The rise of nanometers - Chapter 775 Under the Ice

The spider lander used eight mechanical legs to flexibly negotiate the rugged roads and arrived at the unexpectedly generated hot fountain without any danger.

As the thermal geyser continues to erupt, the surrounding ice becomes more unstable.

However, there are advantages and disadvantages, because during the eruption of the thermal fountain, a large amount of groundwater is brought to the ground, and this groundwater is condensed into ice at low temperatures near the spout of the thermal fountain.

Therefore, ice chimneys like craters are formed near the vents.

The ice chimney of this small thermal fountain has grown about 71 meters upward from the valley bottom and is still growing.

The ice chimney is similar to a volcano crater, surrounded by a gentle slope. The mechanical feet of the spider lander are adjusted to the crawling mode. The mechanical feet use sharp alloy spines to stick to the ice surface of the gentle slope and crawl upwards.

However, the continuous eruptions have caused heavy snowfall around the area, even mixed with hail.

As the Spider lander moved forward, its body was constantly hit by hailstones, and it moved upwards with difficulty amid the crackling.

Although it is said to be a small thermal geyser, the groundwater and water vapor emitted by this thermal geyser can reach up to 140 kilometers into outer space.

This is mainly because Europa’s gravity is relatively weak and its atmosphere is not that thick. In addition, the pressure of the thermal fountain is very large, so it can erupt to an altitude of 140 kilometers.

Finally, we came to the chimney mouth. At this time, the spider lander was firmly fixed on the ice with mechanical feet, and we could feel the continuous hot fountain.

The Spider lander extended its sampling robotic arm and collected more than a dozen samples of water vapor and groundwater, which were emitted by thermal fountains.

The sample is sent to the testing equipment and preliminary analysis begins.

Su Xiaoyu, who was at the Mars outpost, carefully looked through the pages of data fed back with an expectant look.

“Huh?” Su Xiaoyu saw a very valuable data. In sample No. 7, an amino acid molecule was discovered.

This discovery made him overjoyed. Although only one of the 12 samples contained amino acids, it meant that there is a high possibility of life in Europa’s underground ocean.

Continue to issue instructions to the Heather to have the Spider lander continue to collect samples of the eruption of the thermal geyser, hoping to find more evidence of organic matter.

Sure enough, in the samples collected one after another, the composition of many organic substances was analyzed, and a cell similar to cyanobacteria was even found in sample No. 9527.

Various analysis results show that Europa’s underground ocean is not only rich in water resources and geothermal energy, but also strange creatures were born.

In fact, relevant research teams have made speculations about the possibility of life on Europa.

Because in the orbit of Jupiter and in the nearby asteroid belt, detectors have found traces of amino acids and microorganisms in some icy asteroids.

At first, researchers suspected that they were microorganisms from Mars, but as the research deepened and various samples were collected, they were compared with genetic maps.

The researchers obtained an unexpected result, that is, the genetic sequence of some samples had little relationship with Martian microorganisms.

Even if it is related to Martian creatures, the relationship between the two is that Martian creatures appeared later, which shows that the creatures on Mars are most likely not “aboriginals”, but alien immigrants.

So where do these alien immigrants come from?

After a series of investigations and analyses, researchers discovered a phenomenon, that is, among the samples collected in the asteroid belt, the closer the samples are to the orbit of Jupiter, the younger their genetic sequences are.

The genetic sequences found in the asteroid belt close to the orbit of Mars are relatively ancient.

According to the distance relationship, the younger the gene sequence is, the closer the gene sequence is to the origin of the gene; conversely, the older the gene sequence is, the farther away the gene sequence is from the origin.

In other words, the outer regions such as Jupiter or Saturn are the birthplaces of these creatures.

This is why the Ministry of Aerospace is working so hard to send a probe to land on Europa, because this is most likely the place where life originated.

It now appears that the researchers’ speculation was correct. The genetic samples collected from Europa are indeed highly consistent with the genetic sequences found in the asteroid belt.

This discovery will help mankind better understand the origin and evolution of life in the solar system.

It also proves that life may also be born in the satellites of gaseous planets.

The next work of Heather is to continue to collect more genetic samples to complete the map of life in the solar system.

In addition to Europa, the Ministry of Space Affairs has also launched a probe to Titan (Titan), another planet that is very likely to have life. It is expected to arrive at Titan around July next year.

Traces of life are being discovered in various parts of the solar system, forcing the Institute of Space and Life of the Federal Ministry of Science to further revise the reference indicators of living planets.

At the same time, this has caused many new controversies within the academic community.

For example, the question of the origin of life on Blue Star.

Was it the Blue Star itself that gave birth to life, or did the life seeds of alien creatures take root and sprout on the Blue Star? Or was it that the Blue Star itself gave birth to life, but alien creatures also entered the Blue Star, and the two hybridized.

Now more and more evidence shows that the last view is that the Blue Star itself gave birth to native life, but was later successively affected by aliens.

Especially the archaea of ​​Europa. During these billions of years, they were mixed with asteroids and visited terrestrial planets such as Mars, Blue Stars and Venus.

During this period.

They thrived on ancient Mars and once developed various microorganisms, single-cell organisms and small multi-cell organisms.

He also worked with the native organisms on the ancient Blue Star to transform the ecological environment of the Blue Star. Over time, the two gradually merged together to form today’s Blue Star ecosystem.

On Venus, they also took advantage of the rich light and heat conditions to develop brilliant life. Unfortunately, at a certain moment, Venus underwent a drastic change, which caused the planet’s rotation to slow down and the magnetic field in the earth’s core to fail. , and finally became the hell planet it is today.

The reason why researchers know that there was life on Venus is because after the establishment of the floating city, some ancient biological fossils were discovered in the Venus area during a series of development processes.

According to carbon 14 testing, these ancient biological fossils are all from life 763 million years ago.

These evidences prove that Venus was still a planet with a climate suitable for life 763 million years ago, and the destruction of all this may have been a major upheaval around 763 million years ago.

Since the three terrestrial planets in the inner solar system all have life (including in the past), then the outer solar system’s Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune may also have life.

The current survey results of Europa further prove this point.

Judging from the situation in the solar system, the probability of existence of life planets in other star systems will increase to a very high level.

Even if the probability of intelligent life being born is relatively small, once the number of living planets increases, there will always be one or two lucky ones.

This shows that intelligent life is actually not a minority in this universe, but is ubiquitous.

Thank you for your support (ω｀)