The stars, but they become the gray wind

"You know what? Just yesterday, my research project was an obscure, insignificant scientific project. No one wanted to invest in us except you. And today, my email inbox is about to explode. Besides my colleagues and peers, there are also investment intentions from major research institutions and companies. In the United States alone, no less than 15 companies have extended olive branches to me."

Just as the two were talking in the room, there was a knock on the door and a Monday staff member pushed it open.

"Boss, something happened!"

"what's up?"

"It's that spaceship-like thing near Jupiter. It's moving!"

"And it's heading directly towards Mars!"

"What!" Dave stood up from his chair and pressed the employee's shoulders.

"What's its trajectory and speed?"

"Boss, I know this is hard to believe, but according to our observations, that thing is now leaving Jupiter's second Lagrange point in a straight line and heading towards Mars. Just like what we saw on Earth before, there's no acceleration whatsoever. Suddenly, without warning, it reached over 50% of the speed of light and is heading straight for Mars."

"Based on its current speed and distance from Mars, it will reach Mars in 72 minutes at most."

"Take me to the control center, quick!"

As a scientist and entrepreneur with a background in nuclear physics, Dave Minyue realized that they...humanity may have stood at a critical time node that will determine its own future. Perhaps everything depends on this unprecedented first contact.

.........

"It's really exciting... isn't it?" The purple-haired girl holding a newspaper patted her back as she walked over. The headline on the front page of the newspaper in her hand was:

Humanity is about to make first contact! Observatories around the world have observed massive, unidentified alien structures and spacecraft near Jupiter!

On the park bench where the two were sitting, there was a radio, which was playing this explosive news. At this time, almost all TV stations and all news media were reporting this unprecedented news announced at the emergency meeting of the UN Security Council.

[Our latest news: Rumors of a massive alien structure near Jupiter have been confirmed. Multiple observatories on Earth, along with space observation satellites and telescopes, have confirmed that an unidentified alien spacecraft near Jupiter is accelerating toward Mars. Governments around the world have yet to respond.]

[According to observation data from global observatories, the spacecraft has reached a maximum speed of 50% of the speed of light, and no acceleration process has been observed. Based on the spacecraft's current speed, it will reach Mars in 72 minutes.]

[The UN Security Council is holding an emergency meeting to plan its response to this incident.]

"Zao Chiqi, are you guys ready?"

"Of course, I'm also very curious. What's the situation on your side?" In the slow space on the other side of the stargate, on the spaceship called Wanderer, Zao Chiqi turned around and glanced at his companions on the ship.

"Everyone, are you all ready? I'm getting married!"

"Don't drag your feet. It's just a matter of passing through a door. Look how cocky you are." A glass eel who was also on the boat urged Zao Chiqi, who was so happy that he almost lost himself in joy.

"OK, countdown to passing the wormhole interface: 5, 4, 3, 2, 1! Go through!"

The starry sky outside the ship once again changed from the chaotic edge crystal wall of the slow space to the normal and dark cosmic background. The rover has arrived at Jupiter's second Lagrange point on this side of the solar system.

.........

"Professor! There's movement in that alien structure again!"

"This is the image we just observed. Taking into account the delay due to the speed of light, it happened about 48 minutes ago."

A researcher, holding a tablet, was in a conference room filled with papers flying about. A large group of astrophysicists, cosmologists, aerospace experts, and even mathematicians were arguing non-stop. As the researcher pushed open the door and ran into the meeting room, everyone's voices fell silent. They gathered around the researcher, leaning over to look at the tablet in his hand.

"Something came out of what looks like a wormhole inside the ring."

"This shape... looks like a spaceship?"

"Where is it now?"

"I don't know. After this suspected spaceship emerged from the ring, we observed that the light emitted by the spacecraft suddenly shifted to a blue color, and then it disappeared."

The researchers switched to the next picture, which was the last image recorded by telescopes around the world before the spacecraft disappeared. In the picture, the spacecraft had shown a blue shift visible to the naked eye.

