Chapter 412 A Gift From 150 Million Years Ago

Capturing a meteorite is just a small scientific research matter, as long as the microbial detection work is done well.

But capturing an alien probe has risen to the level of contact with extraterrestrial civilization and has become a diplomatic event.

Therefore, in less than a quarter of an hour, many scientists, military personnel and think tank members have gathered in the captain's room.

"Be careful, try not to damage it!" An expert is directing the operation.

Drones cannot automatically complete such a complex capture work, and people must specify the relevant targets and send corresponding commands.

From the calculation data on the screen, it can be seen that this ancient space probe is moving at a high speed due to inertia, with a speed of about 36.8 kilometers per second.

This speed is already dozens of times that of ordinary gunpowder bullets, and the kinetic energy is quite amazing. In order to avoid directly damaging it, people want to adopt a more gentle capture method.

"Keep about the same speed, yes, that's it. Slowly approach, closer, closer... Do you see that pole? It should be the load-bearing pole... What is the distance between the two sides now?"

"89.9 meters!"

"Okay, keep this distance... Launch the micro-claw at the target position!"

"Three, two, one... Launch!"

Due to the delay of the signal, the micro-claw was launched a few seconds later.

In the silent universe, there was no sound, and it was impossible to hear the sound of metal collision. However, people saw from the screen that the metal claw had successfully wrapped around the pole, wrapped around several times, and successfully wrapped around the pole.

Suddenly, there was a small applause and cheers in the captain's room.

The soft nano rope was tied to the load-bearing pole, and then the probe was driven by the drone, slowly turning the direction, trying to pull it closer to the Deep Space.

"Captain, do you want to go faster or slower? We suspect that this probe is too old, and the load-bearing rods cannot withstand very large forces."

"Take your time and use a more conservative plan." Yu Yifeng pondered for a while and said, "Anyway, the Deep Space still needs to stop here to replace the engine, so there is no rush."

Soon, the military estimated the specific data, and the entire pull-back process would take two days.

"Two days... Then everyone go back first and work as usual."

However, the crowd did not disperse immediately, but discussed with great interest. Many people were in front of the screen, curiously looking at the probe.

Under the strong light of the drone, the external structure was already clear.

This is a typical deep space probe, and the engine and energy device occupy most of the volume.

The notable feature of the deep space probe is that it flies in the universe for a long time, and the ground cannot be remotely controlled in real time, so it must have a certain degree of autonomous navigation capability; it flies outside the planetary system and away from the stars, so it uses both solar light sails and nuclear energy systems.

The last point is that it has to withstand very harsh space environment conditions and needs to adopt special protective structures.

"The only difference is that the device behind the engine seems to be equipped with a... parachute? This means that this probe was once capable of landing on a planet with an atmosphere."

"... But from the overall structure, it is very likely to be an external probe of a low-level civilization. A very bold low-level civilization, actually wants to use a probe to visit another planet in another star system... This fantastic idea may take tens of thousands of years. Can they wait for tens of thousands of years?"

"However, they seem to have failed... The probe was damaged before it reached another star field. It was a failed scientific expedition."

Hearing this discussion, Yu Yifeng turned his gaze to the distant starry sky...

He sighed: "Like us, the Earth civilization in the past, this civilization is curious and confused about the boundless universe, and then launched a probe to the outside world... to find some truth in the dark."

An expert nodded and said: "Yes, and this probe seems to contain something... It should be some information..."

"Information about its own civilization."

When discussing this answer, there was a sudden silence in the captain's room.

Humanity actually discovered an external probe of a low-level civilization!

Many first-generation elders recalled the distant memories of the past, and Qi Sensen had almost the same association...

This feeling is difficult to express in words.

Yu Yifeng also felt a little touched.

During the Earth period of human beings, the same probes were launched, representing the beautiful fantasy and expectation of human beings for the universe.

For example, the "Pioneer 10" and "Pioneer 11" probes each carried a gold-plated aluminum metal disk.

This metal disk records some patterns and information, telling possible extraterrestrial intelligent life: where the probe came from and when it was launched.

And the "Voyager 1" probe carries a copper disk record, which is said to be able to remain intact in space for a billion years!

The record contains a lot of content, including greetings from the then-President of the United Nations, greetings in various languages, various music, etc.

Now, such a similar gift has been sent to the hands of the new human civilization by another low-level civilization.

This probe, like a diplomat of a low-level civilization, silently tells humans about their curiosity, confusion and loneliness about the distant starry sky...

Perhaps, they are wondering why the starry sky is so dark;

Perhaps, they are also struggling to reach the starry sky.

This feeling is very wonderful, and everyone's heart is touched. Not because humans are currently the dominant party, but because humans, who were also low-level civilizations, also had the same emotions...

On a long and slow road, only because of fate can we meet each other...

From the size of the probe, the information inside may be more than that sent by humans. And they seem to be more prepared than humans, but it is strange that, on the surface, their technology is not better than that of the earthlings, not as good as the Nix people, or even as good as the Dig people...

This is an extraterrestrial civilization that has spent a huge economic cost and is speaking alone in the vast universe.

People are very strange and curious...

Of course, being moved is touching, but necessary safety inspections still need to be done.

Two days passed quickly, and the probe was pulled close to 3,000 kilometers away from the Deep Space, maintaining almost the same speed as the mothership.

Afterwards, a medium-sized transport ship flew over. It is an unmanned scientific research spacecraft, which is loaded with a large number of safety detection equipment and robots. These equipment will conduct a comprehensive safety inspection of the detector.

A large number of staff members have been waiting.

... The specific test results are almost the same as people imagine.

