Humanity is missing, luckily I have billions of clones.

Chapter 172 This is the Universe

At this moment, the brightness of the sun seen by Li Qingsong is still about 4 times the brightest brightness of Venus seen from the earth.

It is still so bright and so dazzling.

After watching the sun rise, Li Qingsong turned around and looked at the journey ahead again.

According to the gravitational boundary of the solar system, the Oort Cloud is about 1 light-year away from the sun. Although Li Qingsong has been sailing for so long, he has only traveled one-fifth of the territory of the solar system.

The vastness and immensity of the universe makes people feel despair.

But looking at the many spaceships under his command and feeling the hundreds of millions of clones who maintained a connection with his consciousness, Li Qingsong did not feel any despair in his heart, only determination.

He knew that as long as he kept going, he would reach his goal.

After sailing for a while, Li Qingsong finally made a slightly different discovery.

The numerous unmanned exploration spacecraft and satellites scattered around the fleet finally found the first macroscopic celestial body.

It is a rather large celestial body, with a maximum length of 78 kilometers and a maximum width of 22 kilometers.

It is gray-black in color as a whole, and it just floats quietly in space.

There was no doubt that this was a star that had never been discovered before, and it was very likely the target he was looking for.

A true Oort Cloud object.

Li Qingsong suppressed his excitement and decisively dispatched a large scientific research vessel to leave the fleet. He then tried his best to slow down. When the speed relative to the celestial body was zero, he started reverse acceleration and chased after it.

It took several years, and the main fleet finally landed on it after sailing about 2.5 trillion kilometers.

Because the distance is too far and the communication delay is too long, Li Qingsong basically has no way to exert much control over this place.

But it doesn’t matter, intelligent AI can complete that series of scientific research processes on behalf of Li Qingsong.

So, after leaving behind a lot of detection equipment here, the research vessel, carrying about 200 tons of specially mined specimens, accelerated again and chased after the main fleet.

By the time the research vessel returned to the main fleet, the main fleet had already traveled trillions of kilometers again and had truly reached the gravitational boundary of the solar system.

During this journey of trillions of kilometers, although Li Qingsong maintained a large-scale search and scan, he was unable to discover any macroscopic celestial bodies.

It was not until this moment when they were really close to the gravitational boundary of the solar system that Li Qingsong finally found another one.

Compared with the previous one, this star is much smaller, with the longest part being only 200 meters.

Without hesitation, Li Qingsong sent out another research vessel.

However, it will take several years for the research vessel to complete a series of processes, including deceleration - acceleration - deceleration for landing - acceleration to catch up with the main fleet - deceleration to merge into the main fleet.

Through observation through a remote telescope, Li Qingsong saw that this smaller star looked similar to the large star discovered before and had a similar structure.

This meant that the specimens from the larger asteroid were also of crucial significance for this particular asteroid. The clones within the main fleet carefully collected the hard-earned 200 tons of specimens, placing them in various laboratories. Combining this with the data gathered from the initial field survey, they immediately began observation and research.

Li Qingsong noticed that the material making up this star was rather fluffy. Unlike ordinary rocky planets, which are made of thick rock, it was more like a sponge, with a sparse and porous interior.

Its density is only 0.5 grams per cubic centimeter, only half that of water.

It is mainly composed of some substances such as water ice, dust, carbon dioxide, and carbon monoxide, but the connection between them is not close.

Looking at these specimens and the asteroid in the distance that is only 200 meters in size, floating alone in the vast space, with no macroscopic objects within billions of kilometers, Li Qingsong's heart is filled with emotion.

It is very likely that this asteroid migrated here in the early days of the formation of the solar system and has stayed here quietly for billions of years.

The distance from here to the sun is about 1 light-year, or about 9.4 trillion kilometers.

This is the true boundary of the solar system, no matter how you look at it. Because beyond this point, it is unlikely that there will be any stars still under the control of the sun's gravity and revolving around it.

Yes, even at such a great distance, this asteroid still orbits the sun.

As seen from here, the Sun's brightness has dimmed to about magnitude -2.74.

While this is much dimmer than before, it's still comparable to the brightest Jupiter seen from Earth.

Looking across the entire sky, the sun is still the brightest star.

However... there is no essential difference between it and the other stars.

Although it was bright, it was not too bright. It just blended into the myriad stars and no longer had any special features.

But even so, its gravity still controls all the celestial bodies here. Everything here must revolve around it.

Just like this asteroid now.

Its orbital speed relative to the sun is only about 300 meters per second. At this speed, it takes about 3.5 million years to orbit the sun.

Since its birth, it has only revolved around the star a dozen times.

The vastness and magnificence of the solar system, the breadth and infinity of the universe and the starry sky came upon him in such a way that enveloped Li Qingsong's entire mind.

Looking at the asteroid, Li Qingsong sighed silently in his heart: "This is the solar system, this is the universe..."

During these years, countless stars exploded, turning into brilliant fireworks and disappearing from the universe. Countless stars were born from interstellar dust, igniting core fusion, blowing away the dust disks around them with strong radiation, and spreading light into the universe.

All the changes in the outside world seem to have no effect on this asteroid. It just sits there quietly, quietly preserving those specimens from the early formation of the solar system, unaffected by the outside world and without affecting the outside world. Like a superb "refrigerator", it has spanned billions of years and brought these specimens from the early formation of the solar system to the present day.

Now, these specimens born from the early days of the solar system have come into Li Qingsong's hands and are beginning to undergo the most rigorous inspections with the most advanced equipment.

The mysteries of the early formation process of the solar system were thus vividly revealed to Li Qingsong, including the collapse process of the early solar system's nebula, gravitational disturbances, changes in the galaxy when the sun was first "ignited", the influence of Jupiter's gravity, the formation mechanism of the earth, and so on. The answers to many questions emerged in front of Li Qingsong.

(End of this chapter)