On the ninth day after the launch of Tomorrow, all the equipment, instruments and rover were deployed, and Tomorrow completed its mission and almost returned to Earth.

"Lu Lu, how is the Mars exploration going, what are the clues?"

"There is a little situation, the rover is drilling into the ground to check the situation, but it has been too long, most elements in nature have decayed in 4 billion years, and there is no guarantee that it can find any clear clues."

Lu Yi, who was busy and took the time to video with Zhang Qing and them, and by the way, Lu Yi, who confirmed the progress of the space gravitational wave project, gave a general overview of the Mars exploration, and then asked: "Tomorrow has entered a deceleration link in space, and it will return to Earth in about 7 hours, how is our gravitational wave observatory?" ”

"I confirmed with the manufacturer that the space station docking technology will be used to dock and assemble the gravitational wave observatory, and if it doesn't work, then add a space capsule to the big fat girl and send people to space for manual assembly."

Zhang Qing replied simply, looking at Lu Yi's somewhat tired expression on the screen, and said: "You deal with the Mars exploration first, I will follow up on the gravitational wave project here, I don't always have to worry about it, I didn't see you so interested in gravitational wave research when I was in school before, otherwise it would have been Dr. Lu a long time ago." ”

"Hey, it's not interesting to go through the old accounts, if you don't have me, you would have gone to teach, how can you still have the prestige of Professor Zhang now."

Lu Yi rolled his eyes, he really thought that he was not serious in school back then, and if he was not serious and not interested, he would not have chosen the physics major of neuropathy, this was not a limited talent at that time.

"Yes, it's Professor Lu who is mighty, and the little woman has conceded."

Zhang Qing didn't argue with Lu Yi, and said: "I won't talk to you, I'll go to dinner with Xiaomeng, don't be so busy, take a good rest when you have time." ”

is different from the previous controllable nuclear fusion research, at that time, Zhang Qing and Lin Meng were supervising by the side, or Zhang Qing and Lin Meng Lu Yi were more restrained, and they would not say that they were so busy that day and night were reversed.

Now that he is alone on the side of the Mars exploration plan, no one can take care of him, and he is already surfing to his heart's content, wishing that he was busy for twenty hours out of twenty hours.

"Commander Lu, we found a fossil in the No. 3 coal mine." Not long after hanging up the video with Zhang Qing, Lu Yi reached out and rubbed his eyebrows, and Professor Su, who was also tired, came over to report.

"Fossils? Show me the data! ”

Hearing the word fossil, Lu Yi suddenly came to his senses, it has been almost 6 days since the first rover was deployed, and no valuable information has been found in the coal mines in the equatorial region.

More than a dozen times in a row through the surface detection instrument, combined with remote sensing data to analyze the area where there may be valuable clues, the rover went into the ground and found no valuable information, the state of the entire exploration team in the past few days has been a little low.

"This Commander Lu, shouldn't you rest first, you haven't rested for almost 19 hours in a row." Seeing that Lu Yi was going to look at the fossil data now, Professor Su hesitated and said.

"Do you think I'm asleep right now?"

Lu Yi replied, reached out and patted Professor Su, who was 20 years older than him, on the shoulder, and said, "If you feel tired, go and rest first, don't worry about me or anything, I'm still young and different from you." ”

“......”

The corners of Professor Su's mouth, who was despised by age, twitched, dispelled the idea of resting in his heart, and explained: "This fossil was found in the stratum 960.2 meters above the surface, and it took 9 hours for the rover to get there through a fissure in the ground and find this fossil, and the life on this fossil is very strange. ”

"Weird?"

"Yes, we can't tell if it's a plant or an animal."

Professor Su told Lu Yi about the general situation, and the two came to the control area of the Mars rover.

"I think this is a plant, since it is a carbon-based life, if it were an animal, it would not be possible to have so much plant crude fiber!"

"If it's a plant, what are these bones on it, these obvious mouths, these obvious 5 legs, and these two upper limbs?"

"Those 5 legs are tree roots!"

"Have you ever seen the roots of a tree wear shoes?"

As soon as Lu Yi came to the console, the sound of heated debate echoed in the space, and it was obvious that the sudden fossil had divided the people of the Mars exploration program into two groups, and both sides represented different points of view.

"Show me what weird creatures make everyone so excited......"

"Commander Lu!"

"Land Commander ......"

Lu Yi walked in and looked at the big screen and said, and the people who were arguing also quieted down.

The fossil photos taken by the rover's high-definition camera show traces that are 2.6 meters long and about 40 centimeters in diameter.

The most strange thing is that I don't know whether the head or the feet are a canopy-like tissue, and the other end is five "legs" between 50 and 70 in length, but the marks at the end of these five legs are a little blurred.

In addition to the strange five legs, the fossil life also has two symmetrical limbs 45 centimeters long, and a narrow git of about 15 centimeters long and 2.8 centimeters wide can be clearly seen through the bones of the torso.

"Commander Lu, this is a report on the elemental composition of this fossil, through the restoration of the data of elemental decay, we can determine the elemental composition of the body of this fossil before its death, and the carbon content is very large, between 48 and 50 percent."

The assistant took a report to Lu Yi and said depressedly: "With such a large carbon content, it is almost certain that it is a plant, and at the same time, the "canopy" on the fossil and the coarse fiber traces on the body from the crown to the roots also confirm that it is a plant.

It's just that the above "bones" with high calcium content, as well as the two symmetrical branches of these five "legs", including this mouth, are all characteristics of animals. ”

"Just heard you guys talk about shoes?"

Lu Yi took this elemental analysis report and read it carefully, through the half-life characteristics of the elements, the information that a fossil can reveal is not only the traces on the fossil and the shape of life.

By measuring the existing elemental composition and then extrapolating the elemental half-life backwards, it is almost possible to determine the approximate elemental distribution of life on fossils during their lifetimes.

"The blurred mass on the foot is an 89 percent probability that it is made of plastic fibers, so we think it's a shoe.

If this is really a plastic shoe, then the life on this fossil is almost certainly a Martian, or a pet raised by a Martian. ”

Just now I said that the roots of the tree should wear shoes, and the people who think that this is an animal are also a little incredulous, and said in a tangled way: "From the biological evolution process of our earth, animals and plants have differentiated into two completely different directions from the beginning, and there is a solid barrier between animals and plants, and it is impossible for animals to evolve into plants, and plants cannot evolve into animals.

Therefore, not only the crude fibers and canopy of plants, but also the bone structure of animals, the physiological characteristics of mouths, hands and feet, have subverted our understanding of carbon-based life.

Even plants and animals are acceptable, after all, the evolution of Martian creatures may not be the same as that of our Earth.

But it feels ridiculous to think that it could be a Martian, an intelligent race that created a technological civilization, could it be that it has a fibrous brain under the canopy? ”