Earth Era - Chapter 27: A Hint of Discovery

Chapter 27: A Hint of Discovery

Upon hearing Zhao Hua’s question, the thin middle-aged man paused for a moment before replying, “Theoretically speaking… it should be possible, but we haven’t tried it before, and I’m not very clear on these matters. But you should know one thing, and that is light interference. The Earth has a very thick atmosphere; clouds, air flow, and even uneven water content in certain places of the atmosphere can all affect light. In space, there are sunspot activities, as well as space dust, comets, etc., which can all cause changes in sunlight. A precision of one-millionth is too high, I’m not sure about that…the real universe environment is different from the laboratory environment, it is very complicated.”

Zhao Huasheng nodded thoughtfully, “Theoretically it can be done, but have you guys really tried it?”

“Yes,” the middle-aged man with a thin build nodded.

Zhao Huasheng left the factory and came to the flat mountainside. This was the highest peak within a hundred-mile radius, yet human power was ultimately manifested here, with the top of the mountain flattened and various huge buildings rising from the ground. All supplies here had to be delivered by airplanes from outside, and even communication with the outside world had to be done through satellites. In such a place that was almost isolated from the world, the giant solar telescope representing human eyes was firmly gazing at the sun.

In the cold air, Zhao Huasheng raised her head and directed her gaze towards the towering telescope over twenty meters high. Numerous machinery were supporting its operation, and the earth’s rotation slightly changed its orientation. As long as it was daytime, it would always point towards the sun until the sun set.

The air in the sky was incomparably pure, so pure that it felt like it was washing one’s eyes. There were no clouds in the sky either. Zhao Huasheng had never felt the world she was seeing to be so clear.

Even at this time in the afternoon, Zhao Huasheng could already see a few stars in the sky.

The light from the sun had crossed the immense distance of 150 million kilometers, passing through the pure air here. Along with bringing light and warmth, they also brought some hidden messages from the sun.

Zhao Huasheng knew that these rays were very ancient, even older than the entire history of mankind. Photons are produced in the core of the sun’s fusion, with a diameter of about 1.4 million kilometers and a radius of 700,000 kilometers. That is to say, photons need to travel up to 700,000 kilometers from the core of the sun to its surface.

The speed of light in a vacuum is 300,000 kilometers per second. According to common sense, it should only take a little more than two seconds to complete this journey. But this is not the case in reality. The environment inside the sun is very special. The material density there is too high, and the temperature is too high. After photons are produced, they are constantly reflected and collided within the sun, gradually approaching the sun’s surface.

Usually, this time scale is 15 million years. Even if we start counting from the ancient apes, the history of mankind is no more than a few million years.

In other words, the sunlight that we can see right now was actually produced inside the sun long before humans even existed. It took 15 million years to reach the surface of the sun and then 8 minutes to travel to Earth and enter our eyes to be perceived.

This is an epic story and a great journey.

Zhao Huasheng looked at this huge telescope and was in deep thought.

When he saw this telescope and knew that Li Qi had the right to use it, something seemed to be connected in Zhao Huasheng’s heart, but it was a vague feeling and he couldn’t make it out clearly.

“Do I have the authority to use this telescope?” Zhao Huasheng asked Meng Zhuo.

“Yes,” Meng Zhuo nodded, “but I need to seek permission from the research director first. The command to grant you the authority to use the telescope will be sent here from the research department.”

“Alright, I’ll go do that now,” Zhao Huasheng said.

Meng Zhuo then took out the instrument, which looked like a phone, and said a few words in a low voice. After a moment, he said, “Alright, now you have the authority to use this telescope. You can use it freely and without restriction, and if you think it’s necessary, I’ll even allow you to destroy it.”

Zhao Huasheng smiled bitterly and turned back into the factory. The thin middle-aged man with glasses came up to him and said, in a slightly strange, dark tone: “Okay, from now on, this telescope is yours.”

All the original observation tasks were suspended, and the researchers were temporarily idle. They whispered to each other in their respective positions, seeming to guess Zhao Huasheng’s identity.

