"That's—asteroid belt?" Zhou Xin confirmed to Atlas suspiciously.

"Uh—if you look at the appearance of those two dark belts, it's very likely that they belong to an asteroid belt or a ring of similar solid matter." The little girl replied with hesitation, "However, the ring that can be seen directly from such a distance must cover a very large area. If the central star is a newly formed star, it is understandable that there is such a huge ring of entities around it. But that star is clearly a mature star, and it stands to reason that even if such a huge ring existed at the beginning, after hundreds of millions of years, it should have already converged into several planets, how could it still maintain a stable ring state. The fact that contradicted the results of the analysis made her a little puzzled.

"The universe is so vast that it is not surprising to see some strange phenomena, and the star system in front of us may be a special case." Dart said casually, "Besides, it's not clear what those two rings are, maybe they are not asteroids or other entities at all, but some other unknown special phenomenon." ”

"That makes sense." Zhou Xin nodded, and then continued, "Since we are all so close to the star system now, then it seems a little redundant for us to make any guesses in the future, just go over and take a look to know what those two rings are." As soon as this sentence came out, everyone in the command cabin agreed.

Of course, although the distance is not far, but with the current state of the Voyager, it took Zhou Xin and them nearly a week to contact the comet cloud on the periphery of the target star system. At this point, they can be regarded as officially entering the interior of the star system. At this point, the two dark bands around the star are already very obvious, and Zhou Xin and they can even observe the existence of dark bands at a specific angle without the help of any observation equipment, just by relying on the naked eye. After learning the news, Zhou Xin sent all the probes on the spacecraft as soon as possible. The focus of the investigation was naturally on the two dark bands they had seen early in the morning.

About a day later, the first probes launched from the Voyager reached the edge of the outer dark belt. Then, on the first images sent back by those probes, Zhou Xin and the others saw a result that Atlas judged to be irrational.

"Brother Captain, this is indeed an asteroid belt. However, it is a bit wide, and preliminary estimates may well exceed ten astronomical units. Moreover, the number of asteroids contained in it is so large and densely distributed that it is no wonder that we can see visible dark bands from so far away. "Atlas has always been very positive about anything worth caring about. After reporting the results of the probe's observations, she then wondered: "How is it possible, how can such a large asteroid belt maintain a stable state for a long time without converging into planets?" ”

By the way, according to the observed results, Zhou believes in the star in the center of the star system where they are now. It is about 1.5 times the diameter of the Sun and is a star about two billion years old, much younger than the Sun. The whole star appears yellowish-white, with a surface temperature of about 8,000 degrees Celsius, making it a star that is significantly more active than the Sun. But even so, it has already entered the stable main-sequence stage. Therefore, the entire galaxy centered on him should also enter a relatively stable state. Of course, this does not mean that there cannot be asteroid belts in the star system, just that the distribution of asteroid belts should not be as wide as what is seen in front of them.

While Atlas was still struggling with the distribution of the asteroid belt, Spred spoke: "Now is not the time for you to study, the top priority is to find a planet that can dock us, and then immediately start repairing the Voyager." ”

"Hmm." Zhou Xin nodded, and then asked, "You said before that there should be at least one planet in this star system, have you found that planet now?" ”

"The probe has just arrived at the edge of the asteroid belt, and the planet that people say must be in a more inward orbit, how can it be found so quickly." Atlas replied, "Moreover, such a dense asteroid will definitely have an impact on the next exploration, brother Captain, don't worry." ”

"Find a way around the asteroid belt and find the location of the planet first." Zhou Xin changed to a commanding tone.

"Okay, okay, people understand."

Then, another day passed, and the orbiting probe finally flew through the asteroid belt. This also confirms Atlas's previous judgment that the width of the asteroid belt is ten astronomical units. Just when Zhou Xin thought that after leaving the asteroid belt, the next thing they saw should be the planet mentioned by Atlas. But to everyone's surprise, about twenty hours or so into the probe's progress, they saw another asteroid belt in the footage.

"Looks like that's another dark band." Although Zhou Xin, who saw this scene, was a little surprised, he was not disappointed, "I really didn't expect that the two dark belts were actually adjacent, and all of them were asteroid belts." ”

"Oh my God, the inner workings of this galaxy are a little weird." Compared to Zhou Xin's calmness, Atlas was quite surprised, and she screamed out. However, surprise is surprise, but she has not forgotten Zhou Xin's previous explanation. Before she could express her surprise, she gave the probes the command to turn around the asteroid belt again and continue their way into the interior of the star system.

Compared to the outer asteroid belt, the inner asteroid belt is significantly smaller. But even then, it took the probe nearly ten hours to fly from one side of the asteroid belt to the other.

"There won't be any more asteroid belts ahead of us now." When Voyager reported that the number of asteroids appearing in front of the probe had decreased significantly, Zhou Xin let out a long breath, and a sentence came out of his mouth subconsciously.

"Don't be too happy, maybe there's a new asteroid belt waiting for us." Spred teased, half-seriously, half-jokingly.

"What a joke." Zhou Xin looked at the central star on the screen, which was already the size of a marble, and said angrily, "If there is an asteroid belt inside, then where else can a planet be placed in this star system......?" ”