"The light is blue-shifted? It means it's approaching us. And the visible blue-shift of the light means... the speed at which it's approaching us is probably... quite close to the speed of light!"

Everyone present gasped in shock. As scientists in related fields, they knew how much energy would be required for an object of this size and mass to reach near or even the speed of light. The speed demonstrated by this spacecraft alone made even the most advanced spacecraft of mankind to date look as ridiculous as a child's toy.

"Professors! Oh no! The missing spaceship has reappeared!"

At this moment, another breathless researcher burst open the door and reported to the silent crowd in the conference room.

"Where did it appear? Mars?"

"No...it appears...in the 500-kilometer low Earth orbit...from where we are, we can just look outside and see it."

"What!" All the professors and experts present hurried to the window and opened the curtains. Outside the window, beyond the azure sky above the city, there was a huge metal mountain range towering into the clouds. The Rover's hull was more than 20 kilometers long and stretched across the Earth's low orbit area at an altitude of only 500 kilometers. It was like an endless metal mountain made of color nuclear armor materials hanging high in the sky.

All the scientists present were so shocked that they couldn't even speak.

An aerospace expert specializing in orbital mechanics suddenly realized a problem that seemed to have been overlooked.

"Wait a minute, the relative distance between Jupiter and Earth is 900 million kilometers right now, right?"

"Then even if this thing is traveling at nearly the speed of light, it should still take at least 48 minutes to reach Earth, right?"

"When did the first observation data you just sent come out?"

"Uh... probably less than five minutes ago. To be more precise, it seems the observation data was released four minutes and forty-eight seconds ago? Wait... what do you mean?!"

"This thing is approaching so fast that it's blueshifted. Besides approaching the speed of light, is there another possibility that the speed of light is the only limit of our observation?"

"It took only four minutes and forty-eight seconds to travel 900 million kilometers. But that's 48 light minutes. Light takes 48 minutes to travel, but this thing only took 4.8 minutes!!!"

"So... 10 times the speed of light?"

"And the dramatic blue shift of the light emitted by that spacecraft is most likely... a phenomenon of superluminal movement observed by a third party? Could it be a warp bubble?" The scientists present found it unbelievable. It was an unprecedented and huge discovery, perhaps enough to change the future of mankind.

.........

Compared with the excitement of scientists, senior government officials of various countries are not so happy. A huge alien spaceship as big as a mountain is hovering in the low orbit of the earth. Such a huge mass and volume is parked at such a low orbital altitude and is almost unaffected. This alone means that the technology of alien civilization may be ahead of the earth by countless years, and the satellites of various countries in the low-orbit area can only take emergency avoidance measures to prevent collision with the alien spaceship.

Such a huge alien spacecraft, even if it just stays here and does nothing, is enough to cause unimaginable pressure on the entire human society and government. Just when the nerves of various governments were about to be stretched to the extreme, this alien spacecraft finally sent a communication signal to the earth.

The communication consisted of a short, very brief text sent in hundreds of languages ​​across different regions of the globe.

Hello, Humans!

Chapter 191: The awkward first contact that started with a fall

After passing through the star gate, Zao Chiqi deliberately let the spacecraft stay at the star gate exit on this side of the solar system for about two hours. In addition to leaving a sufficient observation window for humans on Earth, it was also because it had never before allowed a spacecraft to jump so close to a planet in one go.

Due to the enormous energy required to operate the warp engine, if the large amount of Hawking radiation and high-energy particles close to the speed of light accumulated at the front of the warp bubble are not eliminated before they are captured when the spacecraft leaves the warp, it is very likely to cause devastating damage to the destination planet or star itself. Therefore, for safety reasons, both the Glass Eel and the Sky Star's shipboard AI and the super artificial intelligence that manages the entire civilization do not recommend that any manned spacecraft use the warp engine to jump too close to a planet or star, although the warp engines used by both sides can ensure that they can reach the target after leaving the warp bubble. Before the warp, various dangerous factors including Hawking radiation and high-energy particles accumulated outside the warp bubble are eliminated. However, they are nothing more than unmanned ships. For example, in the attack on the black fog of Large Magellan, the unmanned fleet of Sky Star has more than once deliberately not cleared the large amount of high-energy particles and Hawking radiation accumulated in the front end of the warp bubble in the cleanup work of the star system after the long-range attack. At the moment of leaving the warp, they released them in a directed manner, creating large-scale gamma-ray bursts and near-light-speed high-energy particle jets in the galaxy to clear out the remaining power of the black fog in the galaxy.

