Chapter 51: Sky Survey
In a small space laboratory, approximately 50 meters long, orbiting Loshen Star, several Clones were meticulously controlling equipment in a zero-gravity environment.
Highly purified silicon dioxide, which had already undergone extensive purification on the surface of Loshen Star, began to melt here once again, undergoing further refinement.
At the same time, special additives, such as certain inorganic salts and alkaline oxides, were also incorporated.
After all procedures were completed, this large piece of glass began to grow in the zero-gravity space.
Without gravity interference and in a high vacuum state, they could grow extremely flat, extremely smooth, without any curvature, and could grow very, very large.
This meant it would possess higher optical performance.
After the initial processing, the next step was more detailed operations, such as grinding and coating.
After more than ten days of busy work, Tom finally produced the first main mirror for a space telescope.
Without delay, Tom immediately removed it and installed it, along with some auxiliary mirrors, into the pre-fabricated mirror tube.
Thus, a space telescope operating in orbit around Loshen Star was completed.
Ignoring the technological level of the other components, purely from the quality of the mirrors, it had already reached the highest level of the Human Civilization’s national era, roughly equivalent to the famous James Webb Space Telescope of that time.
Of course, this did not mean that Tom’s current technical level had reached that extent.
The reason for this was the convenient access to space from Loshen Star.
Here, Tom could directly manufacture and install mirrors in space, unlike Earth where they had to be manufactured on the ground, then cut due to insufficient rocket space, and then reassembled in space, which was incredibly troublesome.
At this moment, Tom’s first space telescope aimed its lens towards Earth.
Light from Earth would be collected by this massive six-meter-diameter lens, allowing Tom to analyze data about Earth from it.
After a period of continuous observation, Tom saw this data.
The performance of this telescope was indeed powerful, and it did collect a lot of information about Earth.
Even with the composition of Earth’s atmosphere, he could obtain clear data from this observation.
It was just...
It was still too rough.
He still couldn’t truly see Earth clearly.
There was no other way; Earth was simply too far, too far from him, a distance of over 15 billion kilometers.
To obtain more detailed information about Earth, or even to directly understand what was happening on Earth, it was impossible with the current level of observation.
"Let’s wait until technology is more advanced later," Tom said helplessly.
Reluctantly, Tom had to temporarily give up on observing Earth and instead focused his attention on another matter.
Search the interstellar space around Loshen Star and find the hidden enemy!
Thus, under the control of an automated program, the first telescope built by Tom began to scan the entire celestial sphere, collecting all information from outer space, attempting to find any anomalies.
This was a very complex and massive task. If relying solely on this one telescope, it would probably take several years to complete.
But it didn’t matter; after this first telescope, Tom quickly manufactured more than ten telescopes of the same specifications, placing them all in orbit around Loshen Star according to a certain geometric structure, each assigned a celestial region, and simultaneously scanning the celestial sphere.
While waiting for the sky survey data, Tom did not neglect other areas.
In the space laboratory and the research base on Loshen Star, a total of 300,000 research Clones were still tirelessly researching new technologies, doing their best to improve their technical level.
Every base and every factory was still operating at full capacity, producing large quantities of war materials, and also verifying the technologies currently in use, providing a foundation for subsequent optimization and improvement.
Time quietly passed.
During this period, more than ten sky survey telescopes observed a large amount of data.
Tom even saw a suspected supernova explosion event outside the Milky Way, as well as many nebulae, galaxies, and massive stars.
Undoubtedly, all this data was very valuable; while it couldn’t immediately improve his technology and theoretical foundation, in the long run, it could greatly expand his horizons and lay the groundwork for future development of fundamental theories.
People on Earth would even specifically launch many large telescopes and probes to observe these events.
But for now, Tom couldn’t afford to pay attention to these things.
He was still fully engaged in production, while also searching for traces of the enemy.
Finally, an unusual signal caught Tom’s attention.
Space Telescope number 3, during its routine sky survey, observed a faint point of light. Further observation indicated that it was a dwarf planet similar to Loshen Star.
A dwarf planet?
Dwarf planets have low mass, small volume, and low luminosity. But since it was still observed by him, it could only mean that it was not far from him.
Otherwise, he wouldn’t be able to see it at all.
At this moment, five of the more than ten space telescopes were diverted and simultaneously aimed at it.
Under precise measurement, Tom determined that its distance from him was only over 40 million kilometers.
"There’s another dwarf planet 40 million kilometers next to Loshen Star? I never knew that before."
Not only did Tom not know, but even Human Civilization at that time didn’t know.
Whether a dwarf planet could be discovered by humans had a certain randomness and element of luck. They were simply too small and too dim.
It was normal that this dwarf planet hadn’t been discovered before.
The presence of a large number of dwarf planets at the edge of the Solar System was also normal.
It is predicted that there might be tens of thousands of dwarf planets beyond the Solar System’s Kuiper Belt and within the Oort Cloud. The number of asteroids and comets is even too vast to estimate.
But the only unusual thing was that Tom discovered some gases around this dwarf planet.
These gases caused the color and wavelength of sunlight to change. It was these changes that indicated the presence of these gases.
It was just... how could a dwarf planet have gas around it?
The gravity of a dwarf planet is too weak to bind these free gases. They would be stripped away completely by interstellar radiation.
Given this, there was only one possibility left.
On this dwarf planet, there was a gas source, continuously replenishing the lost gases.