"It's just an ordinary instrument, nothing particularly dangerous... The engine uses nuclear fission energy and solar energy, and all energy has been exhausted."

"The metal material used is ordinary titanium alloy... The composite material is the result of fiber textile materials and synthetic resins bonded layer by layer. Basically, all of them are damaged. The history is very long..."

A biologist suddenly wondered: "Huh... There are some low-level life-support equipment inside. Do you want to carry organisms?"

"Strange, these glass balls seem to have had a super-small microbial ecosystem that uses light to replenish energy. What is the purpose of putting so many micro-ecospheres?"

"But after the energy is exhausted, the species inside seem to have all died... It's been too long, and it's not clear whether the genetic material is damaged. Captain, do you want to open it and take a look?"

Everything has its own lifespan, whether it's protein or genetic material, it has its own shelf life. Some scientists have proposed that DNA can be preserved for up to 1 million years, but certainly not more than 5 million or 6 million years. Therefore, it is impossible to clone dinosaurs using dinosaur eggs or dinosaur blood, because these genetic information has been lost.

Now people just don’t know how long this probe was launched, and whether the genetic material in the ecosystem is preserved...

If it is, you can also see the alien microorganisms sent by the other party.

Yu Yifeng thought about it and shook his head. If robots are used for biochemical control, it is still a bit unsafe.

"Put these small ecosystems aside for now, and let our biologists open them by themselves. Don't rush!"

After a vigorous search, a robot carefully took out an aluminum box.

This is... the most significant discovery.

"There seems to be some information in this box...! It can be easily taken out, it should be the specific information of the other civilization. The other equipment, all detection devices, circuit boards, and nuclear engines, etc., look very old, and some circuits are damaged."

After a few hours of work, people have completed the preliminary exploration of the probe. The space inside is not large, just a large suitcase.

"Captain, do you want to completely dismantle the detector?" a staff member asked.

Yu Yifeng thought about it and frowned.

From the current perspective, an item from a low-level civilization seems very rough and there is no technology to analyze it.

From the specific technological era, it is not yet at the level of humans in the early 21st century.

It has come a long way and flown here. It seems a bit unbearable to dismantle it like this.

"Forget it, just isolate it temporarily and keep it as a historical relic. Take out all the information inside and read it!"

Inside this box of information, there is a piece of high-purity uranium-238, part of which has decayed into plutonium-239.

There must be a meaning for doing this.

The answer is simple. This piece of high-purity uranium-238 represents the age of this detector.

This is... a small tacit understanding between different civilizations. Humans have almost done the same thing.

"If the purity of uranium-238 is close to 100% when it just set sail, its half-life is about 4.17 billion years, then... from the decay phenomenon that has already occurred, it has been... 150 million years!"

"This is a drifting bottle from 150 million years ago!"

After reaching this conclusion, everyone was slightly shocked, and the vicissitudes of history came to them. What a long, long-ago detector!

Such a history, inexplicably, adds a heavy weight to the detector.

150 million years ago, the earth was still in the dinosaur era, right?

It just crossed the ocean and came here, not being swallowed by stars, nor captured by planets, and just passed to human hands. It is really a kind of fate in the dark...

This also makes people more curious about the content in the data.

Also, 150 million years ago, the Milky Way already had... intelligent civilization!

Soon, the robot carefully took out the gold-plated aluminum sheets from the metal box one by one. They were very thin, less than 0.1 millimeter, but there were more than 200 of them!

The gold-plated aluminum sheets were cleverly separated by less than one millimeter, so the metal sheets did not stick together due to time.

At the bottom, there was a metal disk with a diameter of more than 30 centimeters, which seemed to store a lot of information.

The scale drawn on the metal disk was also very rough, like a classic old record.

Only such rough things could withstand the test of time and pass information to humans 150 million years later.

Things that are too delicate will lose information due to the interaction between atoms. Just like human electronic disks, they can never withstand the journey of billions of years.

People first looked at the thin gold-plated aluminum sheets, which had a lot of pictures and texts on them. This unknown civilization seemed to want to pass on the entire dictionary.

The first picture was actually a color image drawn with different colors of metal.

It was an abstract, artistic star map.

In the glass-colored sky, a bowl-sized star is rising slowly in the upper left corner of the picture. On the right, there are two "moons", one is falling and the other is in the air.

People can easily identify that these two are the moons, "so this unknown planet should have two satellites, one large and one small."

The most amazing thing is that some of the stars in the image are just a small dot, while others are the size of grapes. They rotate and tumble, trying to compete with the sun, but helplessly fall with the moon.

It is hard to guess whether these large and small stars are artistically processed or real.

At the bottom of the image is a black shadow, a shadow that represents despair... Such a powerful lineup of light still cannot illuminate the shadow.

It is a bit puzzling, but it is this shadow that sublimates the concept of the image.

"If the distance between the stars is relatively close, it is indeed possible to become the size of a grape like this. Or there are red giants nearby, which look relatively large..." An astronomer wanted to force an explanation, but he only said half of his words. Art cannot be interpreted by science.

This image undoubtedly represents the top art of a civilization.

Only this kind of top-level and proud thing will appear in rare and precious data. For low-level civilizations, sending every gram of space material requires a lot of economic resources.

A beautiful image.

Through the starlight outside, everyone felt a silent emotion.

This feeling is not sadness or loneliness, but understanding. In the world of all kinds, there are always some lonely souls and some unsolvable things.

And lonely souls can also have strong resonance. Although we are not from the same era or even the same region, we have had common emotions.

We are just an ordinary member of the dark creatures.

The two-in-one chapter will not be split, and it will not be updated at night.