In the following week, a "Three-Body Problem" craze began to be widely popular in the world, and the box office of the "Three-Body Problem" movie also climbed with this sudden craze.

People talk about the thrilling sci-fi scenes in the movies and the dreamlike experience of a virtual reality theater.

Under the guidance of public opinion in various countries, intentionally or unintentionally, the discussion on the good and evil of extraterrestrial civilizations has also risen to a new level.

Penguin even conducted a survey for this purpose, and 82.7% of people believe that human beings must be wary of extraterrestrial civilizations, and only less than 10% believe that extraterrestrial civilizations should be well-intentioned, and the rest belong to those who have a neutral attitude.

Chen Xin is naturally happy to see it come true, the most important role of the movie "Three-Body Problem" is to set off a wave of thought in human society to reflect on the sense of expectation of extraterrestrial civilizations, although this trend of thought may still seem very immature to the intelligent civilization outside the solar system, but the road is always step by step, with such mental preparation, the future human beings will not be caught off guard when they really encounter extraterrestrial civilizations.

The global popularity of "The Three-Body Problem" lasted for three months, and the screening of virtual reality theaters lasted for nearly half a year, and virtual reality theaters in cities such as Beijing and Shanghai have even become one of the must-see attractions for foreign tourists.

Even those who have watched "The Three-Body Problem" on the 3D screen are equally shocked and stunned after experiencing the virtual reality theater.

Everyone who came out of the VR theater was raving about the experience, believing that the two hundred dollars were worth the ticket price.

In the end, the global box office of the first film version of "The Three-Body Problem" exceeded 10 billion US dollars, of which China alone contributed nearly 3 billion US dollars, the box office in North America was basically the same as that of China, and the remaining Europe and Japan contributed 4 billion US dollars at the box office.

It's a carnival for moviegoers around the world.

Many people are prophesying. With the popularity of virtual reality theaters, the box office of the second part of "The Three-Body Problem" is likely to set an unattainable record.

But Chen Xin knows that it may be difficult for the public to have the opportunity to see the second part of "The Three-Body Problem" released in a short period of time.

Because in the next few years, the eyes of everyone on the earth will probably be focused on the impending catastrophe.

……

October 23, 2013.

Not long after the news that the global box office of "The Three-Body Problem" exceeded 10 billion, an unconfirmed news suddenly circulated on the Internet.

"The Mathilde asteroid is heading towards Earth, and all of humanity is on the verge of extinction. ”

This news did not appear in any media though. But it is widely circulated on the Internet.

The cause of the incident has to start from the beginning.

As early as the early stage of the release of "The Three-Body Problem", some rumors about aliens coming to Earth and mankind facing the end of the world began to appear on the Internet.

This rumor originated from a post in the 2012 Tieba that not only predicted that humanity was about to face a catastrophe, but also linked the military and political actions of various countries in the past year or two, saying that the five permanent members of the United Nations have united and are preparing for the coming end of the world.

However, most netizens did not take this rumor seriously.

After all, a year ago, there were still many people who swore that we humans were about to face the end of the world.

Because according to the prophecy of the Mayan calendar. The world we live in has five cycles of destruction and rebirth - each of which is the so-called "solar age".

According to this legend, we are now in the fourth solar age, and around 2012 will be the beginning of the fifth solar age.

Because of the huge business opportunities implied by this prophecy, it was widely publicized by the media and film companies, and gave birth to famous disaster films such as "2012".

Even the 2012 post bar was established because of this movie.

After 2012, the discussion of the end of the world gradually subsided, but "The Three-Body Problem" was released. Discussions about the end of the world and about aliens are hot on the Internet again, although most people don't believe it very much. For some reason, the content in this post has gradually spread in post bars, forums, Weibo, and even WeChat's circle of friends.

In less than a month, this post even appeared in English, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Spanish and Portuguese and other Chinese versions, and also circulated on foreign networks.

Just when everyone thought it was just another wolf joke, a message from Iceland suddenly caught the attention of netizens.

An astronomer named George Brooke posted on a forum of astronomy enthusiasts that he had observed an asteroid named Mathilde changing its orbit for unknown reasons. Rushed out of the asteroid belt. According to calculations, the asteroid will collide with Earth in three years.

At first, the news was only circulating in the circle of astronomy enthusiasts.

After all, there is not much news about the possibility of an asteroid hitting the Earth every year, not to mention that this is just a prediction by an ordinary astronomer, and has not yet been officially confirmed.

But what happened next was beyond everyone's expectations.

George Brooke kept posting his observations on that post. The correlation number jù was quickly confirmed by astronomy enthusiasts around the world.

The news quickly spread to the Internet, attracting widespread attention from netizens.

But most people still don't believe it, after all, there is no official news yet.

At this time, the media of various countries could not sit still, and they began to consult some professional astronomical observation institutions.

However, most of these astronomical institutions are vague and ambiguous about the media's consultations.

However, some astronomers privately confirmed the credibility of the information to the media.

And with the release of a number of civilian observation reports, more and more evidence shows that the Mathilde asteroid will pose a huge threat to the earth.

With widespread media coverage, information about the asteroid Mathilde suddenly became a hot topic of global attention.

The apocalypse, a joke-like topic, seems to be gradually becoming a reality.

In particular, when a reporter from the New York Times asked the White House press secretary at a White House press conference on September 25 to verify the authenticity of the news, the White House press secretary did not directly deny it, but asked the reporter to wait for the latest official news.

Just four hours later, the U.S. National Space Administration, the China National Space Administration, ESA, and the Russian Federal Space Agency announced on their official websites that they would hold joint press conferences at 8 a.m. GMT in BJ, Paris, Moscow, and Washington, D.C.

The news came out and it became a global sensation. (To be continued......)