Inside the Ceylon Island Headquarters building of the Space Division.

Dr. Mikoyan was discussing with a group of executives what to do with the alien spacecraft.

Meng Haiyang, the person in charge of the Interstellar Exploration Office, spread his hands helplessly: "Minister, if you want to launch one more cicada-class spacecraft, it will be too late!" ”

Chen Jianxiong, who came to observe the meeting, did not agree with Meng Haiyang's idea: "No, I suggest sending a few more cicada-class spacecraft over, on the one hand, just in case; On the other hand, if nothing goes wrong, the Cicada-class ship can continue to make its way into deep space and explore more distant areas. ”

Hearing Chen Jianxiong's words, Mikoyan thought for a while, but nodded: "No problem, isn't it just a few cicada-class spaceships, we can still squeeze out some of the production capacity." ”

In fact, the cost of the cicada-class spacecraft is not high, and the part that really increases the cost of the cicada-class spacecraft is the propulsion hydrogen bomb carried by the spacecraft.

After all, the cost of thousands of miniature hydrogen bombs is not cheap, and if it weren't for the fact that Homo sapiens has heavy water to enrich seaweed, which can reduce production costs, the consumption of thousands of miniature hydrogen bombs on this cicada-class spacecraft is really not something that ordinary forces can afford.

Even America, which was in its heyday before, could not afford to play a spaceship like a cicada-class spaceship, after all, refining heavy water and making a hydrogen bomb was a very cost-effective investment for a capital force.

In this way, Homo sapiens can be invested regardless of the cost.

Mikoyan and the others discussed for a while and decided to launch three more Cicada-class spacecraft.

The head of the Office of Aerospace Equipment also said that there were no problems.

After all, the production line of the cicada-class spaceship is still in production, and there is currently one in stock and one under construction, and the factory can produce one cicada-class spaceship every three months on average.

And now that the situation is urgent, they plan to increase production, change the previous one shift per day to four shifts per day, directly increase the manpower, and estimate that it will not take two months to complete the construction of two cicada-class spaceships.

After discussing the production of the cicada-class spacecraft, another agency under the Space Division, the Space Observation Office, also stood up to speak at this time.

The person in charge is a rare white-haired old man, apparently this person is already very old before joining the Homo sapiens company, even if he uses various life extension techniques, he can still only increase part of his lifespan, and there is no way to completely rejuvenate his appearance.

The old man didn't care much about this, especially for the old-school scientists who studied cosmic astronomy, they had a lot of theoretical research in this field, and they rarely involved the open and secret struggle of various forces, so their ideas were more "naïve".

This old man had been from Lucia's side, and he had dug it up by Mikoyan.

In Homo sapiens' space division, the proportion of employees from Lucia is high, reaching about 17.3%.

Therefore, the space division is somewhat in the style of the woolly bear.

The old man stood up: "Colleagues, our Space Observation Office has some opinions on the situation of this alien spacecraft. ”

The crowd remained silent and waited silently.

The old man continued: "Extrapolating backwards from the flight direction of that alien spacecraft, we can roughly lock the route that the other party sailed before, but in that route area, the nearest planetary system has also reached 18.4 light years, and at the speed of 15 kilometers per second at this time, this spacecraft needs to fly for 368,000 years, is it possible?" ”

Is this possible?

Everyone was lost in thought.

Even the alien spacecraft used to be 10 times as fast as it is now, and it would take 36,800 years to reach its current location.

The old man did not hide it, and continued:

"From the detection data of Cicada Class 004, I found that this spacecraft once most likely also used a nuclear fission power system, but there is almost no radioactivity left in its core, and the magnetic field feedback of carbon-14 in its graphite buffer layer is equivalent to about 16% of the predicted model......"

Everyone instantly reacted that the half-life of carbon-14 is about 5,700 years.

As a buffer layer for nuclear fission reactors, carbon-14 will definitely appear in the graphite nest due to the absorption of thermal neutrons.

But now in the graphite nest inside the alien spacecraft, the magnetic field feedback of carbon-14 is only equivalent to 16% of the prediction model, which can only show one conclusion: the carbon-14 in graphite has gone through about two and a half half-lives.

This also points to the fact that the alien spacecraft's nuclear reactor has stopped working for at least 13,000 years.

But the old man was not finished, and he continued:

"If it's just that no carbon-14 was found, it doesn't mean anything, but in another analysis report, I found the existence of another element, although the content is already very small, but Cicada 004 is relatively close, and I still found a part of the weak magnetic field signal, this element is plutonium-239."

Many people who turn their heads relatively quickly have discovered the key points in an instant.

The half-life of plutonium-239 is 24,100 years.

There are still trace traces of plutonium-239 remaining, which means that the shutdown time of the spacecraft's nuclear reactor must not have exceeded 24,100 years.

Plus the residue of carbon-14 found above.

It can be seen that the nuclear reactor shutdown time of the alien spacecraft should be between 13,000 years ago ~ 24,100 years ago.

The old man came to a conclusion: "In other words, there is a high probability that all the creatures in this spaceship have died." ”

Another executive shook his head: "Not necessarily, maybe the other party has body cryonics technology, and the temperature inside the alien spacecraft is very low at this time, and the alien creatures will most likely be frozen in the spaceship." ”

The old man did not refute this, because it was indeed very probable, and he said another thing:

"I have another discovery, that is, the alien spacecraft itself is very complete, according to the general laws of astronautics, sailing in this kind of empty interstellar space, if you don't take the initiative to slow down, the spacecraft will basically not slow down much."

This point is naturally very clear to all the employees of the Space Division who are present.

"Since it is impossible for the spacecraft to slow down too much, with 30 kilometers per second as the limit speed, if this spacecraft flies from a planetary system 18.4 light-years away, it will take 184,000 years, can the spacecraft's nuclear fuel support it for so long?"

Hearing this, everyone was thoughtful.

Even if you save money and freeze your body the whole time, with the 8 nuclear reactors and 344 plutonium nuclear batteries found in the current detection data, the fuel of the spacecraft will not be able to support 30,000 years.

After all, only 33% of the plutonium-239 in those nuclear batteries remains, and there is still a trace amount of plutonium-239 left in the reactor residue.

This illustrates the fact that after the nuclear reactor stopped working, the nuclear battery continued to operate for a period of time.

It can be seen that the spacecraft flew from a certain planet to the direction of the solar system about 43,000~54,100 years ago.

If the time range is determined, and the speed range is determined, then it is natural to determine how many light years the other party's departure planet is from the solar system.

The alien spacecraft flew for 43,000 ~ 54,100 years, during which the speed was about 15 kilometers per second ~ 30 kilometers per second.

It can be concluded that the range of the alien spacecraft may be about 20 trillion kilometers ~ 51 trillion kilometers.

This distance is indeed quite far, but for the cosmic scale, it is almost too close.

After all, one light-year is only 9.46 trillion kilometers.

20 trillion kilometers ~ 51 trillion kilometers, converted into light years, that is, 2.11 light years ~ 5.39 light years.

This scale is indeed close to the end of the scale.