Yuan Haochen has been working all day in his office and laboratory to check materials related to Mars exploration.

Obviously, after nearly a century of human exploration of Mars, the number of relevant graphic materials has long been incomparably huge.

"No wonder when I first came up with the idea of finding the place where a meteorite hit, Philip retorted that his actions were tantamount to looking for a needle in a haystack." Yuan Haochen sighed secretly in his heart.

However, Yuan Haochen is certainly not so stupid.

He certainly wouldn't look for a needle in a haystack and look through all of them aimlessly.

There are only two focuses of Yuan Chen's search, one is the Martian ancient volcanic belt, and the other is the giant crater on Mars.

His plan is to first identify the approximate target area, and then compare the rock samples collected by the Mars rover around the target area (the rover can only analyze the samples on Mars, and the samples cannot be brought back to Earth).

If the rock samples in the target area are similar to the main part of the meteorite, they will be listed as key observation targets by the original Chen.

Of course, this method is only possible on Mars, and it is absolutely impossible if it is placed on Earth.

Because, compared with the Earth, the geological activity of Mars is very inactive, and most of its surface landforms were formed in the more active period of ancient times. And the geological structure and material composition of Mars are much more monotonous than those of Earth.

Fortunately, Yuan Haochen has an almost unforgettable memory, which makes him look up the information at an astonishing speed. That's probably what a humanoid computer means.

After nearly a day of fighting, Yuan Haochen had basically locked on the area he thought was most likely - the southeast of Mars, where there were many ancient volcanic belts and a huge number of giant craters.

"Oh my God, why are you still looking at the data?" Goethe Sr. had returned from the archives, and he was surprised to find that Yuan Haochen was still in front of the computer and did not move.

"You have to take a break." Goethe said with concern, "You didn't eat the fruit and snacks I prepared for you." ”

"Don't worry, Goethe, I'm in good spirits." Yuan Haochen could feel that this little old man cared about him.

"You'd better take a break." Goethe the elder was still a little uneasy, "and then look at the graphic materials I brought back from the archives." “

"Oh, that's a lot of information!" Yuan Haochen had also noticed that on the information cart parked next to Goethe, there were stacks of old graphic materials like a hill.

Yuan Haochen stopped what he was doing, left his seat, picked up a fruit platter prepared for him by old Goethe, and walked towards the information cart while tasting it.

"I say, Goethe, the fruit tastes good!" Yuan Haochen praised that the food in the underground base was good, but it was rare to see such fresh fruits.

"Of course, John used to like it very much." Old Goethe had a slight smug smile on his face.

"The other scientists made a big mistake by not choosing you to be an assistant secretary."

"By the way, did Amanda say anything?" Yuan Haochen seemed to remember something and continued to ask.

"Amanda heard that you were going to look up the data in the lab, and although her face was unhappy, she didn't say anything." Goethe the Elder reminisced for a moment, then continued, "Oh, Miss Amanda didn't seem to be in a good mood at the time, she seemed to be still haunted by not being able to take part in the study of dark matter. ”

"That's for sure, no one wants to pass by the greatest scientific discoveries of the 21st century." Amanda's situation, Yuan Haochen had expected it a long time ago.

"But, I don't think you think you think you care." Old Goethe asked, somewhat confused.

Actually, Frank has a point, the study of dark matter must be a protracted work. It's important, but I don't want to spend most of my life on it. ”

"You're such a thoughtful young man." When the old Goethe heard this, he smiled and gave a thumbs up. "Thank you for the compliment, let's see what treasures are stored in the archives." Yuan Haochen has always had his own ideas and clear goals, so he really doesn't care so much about this.

"Okay, I'll help you sort it out briefly." The elder Goethe's movements were slow, but he was very attentive and busy.

"Oh~, there are still some materials taken by NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration) when it landed on Mars." Yuan Haochen's eyes lit up and said.

"But the information is too rough and has not been sorted out at all."

"According to the archives, these materials were requested from NASA by the IEA organization after the failure of the Mars landing program." Old Goethe thought for a moment and added to Yuan Haochen.

Yuan Haochen nodded knowingly, and then began to read it carefully.

More than ten years have passed, and these materials have become very messy, and perhaps no one has seriously sorted out these materials at all.

However, this is not in line with the IEA's (Interstellar Exploration Alliance) style of conduct and management.

Of all the materials that Yuan has consulted in the past, any scientific research project, regardless of its size or importance, will be classified and archived in great detail by the IEA organization.

Not to mention such an important project as the Mars landing!

"Goethe, is all the relevant information here?" After Yuan Haochen's eyes swept around the data cart, he asked suspiciously, "Why do I feel that these materials are so confusing?" ”

"That's right, Hao Chen, I just know the ins and outs of this matter," Goethe said with a serious expression on his face.

"That's great, tell me about it." Yuan Haochen picked up the fruit plate, patted his buttocks and sat on the sofa to feast, while listening to the old Goethe's narration with great interest.

The unexpected failure of NASA's Mars landing program caused an uproar in the entire scientific community, and people all over the world talked about it.

At that time, it was a critical stage in the new round of the US government election campaign, and the Mars landing plan, which had been carefully prepared for many years but failed unexpectedly, was denounced by many political groups and popular organizations as a radical project that cost people and money, and was questioned by people from all walks of life.

In such a desperate situation, NASA hastily threw the relevant materials to the IEA, and the IEA was obviously not satisfied with the crude materials, so they did not pay much attention to them, and only briefly sealed them in the archives.

Because the Mars landing plan is of great significance, the IEA organization also asked NASA again for relevant information, but NASA prevaricated, and after many urgings to no avail, the matter was over.

"I see," Yuan Haochen said thoughtfully.

Despite this, Yuan and Goethe spent nearly two days analyzing and sorting out these complicated materials.

Judging from the photos taken by the ultra-high-definition probe of the "Mars II" spacecraft, Mars is basically a desert, with sand dunes and gravel all over the surface, and the terrain contrast between the northern and southern hemispheres is extremely strong:

To the north is a lava-filled lowland, and to the south is an ancient highland full of craters, separated by a pronounced sloping topography;

The volcanic terrain is interspersed throughout the southern part of Mars, during which there are also numerous canyons, and the north and south poles of Mars are covered with a polar crown composed of dry ice and water ice all year round;

For this vast amount of graphic information, Yuan Haochen's main focus is naturally on the ancient, crater-filled highlands in the south of Mars.

In the process of checking, Yuan Haochen unexpectedly found that the original planned landing site of NASA's Mars landing operation was near an ancient crater in the south of Mars.

However, in the end, due to a violent sandstorm, NASA abandoned the landing plan, so there is no valuable follow-up information.

After quickly browsing through these high-definition images, Yuan Haochen silently closed his eyes.

Soon, all the image information he had seen was connected in his mind in a very orderly manner, and a rough model of the Martian landform structure was presented in Yuan Chen's mind.

"Strange, why is there a lack of image information in a part of the area?" Yuan Haochen did not open his eyes immediately, but frowned and repeatedly confirmed and retrieved.

When he compared the map of Mars in his mind with the information he had searched and browsed a few days ago, he was surprised to find that some of the image information taken by the "Mars II" spacecraft before it was planned to land was indeed missing.

Moreover, the missing part of the image is the area where the unmanned spacecraft launched by the Mars II spacecraft to the surface of Mars to collect boulder samples landed.

This shouldn't be just a coincidence, right?

(To be continued)