However, even during those times, it was not necessary to jump the fleet and the spacecraft to such a close distance to the planet at once. Zao Chiqi's short warp voyage this time did set a new record, safely leaving the warp in a low orbit only 500 kilometers from the planet. Although theoretically the spacecraft of Sky Star and Glass Eel Civilization can basically do this, usually no one does it.

"Isn't it too reckless?" Xuan Zhang Wu Ke commented on Zao Chiqi's actions on the Fantasy Light.

"If something goes wrong and the high-energy particles accumulated outside the warp bubble aren't completely cleared away, the planet will be completely destroyed."

"So this guy deliberately stayed in front of the stargate for over two hours, running the spacecraft through thousands of comprehensive self-checks and performing hundreds of millions of simulations for the jump to ensure it was foolproof."

"While the spacecraft was running its self-checking procedures, it also provided humans on Earth with ample windows and time for observation."

"Zao Chiqi is really something. Ever since I met him, he has always been so reckless."

"Never mind. We can just leave Earth to it. As for getting the two of us back home, we'll have to do it ourselves."

On Earth, the unidentified alien spacecraft, still hovering in low orbit, sent its first greeting to humanity. This message, broadcast across the entire spectrum of electromagnetic waves, sparked a global uproar. People began to speculate about the origins of this alien spacecraft, its purpose, and whether it harbored hostility toward humanity.

.........

At the United Nations headquarters in New York, at the Security Council's emergency meeting, a whole team of experts is analyzing the existing information.

"Based on the comparison of the appearance of the spacecraft currently heading towards Mars and the one overhead, it is very likely that they use the same technology. Therefore, we can be sure that these two spacecraft should have been built using the same technological system, or simply came from the same civilization."

"In addition, considering that we observed the light emitted by this spacecraft overhead undergoing a dramatic blue shift visible to the naked eye before disappearing near Jupiter's orbit, it is very likely that it possesses the ability to travel at or above the speed of light. This is because the blue shift of light only occurs when an object approaches the observer's location at a speed extremely close to the speed of light."

"We still have a large number of manned spaceflights and satellites in orbit that are very close to this spacecraft, and here's an image of the spacecraft that they captured up close."

A video began to play on the big screen in the UN Security Council Hall. The video was shot by cameras carried on the spacesuits of two astronauts who were conducting an extravehicular walk on the International Space Station.

At the beginning of the scene, the two astronauts climbed out of the airlock. They fastened the safety ropes on their space suits to the handrails outside the cabin while communicating on the radio channel.

"Hey, Commander, are you sure this thing won't drop any further? We're really too close to its orbit for its size, aren't we?"

"What are the aliens thinking? How should I know? But for now, the distance between the space station and this giant spaceship is still safe for the time being."

"I heard that all satellites in orbit at an altitude of 500 kilometers have taken emergency avoidance measures. If necessary, our space station may also need to perform emergency braking and change orbit."

"The premise is that the spacecraft's orbital altitude suddenly drops..."

"Alright, stop dawdling and set up the instruments quickly. We need to get a closer look at this spacecraft."

"Why was this mission assigned to us? Isn't Pathfinder 6, orbiting at an altitude of 560 kilometers, closer than us?"

"Their ships are responsible for transporting cargo to high orbits and the moon. They don't have the comprehensive scientific research equipment like the International Space Station."

As the camera lens zoomed in, the huge alien spaceship gradually occupied the entire screen.