Ignoring these rumors, Zhao Huasheng went straight to the operator and said, “Hello, please help me adjust the resolution of the telescope to the highest and aim at… uh, just aim here.”

Zhao Huasheng randomly pointed at a place on the sun model with his hand.

The operator replied and tapped the keyboard in front of him, adjusting the parameters of the telescope. Zhao Huasheng then heard a very faint mechanical rotation sound that only lasted for a moment before it stopped, and then the image of the sun on the big screen quickly enlarged, as if it was rapidly approaching.

Zhao Huasheng saw the surging plasma waves on the sun, saw the sunspots bound by the strong magnetic field, like a stargate, and saw many things on the surface of the sun. But these things were macroscopic; they didn’t look big, but in fact they were bigger than a dozen Earths added together.

The telescope’s line of sight continued to quickly penetrate, and the surging plasma waves disappeared, the huge sunspots also disappeared, and a blurred image of dark red appeared in front of him.

The operator said, “This is actually a photo of the photosphere. The photosphere is the innermost layer of the sun’s atmosphere, and we can only see this far; what’s inside we can’t see.”

Zhao Huasheng nodded and did not explain his identity as an astrophysicist but asked, “Is this the highest resolution now? What is the resolution of the picture?”

“Three kilometers per pixel, the whole picture is about three thousand by three thousand, which is a total of nine million square kilometers of the solar surface image,” the operator said.

“Mm, start recording the brightness changes at the pixel point at coordinates 926, 1453 from this moment on,” Zhao Huasheng said.

This coordinate point was selected randomly by Zhao Huasheng. Zhao Huasheng just wanted to test the performance of the telescope and hadn’t expected to observe anything from there.

“Okay,” the operator agreed and manipulated the keyboard. A minute later, Zhao Huasheng said, “Print the result to me.”

A piece of paper soon arrived in Zhao Huasheng’s hand. On this piece of paper, the operator represented the luminosity of the pixel with a graph as it changed over time.

The surface of the sun was very unstable, so naturally the luminosity of a certain place would change over time. This was a change that happened almost at random, so it was impossible for Zhao Huasheng to see anything from the chart. Zhao Huasheng didn’t expect to get any information from it either. Zhao Huasheng just wanted to confirm his own conjecture.

“What’s the precision?” Zhao Huasheng asked.

“Um…” The operator paused and quickly tapped a few keys on the computer before answering, “It’s about nine hundred and thirty thousandths of a precision.”

“Good, I’m done here. You can start working now,” Zhao Huasheng said as he slipped the paper into his pocket.

The operator gave Zhao Huasheng a slightly puzzled look but didn’t ask what Zhao Huasheng wanted to do. Under the arrangements of the thin middle-aged man, the researchers in the factory returned to work. The Fire God Telescope adjusted its posture, and the image of the hot sun reappeared on the big screen.

“Do you have any conclusions?” Meng Zhuo asked, “Perhaps the scientists in the research department can help you sort it out.”

“I don’t have any conclusions,” Zhao Huasheng shook his head, “I don’t even have any ideas. It’s just that this telescope reminded me of the high-precision light intensity detector Li Qi once installed on the solar environment simulator. I want to see if there is any connection between the two.”

“There might be some connection.” Hearing Zhao Huasheng’s words, Meng Zhuo lost interest in continuing to ask.

“Let’s go; there’s nothing here.” Zhao Huasheng said, “We’ll rest here for the night, and tomorrow we’ll go to the rocket launch site to bid farewell to those brave warriors heading to the sun.”

The middle-aged man with a lean figure said, leading Zhao Huasheng and his group back to the building next to the factory. At night, Zhao Huasheng lay in bed, but he couldn’t fall asleep. There seemed to be two points vaguely connected in his mind, but he couldn’t figure out what it was. He didn’t know when he fell asleep, but perhaps it was because the air here was so good that Zhao Huasheng felt no fatigue when he woke up in the morning. As the sun rose as expected, the Fire God Telescope followed the sun and started another day of work. At this time, Zhao Huasheng got on the helicopter and started his journey to the launch field.