order. However, humans are not very eager to collect resources, because those low-end robots are more likely to cause humans to be exposed.
Fortunately, after so many years of mining, the Noah's material reserves are already extremely rich. Even without external material supplements, people can work normally.
What humans are most urgent now is a more powerful means of observation! This is also a project that Yu Yifeng focuses on supervising.
The two civilizations differ by 85 astronomical units. This distance is not worth mentioning for the universe, but it is still too far for humans.
With the current observation capabilities of people's astronomical telescopes, the other party's spacecraft is just a very small point, and it is difficult to see the specific situation clearly.
The sunlight is already very weak at the position of Sedna, and the reflected light of this planet is almost non-existent, which is difficult to see with ordinary astronomical telescopes. And the alien spacecraft of the Green Light Civilization is hiding behind the planet, which is even more difficult to observe. Humans can only estimate the specific location of the other party's spacecraft through the leakage of the other party's infrared light.
But since the alien spacecraft was stationed on Sedna, perhaps because a large number of engines were turned off, the leakage of infrared light was very small, so that humans often lost sight of the alien spacecraft.
This made Yu Yifeng very annoyed, and he would never allow such an unknown situation to occur. So he is urging scientists and engineers to build more powerful observation facilities.
The first method: a more powerful radio interferometer. This radio interferometer is not a traditional single-antenna radio telescope, but consists of two different telescopes.
For radio interferometers, the larger the maximum distance between the two antennas, the higher the resolution. In addition, when the diameter of the antenna or the distance between the two antennas is constant, the shorter the received radio wavelength, the higher the resolution.
Radio interferometers are undoubtedly clearer than simple radio telescopes and have higher sensitivity.
According to scientists' calculations, two radio telescopes with a diameter of 200 meters are distributed at both ends of Noah, and then a radio interferometer is formed through a series of scientific and technological means, with a maximum resolution of one ten-thousandth of an arc second.
"Noah is still too small, it would be better if it were a few hundred kilometers large."
Yu Yifeng couldn't help thinking. Because of the folding space, the volume inside is not small, but the surface area outside is a bit smaller, and it is impossible to place a larger telescope. Moreover, due to the restrictions on the entrances and exits, Noah is very unable to enter and exit very large machinery, which is actually a major limitation of this spacecraft.
In the future, when technology is advanced, humans must build larger spaceships with Noah as the core, like the spaceships with a diameter of hundreds of kilometers like the Green Light Civilization...
This idea flashed through Yi Feng's mind, and it is definitely impossible to do it with current technology. He sighed, and everything still needs to be done down-to-earth. He believes that at the current technological explosion speed, that day will not be too far away.
In addition to radio interferometers, there is another solution, that is, gravitational wave telescopes!
Gravitational waves were proposed and predicted by Einstein, the greatest scientist of the 20th century. In physics, gravitational waves refer to ripples in the curvature of space-time, which propagate from the radiation source to the outside in the form of waves and transmit energy.
In 2015, scientists actually observed the existence of gravitational waves in the collision of a binary black hole system, and opened the era of gravitational wave astronomy. This discovery is another proof of Einstein's general theory of relativity.
Gravitational waves have a very important and unique property: they can pass through celestial bodies on the way almost unimpeded. For example, light from distant stars will be blocked by the interstellar medium, but gravitational waves can pass through unimpeded. This feature allows gravitational waves to carry more information about astronomical phenomena that have never been observed before.
And the gravitational wave telescope is an instrument for observing gravitational waves.
"... Gravitational waves are too weak, and the fluctuations they bring are also very small, requiring instruments with very high precision. As of now, we cannot "see" gravitational waves directly, and can only detect them through gravitational lenses or slight vibrations of elastic objects."
In this meeting, Yu Yifeng and a group of engineers, as well as a large number of astronomers, are discussing this issue. This kind of cutting-edge scientific discussion can often find more deficiencies in human science.
What is "gravity" and why does it occur? I don't know, gravity, one of the four fundamental forces, has always been a mystery.
Einstein's general theory of relativity pointed out what gravity is, but this theory is in serious conflict with another great discipline, quantum mechanics. As a result, people still cannot unify the two opposites, and the "quantum gravity theory" that people once wanted to build has never been successful.
Without understanding the essence of gravity, it is difficult to use it, so gravitational wave telescopes cannot be built.
"Okay, okay, gentlemen and ladies." Yu Yifeng frowned and said, "I'm not here to listen to your complaints. I just want to ask, is it possible to complete the gravitational wave telescope?"
"No, gravitational waves are really too small."
The one who answered from his position was astronomer Professor Thomson: "It is impossible for human technology! But... a large device we removed from the flying saucer happens to be a gravitational wave telescope! Moreover, after partial repair, it should be able to be used normally."
"It requires a very high amount of computing to operate normally. After all, there are countless celestial bodies in the universe, each of which produces its own gravitational waves, all mixed together, and it takes a very high amount of computing to solve these characteristic equations."
Scientists are actually reluctant to use this kind of alien creation, because they don't understand its structure, which means it is unsafe and unreliable. But now there is no way, so they can only bring it up.
"Does our central computer have enough computing power?" Yu Yifeng asked. The central computer of Noah is the most advanced computer in the lunar base and even on Earth, with a computing speed of about 100 trillion times per second.
"No, using a computer like this to solve a set of equations with billions of variables would take... 100 years!" Professor Thomson shook his head and said, "So this instrument has never been used."
"If we can develop a faster computer, we can really make good use of this alien creation."