Chapter 6: X122 Solar Storm, Flying Out of the Solar System
The Hope glided through deep space.
Twelve days later, it encountered Jupiter.
The sheer size of the planet was awe-inspiring, and the turbulent atmosphere could have blown Earth away.
The famous Great Red Spot also captivated Yan Xia, and he couldn't help but take photos.
There was no one to share them with on social media anymore.
Yan Xia looked at some of Jupiter's moons and suddenly thought of something.
"Ella, let's make a brief stop and launch a probe into Europa."
Europa is an icy moon with a thick layer of ice covering its surface.
Scientists on Earth speculated that beneath this ice might be a liquid ocean, and based on Earth's experience, where there is water, there is life.
Europa could potentially harbor life.
Yan Xia decided to send a probe for two reasons.
1. To collect biological samples.
2. To replenish the spaceship with a large amount of liquid water.
The food originally carried by the spaceship had long been consumed, and Yan Xia had been eating synthetic proteins, synthetic fats, synthetic carbohydrates, and synthetic sugars produced by Ella...
Everything was technology and hard work.
The large amount of liquid water could be put into the water cycle, and the 18% agricultural space could also be utilized.
Yan Xia remembered that he still had some seeds.
The spaceship stopped in the outer space of Europa.
Thirty drones flew out of the spaceship and landed on Europa's surface, and Yan Xia watched the terrain through the cameras.
Indeed, it was a snowy landscape.
The drones started digging and, after penetrating 57 kilometers, finally broke through the ice and entered an underwater world.
Using electromagnetic probes, they found that the ice and water layer on Europa was 113 kilometers thick, 102 kilometers deeper than the deepest part of Earth's oceans.
The drones began collecting water, and then, using the cables dropped from the spaceship, returned to the ship.
All of this took only ten days.
In the timescale of the universe, it was almost negligible.
The samples were studied.
Ella, in her anime girl avatar, was surprised.
"Yan Xia, life indeed exists throughout the universe."
"Microbial traces were found in Europa's water, a type of microorganism not present in my database."
A photo appeared on the screen.
It was a microorganism similar to a rotifer, but ten times larger.
This was a highly complex life form, and given the right conditions, Europa might give birth to intelligent life in a few billion years.
It took ten hours.
The water had been stored, totaling 5,000 tons, which should be enough.
"Ella, open the planting area and plant all those seeds."
Yan Xia's words went unanswered.
After a while, Ella appeared solemnly, and a picture was played on the screen in front of him.
The sun became extremely bright in a short time.
He knew.
The fragments of the Earth had fallen into the sun.
A powerful solar storm arrived, reaching the X level almost instantly. The value on the screen jumped from X1 to X122 and continued to rise.
In a special energy monitoring camera, the dim sun turned orange-yellow, and from its surface, a series of terrifying energy bursts expanded into the surrounding universe in the blink of an eye.
This solar storm released, in just ten seconds, the equivalent energy of 150 billion hydrogen bombs exploding simultaneously, an unprecedented event.
It swept everything like a cosmic sandstorm, and everything except celestial bodies involved would be ruthlessly destroyed.
"Fly at maximum speed, Ella!"
"Okay, Yan Xia!"
The only good news was that the main material speed of this terrifying invisible sickle was only 679 km/s.
...
Yan Xia entered the dormant cryogenic sleep chamber again after the Hope entered the flight state.
This time, it was the second-generation cryogenic sleep chamber, much safer than the previous generation, and there was no need to drink the anticoagulant.
Eternal sleep.
Eternal sleep.
This time, it would be longer, so long that he didn't know when he would wake up.
Ella managed everything on the spaceship, using all her computational power to calculate the most advanced technologies.
She used Jupiter's massive gravity for a gravitational slingshot.
The speed increased from 758.2 km/s to 815 km/s.
Aside from facing some radiation, they had escaped the proton impact of the solar storm.
...
88 days later, the Hope reached the orbit of Pluto, 41 astronomical units from the sun.
This dwarf planet, once the ninth planet in the solar system, held many stories of humanity's astronomical development.
Pluto, at its farthest point, could reach 49 astronomical units into the dark depths of space.
It stood as a monument in the Kuiper belt, with only the Oort cloud beyond.
Most of the solar system's material was in the Kuiper belt, and beyond that, there was only the vast emptiness of space.
Pluto was not on their path, and Ella didn't observe it.
Here, Ella controlled the spaceship's ten-meter-wide camera to take a picture toward their previous path, and the entire photo was occupied by a bright point, small but intensely bright.
The sun was still in a state of violent activity.
Venus, Mars, the asteroid belt, Jupiter, and Saturn had all been devoured by the raging energy.
It was unknown if the robots left in the asteroid belt had survived.
...
After 773 days, the Hope completely escaped the solar wind's influence after enduring six heliopause shocks.
They were safe.
Here, Ella received a signal.
Using a telescope, she took a picture in that direction, and after extensive analysis, she found a small black dot, barely noticeable in the vastness of space.
She analyzed it and identified it as "Earth's voice."
It was Voyager 1, also heading towards Proxima Centauri.
This probe, the farthest human-made object from Earth, had been caught up with by the Hope 168 years after its launch.
It was now the year 2145.
The probe's battery had run out of power, so Ella captured it and made some modifications.
It carried humanity's dreams of the universe.
On Earth, there had been concerns that Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 might be captured by an alien civilization, which would then discover human civilization.
These worries were unnecessary, as the time it would take for the Voyagers to truly leave the solar system's edge was estimated to be the year 42,145, or 40,000 years from now.
For a highly advanced interstellar civilization, detecting Earth's civilization from outside the solar system would be possible, and the Voyagers would only confirm the nature of human civilization.
Ella made some minor modifications to the probe, installing a nuclear battery and launching it back on its original course at 17 km/s.
She recharged it.
From now on, the probe would annually transmit its data back towards Earth.
However, the probe would never know that its signal would never be received by anyone.
At this point, they were 420 astronomical units from the sun.
But the long journey had only just begun.
...
9 years later.
The Hope entered the inner edge of the Oort cloud.
This region, also known as the comet cloud, was the supposed home of comets, filled with water ice, methane, ethane, carbon monoxide, and hydrogen cyanide.
Ella collected some samples for research.
...
279 years later, the Hope left the massive Oort cloud core, entering the 50,000 astronomical unit boundary.
...
288 years passed in the blink of an eye, and the Hope completely left the Oort cloud, leaving behind a dead, black space.
From here, the sun merged with the background of the stars.
At this point, they had been traveling for 578 years, were 100,000 astronomical units from the sun, or 1.58 light-years away, and had reached the boundary of the sun's gravity.
The Hope had truly left the solar system.
It also marked the first time humanity had escaped its parent star.
...
After 86 years of flying away from the solar system and 664 years of space travel.
A bright beam of light struck the side of the Hope.
"Alarm!"
"Alarm!"
"Extraterrestrial civilization detected 0.7 astronomical units away, and the spaceship is under attack."
Yan Xia was awakened again, and his eyes were met with flashing red alerts.