"Is the drill ready?"

"Ready, the data is proofread, and you can start drilling!"

After the words fell, the people in the spaceship's control center became excited.

At this time, it had been 8 hours since landing in Europa.

During this time, the Exploration Crab has carried out some exploration of Europa's surface environment under the control of the manipulator.

I got a lot of good news.

There is no doubt that there is enough water ice on Europa.

The entire planet is covered by a huge ice shell, and this ice shell is made up of water ice.

The water ice was cut and harvested, and then sent to the spacecraft for defrosting, resulting in fresh water mixed with dust and ash, which was filtered by a high-precision graphene water membrane and sealed in a cup of clean and thorough Europa fresh water.

Although water has been found on Mars, the water obtained in Europa this time is also of great significance to mankind.

The low temperatures of Europa have caused the water on the surface of the body to be almost permanently frozen into ice, and the amount of ice is so huge that it can be used by humans, which is an astonishing amount of water. It's almost the size of the entire Pacific Ocean.

If these ice layers can be intercepted back to Earth, the greenhouse effect of the Earth's gradual warming can be quickly mitigated.

These topics are being discussed everywhere on the Martian base, and this is a planned direction for the benefit of humanity.

When Chen Mengchuan came to the No. 1 remote control center at the edge of Suixing, Zhang Dongyu was directing and arranging the staff to start preparations for drilling.

"Well done, Lao Zhang." Chen Mengchuan smiled and said to Zhang Dongyu.

Zhang Dongyu's old face flushed: "Brother Chuan, don't tease me, I can't stand your praise for this ability." ”

"Haha, doing well is doing well, I heard that this time, you showed your face. Newspapers all over the planet are full of pictures of your conductor. This time you logged in Europa, you are all good, and the credit is for you to remember. Chen Mengchuan said.

"Hey, then I'll thank you Brother Chuan first. Ha ha. ”

"Are you all ready? I think I'm ready to excavate. ”

Chen Mengchuan saw that the spacecraft on the big screen had been firmly fixed on the ice, and the drill equipment was ready. The turbo extraction machine also began to come into working condition.

Zhang Dongyu nodded: "I'm going to dig it, I plan to dig through this layer of ice shell at once, dig directly into the sea under the ice, and find out if there is any life on Europa." ”

"I'll see, you keep doing things."

"Okay, all units are ready, start to enter the excavation process, and strive to clear the customs at one time!" Zhang Dongyu shouted.

"Good!" There was a shout.

The drill in the picture is rapidly drilling, and in a few breaths it begins to sink into the surface of the ice.

The screen quickly switched, and a vertical 3D rendering appeared on the screen, and the green light point represented that the drill bit was driving into the gray-white ice shell.

The speed of the drill bit was much faster than Chen Mengchuan imagined.

The speed of drilling is clearly displayed on the icon, and the speed of 40 centimeters per second is considered very fast.

"Brother Chuan, if it is an ordinary drill bit drilling, cooling and soil discharge is a big problem, but our drilling equipment does not have these problems on Europa, the high-speed rotation of the drilling will quickly drive the ice, and a lot of heat will be generated, which will quickly dissolve the ice, and the extraction machine prepared by the second layer of the drilling will quickly extract the water ice, so we can continue to drill holes far away."

"How far can it be hit, how long is the pipe length of the extractor, it should be clogged, right?" Chen Mengchuan asked.

Zhang Dongyu drew a design drawing and pointed it to Chen Mengchuan.

"Brother Chuan, you see, although the length of the pipeline is only 600 meters, you can rest assured that our high-pressure turbine extractor can keep working non-stop. Moreover, the gravitational device on the drill bit equipment is also multi-layered, and there is no big problem at least 10,000 meters away. Judging from the current speed, it will take some time to drill through these 10,000 meters, and it is estimated that it will take half a day to see good progress. Zhang Dongyu said.

"How thick is the ice shell? Have you confirmed? ”

Zhang Dongyu shook his head: "The current ultrasonic detection instrument, the stability performance is a little poor, the magnetic field of Europa is different from the simulated environment, and now the data needs to be re-calibrated, the initial detection of the ice thickness is 27,000 meters, but this thickness is not the final data, at least there will be a drop of 5,000 meters." ”

Chen Mengchuan was a little surprised: "This is much thicker than expected." ”

"Based on the fact that our latest data report has sufficient parameters to confirm that the Europa ice crust has plate tectonics and subduction activity similar to that of the Earth, the researchers are now optimistic about whether there is life in the subsurface ocean, and they generally believe that there is life underneath the ice crust," Zhang said. ”

"Really?" Chen Mengchuan smiled, which he didn't know.

"They built a model with Ah Chen to show the process of subduction, where one plate slides under another and sinks into the ice shell. This series of simulations can lead to a number of good conclusions, such as the fact that the region of Europa's ice crust expansion is similar to that of the Earth's mid-ocean ridge expansion, which adds another good piece of information to Europa's crustal tectonics. ”

"And now we have a very important piece of information, which is that there is not only one layer of ice shell in Europa."

"And not just one floor?" Chen Mengchuan looked at Zhang Dongyu.

"Yes, there is not just one layer, at least two layers of ice shell, the surface ice sheet is relatively weak, and the convective ice layer below it will be much warmer, and such two layers of ice shell will make Europa inevitably have a plate subduction effect, because as long as the salt content of the two layers of ice shell is different, it can provide the necessary density difference for plate subduction. Now, there is ample data to prove that there is indeed a change in salt content in Europa's ice. Zhang Dongyu's voice was slightly excited.

This is some very important additions, human beings are too far away and unfamiliar with Europa, this field exploration, a large amount of data has been obtained, which has been quickly absorbed and digested by scholars, and deduced one after another very meaningful speculation.

"Already confirmed?" Chen Mengchuan also had a lot of interest.

Zhang Dongyu nodded decisively.

At this time, the excitement in his heart was much more than that of Chen Mengchuan.

Because a large part of the pressure has been on Zhang Dongyu during this period of time, he clearly feels that everyone is watching him.

Although Europa's ability to discover life does not have much to do with how hard he tries, discovering and not discovering life is completely different from the result of his efforts.

Naturally, he wanted to discover life even more.