Chapter 318: Geography of the Solar System State (2)_1

The main asteroid belt contains over a million asteroids, each with a diameter greater than one kilometer. Some of them are like nomadic travelers, wandering alone through the vast asteroid belt.

Others move together like families; these "family asteroids" are the remnants that slowly scattered after the disintegration of a larger celestial body.

About 4.5 billion years ago, in the warm inner regions of the solar nebula, planetesimals formed as they slowly cooled down and rapidly accumulated surrounding pebbles and metal chunks.

The growth of each planet involved sweeping up nearby planetesimals encountered in their own orbits until no new material was met on the orbit, and these rocky worlds completed their growth.

After the formation of the Sun in the solar nebula, the regions outside of the star gradually cooled, and the previous rocky worlds became terrestrial planets.

Outside the orbit of Mars, the process of planetesimals attracting each other and becoming larger planets was continuously interrupted by the powerful gravity of Jupiter.

Therefore, no large planet formed in the region between Mars and Jupiter.

Although there are many celestial bodies in the main asteroid belt, the vastness of space dilutes their presence.

The two dwarf planets, Ceres and Vulcan, along with smaller ones like Pallas and Juno, account for half of the total mass of the main asteroid belt.

There may be many asteroids, but they are too small in size.

Ceres largely has the appearance of a spherical planet, but upon closer inspection, the dwarf planet has a huge gap in its southern region.

This gap doesn't look as gentle as a meteor crater, but rather as if some monster took a bite out of it, with the ground being uneven and somewhat fierce in appearance.

Ceres City is an industrial city; mining spacecraft roam the main asteroid belt, and after filling up with metal ore, they typically bring their load to Ceres Star, or they wait until Ceres Star is close enough to offload the metal ore.

Ceres itself is not a resource-rich dwarf planet; its mantle contains a large amount of ice, which naturally becomes the source of life and industrial water for this isolated place.

So from the beginning of its construction, Ceres City was intended to function as an industrial and supply city.

Over two centuries, the Solar System State has built thousands of massive mining platforms that roam the main asteroid belt. Sometimes it takes over a decade to fill their cargo holds; with good luck, it may take only a few months to mine a full load.

These platforms offload their harvest at Ceres City, then complete resupplying before continuing on their new mining missions.

Matching the mining platforms is the progressively perfected system of locating asteroids. Today, the orbits and positions of about 600,000 asteroids are known, so although the mining platforms move slowly, it's rare for them to come up empty-handed.

If luck is poor and a miner encounters an asteroid made entirely of rock, the search must continue for other targets.

However, such cases are not frequent; most asteroids contain some metallic material, especially with iron being the most abundant.

The most unfortunate scenario is coming across an ice asteroid because Ceres has plenty of ice to solve the water needs of the entire main asteroid belt.

Neither the Earth Civilization Circle nor the Jupiter Civilization Circle has experienced a lack of water, so these ice asteroids are of little practical use, quite superfluous.

Every time this situation occurs, mining ships mark these ice asteroids with an internationally recognized code.

These ice reserves might be unusable now, but that doesn't mean they won't be needed in the future.

Moreover, encountering ice in the vastness of space is a comforting event, and it can even be seen as a symbol of life.

The most common situation encountered is that of asteroids with metal resources embedded within rock, generally with a metal content around 3%, though it can go up to 5%.

Moreover, metal elements in space are not as difficult to mine as they are on Earth. Take iron, for example: on the surface of Earth, most iron has been oxidized into a powdery state, while the non-oxidized iron is deeply buried underground.

There is no oxidation issue in space, so most metals exist in the form of particles, or in large chunks.

Such metal materials are easy to filter, and although they might contain some impurities, they are easier to smelt than the metal ores found on Earth.

In rare cases, an entire asteroid is made of metal; encountering such an asteroid, miners can collect just one and head back.

Jiang Yu could see some moving dots on Ceres Star from space, all of which were vehicles transporting ice blocks or mining them.

Ceres City looked like a steel beast sprawled across Ceres Star, not very tall overall, but covering a large area.

After Jiang Yu landed on a shuttle, he received a warm welcome.

The physical work of modern industry had all been taken over by industrial robots, and the workers there were only in charge of supervision, coordination, and such tasks.

So even though it was an industrial city, the streets were very clean, and everyone's clothing was clean too, without the coal dust everywhere as one might imagine.

Thinking about this, Jiang Yu smiled and shook his head. Nowadays, industry used nuclear fusion for energy; there was no need to burn coal.

Gravity here was so weak it was almost negligible. In this environment, Jiang Yu took a tour from the screening of metal ore deposits, to smelting, to the production of various metal sheets.

These metal sheets would then be transported to the places that needed them via cargo spacecraft.

Jiang Yu stayed for two days and specifically inquired about the safety and vacation issues of the workers on the mining ships.

The mayor explained, "Each mining platform is equipped with five planetary-class ships, so even if the mining platforms work for an extended period outside, it does not affect the workers' vacations."

Jiang Yu's arrival greatly inspired the city's workers.

Although the city had made significant contributions to the construction of the Solar System State, it was easily forgotten by people. Jiang Yu was the first high-ranking official from the Solar System State to visit the city so far.

Everyone felt that the Solar System State had not forgotten them, and their enthusiasm for work surged immediately.

Two days later, Jiang Yu continued his journey, heading to his third destination, Mars.

This leg of the trip was longer and took more than a month.

During the journey, Jiang Yu received the news that "Blind Zone Two" and "Three" were completed.

Jiang Yu allocated "Blind Zone Two" to He Shanqi and officially kicked off the "Lightspeed Spaceship" project.

The control of the other two "Blind Zones" was assigned to Rediaz. Now, apart from the work related to the military bases far on the outskirts of the Solar System, there were not many projects that needed to be kept secret.

So these three "Blind Zones" were sufficient for the time being; it wouldn't be too late to construct new "Blind Zones" once they needed more space.

Upon reaching Mars, Jiang Yu was somewhat surprised to find that Yinghuo City had declined.

Since Jiang Yu proposed rejoining the Earth Civilization Circle, Guanghan City had enjoyed a second spring, but Yinghuo City, having neither the vast market of Earth nearby nor the rich resources of the Main Asteroid Belt, had not seen further development.

While other places were making rapid progress, only here had development stagnated, hence the feeling of decline.