Voyage of the Stars.

Chapter 702: The Route of the Chinese Character
The real situation of the Milky Way is different from the pictures of the Milky Way that humans often see in the Earth era, or in other words, it is different from what ordinary people perceive from the pictures they see.

It is true that it has four major spiral arms, namely the Scutum-Crusus Arm, the Sagittarius-Carina Arm, the Recognac Arm, and the Perseus Arm. There is also an outer arm formed by rotation, which is an extension of the Recognac Arm. The Orion Arm, which is well-known to people, is actually a branch arm of the Sagittarius Arm. The front part of the Sagittarius-Carina Arm is the Sagittarius Arm, and the end of the Orion Arm is the Carina Arm.

The Orion Arm is a spiral arm added between the Sagittarius-Carina Arm and the Perseus Arm.

And now humans are at the end of the middle section of the Orion spiral arm, separated from the Perseus spiral arm by a vast void of space with extremely sparse stars.

The location shown in the star map is right opposite and can be seen by human telescopes, but it cannot be directly crossed because the distance between the stars is too far.

Yes, there are stars even between the spiral arms. Those stars, like other stars in the Milky Way, are bound by the gravity of the galactic center and rotate around the center of the Milky Way.

However, the stars between the spiral arms are not as dense as those in the spiral arm range. They mostly exist as single star systems, surrounded by vast void, with no village in front and no shop behind.

Therefore, humans must find a place with more stars.

It is impossible to turn around and head towards the center of the Milky Way, because in today's human understanding, that direction is the battlefield of the sixth-level civilization.

So where do we go?
The humans who were originally planning to set sail deployed various instruments and equipment, especially various telescopes for astronomical observations, and tried to compare actual observations with the Milky Way star map stored in the database to find the star path that might cross the spiral arm.

Yes, the Star Road, the star road paved with stars.

Most humans sail in the galactic disk, which has a certain impact on observation. For example, from the human perspective, we cannot see the entire Milky Way. We can only see a dense cluster of stars that is large in the middle and small on both sides. As for the entire galactic disk that people usually see, those are all images of the Milky Way synthesized by computers after humans measure the distances and positions of many stars. In fact, humans do not have a bird's-eye view of the Milky Way.

There is a feeling that I don’t know the true appearance of Mount Lu because I am already in it.

In this case, it is not difficult for humans to find the connection between the two spiral arms where there are more stars.

It can be said that there are stars everywhere you look, the only difference is their number, thickness and thinness.

Therefore, in order to find a feasible star route, humans decided to send out more probes and exploration spacecraft, and let them fly up and down the Milky Way disk to provide humans with a bird's-eye view at a certain angle.

Of course this is not easy. After all, although the Milky Way is a flat, hammer-shaped galaxy, its galactic disk is still very thick.

Take the center of the Milky Way for example, the thickness there is at least 12,000 light years, and the thickness of the solar system is about 6,000 light years. The thickness becomes thinner as you go out, and the thickness of the Milky Way disk is about 5,000 light years where humans are now. Of course, humans are not at the center, which is one of the reasons why the plan to launch probes in the upward and downward directions is feasible.

This is due to the choice of navigation routes by humans. In order to avoid encountering other civilizations, humans generally choose to travel along the upper end of the Milky Way and star routes where the stars are not very dense.

Perhaps humans were lucky enough, and after combining multiple aspects of detection and observation, they soon discovered a possible route.

That is about 2,000 light years away from where humans are today, and the direction is exactly in the direction humans are sailing in today, belonging to the middle and end of the Orion spiral arm. After years of observation, it was found that there are some sparse stars between the two spiral arms at that location. It is the most likely place for the Orion spiral arm and the Perseus spiral arm to pass through, and it is also the place with the most stars between the two spiral arms. It can be said to be the fuzzy connection point of the two spiral arms.

If it is really passable there, then the route that humans need to take to reach their destination is probably in the shape of a "匚".

If the void between the spiral arms is regarded as a river, then it would take humans two thousand light years to reach the ferry from their current location. Taking into account the journey of turning back and crossing the spiral arms, the total journey would be eight thousand light years.

Eight thousand light years! In the past, humans would not even dare to think about it. Even a level three civilization would have to travel non-stop for 16,000 years. Of course, it is impossible for a level three civilization to cross that distance because the distance limit between stars blocks the possibility of a level three civilization crossing that distance.

The primary stage of the fourth-level civilization cannot be crossed, because the navigation technology of the primary stage of the fourth-level civilization can only reach the speed of light, that is, 1 times the speed of light. After a major breakthrough in the grand unified force field, it will have the ability to navigate at a warp speed of 10.079 times the speed of light, which is the intermediate stage of the fourth-level civilization.

Of course, humans don’t know this yet. After all, humans have mastered the 10.079 speed of light warp technology from the very beginning. Therefore, the entire human civilization now believes that as long as they enter the fourth level civilization, they can directly possess such navigation technology!

Traveling at ten times the speed of light would take 800 years, but this is just an ideal situation. It is impossible to travel at full speed, that is unrealistic.

Not to mention whether the warp engine can withstand the pressure, the energy resources stored in each ship are not enough to support it, and they need to be replenished midway.

Warp speed sailing is different from conventional power sailing. Conventional power sailing can also shut down the propulsion after accelerating to a certain relative speed value, allowing the ship to enter a uniform motion state. But warp speed sailing cannot. If a ship wants to maintain the speed of light/superluminal warp speed, it must ensure that the warp engine is always working.

Once the warp drive is shut down, the ship will exit warp mode.

This is easy to understand. It is due to different navigation technologies, so the actual navigation time is much longer than the theoretical time.

Having said that, after discovering this possible star road, human civilization did not hesitate, but chose to go directly to the distant "ferry" on the star road to take a good look there to see whether this star road is really feasible.

Anyway, it is heading away from the battlefield of level six civilization, so humans have to go there anyway, so naturally they don’t hesitate.

The great fleet, led by a planetary-class ship and a large number of spaceships from affiliated civilizations, sank into the void like a big fish leading a school of small fish.

With the current antimatter reserves of the human fleet, they can travel a maximum of 500 light years at a time. After that, as long as there are resources to continue producing and replenishing antimatter stocks, they can continue on their way. This is also the reason why humans feel they can cross the spiral arm.

As long as the distance between stars does not exceed 500 light years, humans have the confidence to cross the spiral arms safely.

The Orion Arm is too dangerous, it would be better to go to the Perseus Arm... Many humans thought so after setting out on the star journey.

(End of this chapter)