In a closed spaceship, there is no sunrise and sunset, and the passage of time makes people unconscious. The time on the spacecraft is still calculated according to www.biquge.info the time on the earth, and after entering the spaceship, An Ruoxuan set the benchmark time for the spacecraft according to the time of the biological computer in her head.

Two days passed quickly, and everything went smoothly during the two days of the spacecraft's flight, without the slightest accident. An Ruoxuan chewed a beef-flavored energy bar in her mouth and looked at the navigation star map in front of her. In about two minutes, the ship will pass by that place.

Energy bars are very laborious to eat, and the huge amount of energy intake in a short period of time will cause a great burden on the body, and the poor taste can be regarded as a protective measure. An Ruoxuan picked up the water cup fixed on the seat next to her, took a sip of hot water, and quietly waited for the spacecraft to meet the target.

There were about sixty seconds left, and An Ruoxuan could already see the small star in the distance through the porthole. It is not quite appropriate to say that it is a small star, "Shimmer" is a stony asteroid with a diameter of more than 20 kilometers, and the "Morning Star" spacecraft is like a small point in front of it.

An Ruoxuan believes that the "Celestial" will not cause any major problems for the spacecraft, but it is still unknown what the "Celestial" wants to achieve in what way. "Ding Ding Ding", at this moment, the prompt of "Tianshen" sounded, and a pop-up window appeared on the terminal.

An Ruoxuan took a look, and the information came from a spectral resource detection module belonging to the Photon Deep Space Detector, which is used to conduct spectral scans on planets and stars to determine the distribution and content of various elements. If the target contains the elemental material required by the ship, a warning will be issued, and the crew will decide whether to send a mining ship to mine it.

"An asteroid was found ahead, codenamed Shimmer, and after spectroscopic detection, it was determined that the target contained a large amount of pure niobium metal." "Niobium metal? Here it comes. An Ruoxuan's heart moved slightly. Niobium metal is indeed a temptation that they cannot refuse, and even if they know that there may be problems, they will have to participate in it.

Niobium is a metallic element that absorbs gases, is used as a degassing agent, and is also a good superconductor. The chemical symbol Nb, atomic number 41, atomic weight 92.90638, belongs to the periodic system V.B group. Niobium is a lustrous gray metal that is paramagnetic and belongs to group 5 on the periodic table.

High-purity niobium metal is highly malleable but hardens with increasing impurity content. Niobium exhibits superconductor properties at low temperatures. At standard atmospheric pressure, it has a critical temperature of 9.2 K, the highest of all elemental superconductors. Its magnetic penetration depth is also the highest of all elements. Niobium has a low cross-section for the capture of thermal neutrons, so it is quite useful in the nuclear industry.

On the Daystar spacecraft, niobium metal and related alloys account for a large proportion of the spacecraft's high-performance battery packs and power furnaces. As the core equipment of the ship, if something goes wrong, there must be enough materials to reconstruct and repair it. Of course, this is only one of the uses of niobium metal on spacecraft.

Niobium metal is extremely stable in air at room temperature and does not interact with air. Although it has a higher melting point (2,468°C) in its elemental state, its density is lower than that of other refractory metals. Niobium also resists various attacks and can form a dielectric oxide layer. Because it has excellent corrosion resistance, it will not interact with various liquid substances in the human body, and almost completely does not damage the body tissues of living organisms, and can be adapted to any sterilization method, so it can be combined with organic tissues for a long time and stay harmlessly in the human body.

Niobium sheets can be used to compensate for damage to the skull, niobium wire can be used to suture nerves and tendons, niobium bars can be used to replace broken bones and joints, and niobium yarn or niobium mesh made of niobium wire can be used to compensate for muscle tissue. On the ship, a large amount of niobium alloy is used in all nano-bio-powered armor. Including the nano-metal armament in An Ruoxuan's body, a large amount of niobium metal is used.

The most important thing is that the "Daystar" spaceship itself is a biological spaceship based on the body of the Titan beetle, and in order to ensure the activity of the body of the Titan beetle, almost all the metal materials on the spacecraft contain niobium. If damage occurs to the spacecraft in the future, niobium metal will be an essential material.

The content of niobium in the earth's crust is 0.002%, the natural reserves of niobium in the earth's crust are 5.2 million tons, and the mineable reserves are 4.4 million tons. Niobium does not occur in its pure state in nature, but combines with other elements to form a mineral. The main minerals are niobium, pyrochlorite and black rare gold, brown yttrium niobium, tantalite, titanium, niobium, and cerium.

Although the reserves of niobium on the earth are not too small, An Ruoxuan basically did not carry any niobium metal when they fled the earth. What makes An Ruoxuan even more interested is why there is a metallic state of niobium, according to the results of spectral detection, the asteroid codenamed "Shimmer" in front of her has a pure metal niobium content of more than 500 tons, what is the reason for creating so much niobium metal?

An Ruoxuan believes that what the "gods" want must be related to those niobium metals. In order to find out the secret of the "Heavenly God", An Ruoxuan started the mineral mining process, and the entire spaceship's sailing path began to change, gradually turning to a state of synchronous flight around the "Shimmer".

The ship is now flying at a relatively high speed, and it takes a certain amount of time to fly around the "Shimmer" to reduce the speed to the point where it can send out mining ships. After 32 decelerations around the "Glimmer", An Ruoxuan activated the unmanned multi-purpose spacecraft located in the hangar.

The unmanned multi-purpose spacecraft, codenamed "Fire Ant", weighs 580 tons and carries 1,200 tons, and can be attached to an external cargo warehouse. Depending on the characteristics of the target and the mining environment, the "fire ant" can be attached with different modules and pendants to ensure that it can successfully complete the collection task.

The target of this collection is located in the interior of a rocky asteroid, which is not very difficult to collect. In addition, the reserves are not too large, and the "fire ants" do not have external modules and warehouses. After entering the bin through the hangar, the lifting platform inside the bin lifted the "fire ants" to the surface of the ship, and then released them.

The Fire Ant has an independent intelligent operating system that can also be controlled remotely by the ship. An Ruoxuan only cut into the perspective of "fire ants" this time, but did not intervene in the behavior of "fire ants". About a kilometer away from Daystar, Fire Ant activated its thrusters and slowly approached the Glimmer beneath its feet.

When the "fire ants" had not officially landed on the surface of the asteroid, through the video collector on the "fire ants", An Ruoxuan found something on the asteroid that should not exist. The regular shape and metal material, which is different from the asteroid itself, is clearly an artificial creation rather than a natural occurrence.