"Hey, sir, do you think the hull of this ship is a little... shiny?"

"It's definitely too bright. The hull of this spacecraft must be made of some kind of highly reflective material."

"Strange, I don't see any nozzles or anything like that on the spacecraft?"

"Perhaps this spacecraft is not propelled by backward jet attack like ours?"

"As far as I know, there's no metric propulsion system that can propel a spacecraft to sublight speeds. It's very likely that this thing uses some kind of propulsion technology we don't know about."

"Uh, Commander, I received a message from our satellites with detection radars in the higher orbital regions, and they said they can't see this thing on radar!"

"What? They can't see something that big? Is the radar blind, or am I blind?"

"That shouldn't be the case. We've tried it on all the major frequencies used by their existing radars and found that it seems to be invisible to all electromagnetic waves emitted by radar."

"They tried almost every frequency from L-band to Ka-band and found that the spacecraft could only be seen through direct visual observation or observation in the visible light band."

"This spacecraft is practically non-existent on radar."

"You mean... full-band invisibility?"

"Yes, that's exactly what the radar operators on the ground described to me. They said this spacecraft has achieved near-perfect invisibility across all radar frequency bands."

"Karl, what do you think this thing is made of?"

"Anyway, probability is not something we can understand."

"We can't scan its interior. Radar can't detect it, and all current non-destructive scanning methods can't penetrate that terrifyingly reflective outer shell made of who knows what material."

"Calibrating the camera and conventional visible light optical observation instruments, zooming in..."

"It appears to be absolutely smooth."

"Speaking of which, Captain, there is another strange thing."

"I don't see any heat sinks anywhere on this spacecraft, and there's no heat variation between different parts of the spacecraft. Even if its technology is so advanced, it can't possibly violate the laws of thermodynamics, right?"

"Logically, the heat should be higher near the reactor or engine than elsewhere. However, from what I've observed, there's no heat fluctuation at all throughout the spacecraft. The surface temperature seems to be maintained at absolute zero."

"Now that you mention it, it does seem a bit strange. Could this really be a spaceship that defies the laws of physics?"

"Our astronauts have observed this object at close range and have confirmed that its reflectivity is incredibly high, and its surface remains at absolute zero degrees, with absolutely no thermal fluctuations at all."

"This means that the temperature of this object is zero Kelvin. The molecules that make up the substance have no kinetic energy or potential energy, which means that there is no molecular thermal motion in the shell that makes up this object!"

"This is physically impossible."

"As far as we know, the only material with an absolutely smooth surface and no molecular or atomic motion could be something like neutron-degenerate matter."

"Professor, are you saying... this thing might be made of neutron degenerate matter?"

"I can't be sure, but I certainly can't rule it out. After all, it's unimaginable that neutron-degenerate matter could exist in a stable state outside of a neutron star. As far as we know, the only way to keep neutron-degenerate matter stable outside of a neutron star is to maintain extreme pressure and temperature. The energy required to maintain this level of pressure and temperature is enough to easily tear the entire Earth apart."

"If their spacecraft is really made of this material, then with just a flick of the finger, the entire Earth and even the solar system would be literally reduced to ashes."

When the professor in front of the screen said this, he heard the people in the audience swallowing nervously.

"How's things going on Mars?"

"I just received their response 20 minutes ago. They said they would try to have the Ranger, which just returned, approach the alien spacecraft."

.........

"You mean... we're heading towards Mars now?"

Kuznetsov was a little bit incredulous.

"There are about 36 minutes left. We are already halfway through the journey. Our spacecraft is now traveling at 0.5 times the speed of light."

"Also, this thing—your asteroid tug—will probably intersect with us several times when we enter Mars orbit. According to calculations, the closest intersection will be within 12 kilometers."

"Is this... the Ranger?" The Ranger Kuznetsov in the picture, which had undergone extensive modifications to propel the Goldilocks asteroid, looked both unfamiliar and familiar.

"We're going to send you two back."