Chapter 161 Traces of Dust

So far, everything has gone smoothly. In the future, humans will also deploy space station platforms and resource transfer station platforms as usual, release landing craft, engineering machinery, and collection base deployment vehicles, and start resource and energy mining from Aldebaran-Kongxing.

The Tianqin and several other Shan-class warships docked in the orbit of Aldebaran-Zhongda also released equipment to operate on the planet.

The same thing happened in the asteroid belt.

Just when humans thought that this time would be as smooth as before, a picture sent back by a probe spacecraft broke the calm.

For a while, everyone on the bridge of the Tianqin entered a fast pace.

"Yue Shuai, this is the picture taken by the No. 7 probe spacecraft through the ship-borne optical telescope. Astronomers judge that this is not what a normal dust cloud should look like." A staff member at the communication post saw Yue Yuan coming to the bridge, and immediately displayed the picture on the Tianqin big screen, and then reported the basic situation.

Yue Yuan floated from the entrance of the bridge to the big screen, and then skillfully turned on the magnetic boots to let himself fall back to the floor of the bridge.

He looked up at the big screen and saw a dust cloud inside.

Dust clouds are very common in space. They are floating dust and fine metal particles in the universe, mostly composed of hydrogen elements. Under the appropriate gravitational force, these dust clouds gather together densely and appear like clouds. In astronomical telescopes, they often appear colorful, so people call them nebulae.

Of course, the reason why they look colorful is actually because the telescope is exposed for a long time. Now the pictures on the big screen obviously do not have time to be exposed for a long time, so they look very ordinary.

However, the pictures are not taken for the purpose of appreciating the colorfulness. As long as they contain useful information, that is enough.

After taking a look at the picture, Yue Yuan found that this dust cloud was unusual. It was obviously disturbed and had a significant difference from the normal appearance formed by microgravity.

No wonder the exploration spacecraft sent the picture over.

Seeing this image, Yue Yuan was first satisfied with the intelligent AI of the exploration spacecraft in his heart. Being able to find abnormal dust clouds and take pictures shows that AI has a very intelligent self-judgment ability.

"Are the Tianqin ship-borne telescopes and detectors aimed at that star field?" Yue Yuan asked.

"The Kunlun and Huashan ships in the asteroid belt have already aimed their telescopes at that star field, and the Tianqin is scanning the surrounding star fields." The communicator replied.

"Okay, connect me to Gan De's communication." Yue Yuan nodded. This reaction is OK. The detection equipment carried by the detection spacecraft is not as good as the warship. If you want to know the specific situation, you have to use a large-aperture telescope.

"General?" Gan De's image appeared on the split screen of the big screen.

"Well, have you seen the dust cloud picture?" Yue Yuan didn't waste any words and went straight to the point.

"I have seen it. Our colleagues in the Astronomy Department are analyzing the image frame by frame." Gan De paused for a moment and said solemnly: "We let the 'Light of the Milky Way' dynamically restore the shape of the dust cloud. After preliminary analysis, we think it is likely to be caused by something passing through. In the universe, there is only one thing that can pass through the dust cloud, and that is the spacecraft!"

"How much?" Yue Yuan shuddered in his heart, but on the surface he was still calm. You can't see the specific things from the image with your naked eyes. Professionals must restore it through professional means.

The dust cloud image on the big screen is the most primitive one, and not much information can be seen from it.

In fact, when Yue Yuan heard the report from the communicator, he had already made some guesses, but before the final result was confirmed, he still had some luck.

Now astronomers have used the "Light of the Milky Way" to reversely restore the process of the dust cloud becoming this way, so it must be correct.

"General, wait a moment!" Gan De said, turning back to discuss something with a group of astronomical scholars, and then busying himself on a row of workbenches for a while, and then turned to look at the camera: "Four hundred and thirteen."

Following Gan De's words, the data of the Astronomy Department was also shared with Tianqin at this moment.

So Yue Yuan saw that the blurred picture became clear again and again as the screen frame jumped, and the originally messy dust cloud gradually showed traces of vacancies.

At this time, the picture looked like it had been brushed.

The computer quickly marked information points on the dust cloud that had been brushed, and then displayed the corresponding number next to it, 413.

Four hundred and thirteen traces, some large and some small, that is, four hundred and thirteen spaceships of different sizes.

"Direction, speed, size of warships, level of civilization, is there any way to judge?" Yue Yuan's face was gloomy.

Gand quickly replied: "Based on the dust cloud traces, the route of this fleet is about 90 degrees from the direction we came from, and its heading target should also be Aldebaran. The speed, size of warships, and level of civilization need further observation."

What you fear will come true. Obviously, humans have tried their best to go in the direction of sparse stars, how can we still encounter aliens.

Could it be that these aliens have the same ideas as humans?

Hearing Gand say this, Yue Yuan's heart really sank to the bottom of the valley.

However, he remained calm, so he said to the communication personnel in the bridge: "Has the standby command for the detection spacecraft been sent out?"

"As soon as the picture was transmitted back, the standby command was sent out." The communicator added, "Yue Shuai, the emergency avoidance program of the exploration spacecraft AI has this command."

Yue Yuan nodded and turned to sit in his seat.

Of course he knew that the exploration spacecraft AI had an emergency avoidance command. Once it detected a situation that might be aliens, it would automatically enter the standby state of shutting down the thrusters.

Yue Yuan was just afraid that the AI ​​would not judge this discovery as an abnormal phenomenon that might be aliens, so for safety, he asked one more question. Now he was relieved to hear the communicator's answer.

When the picture was transmitted back, the relative distances between the dust cloud, Aldebaran, and the exploration spacecraft were already displayed.

The dust cloud is less than 0.75 light years away from Aldebaran, and the exploration spacecraft is 0.2 light years away from Aldebaran. At this distance, the bright tail flame of the nuclear fusion engine is likely to be detected, so shutting down the engine is to improve concealment.

Logically speaking, at this distance, as long as there is a large fleet route, the bright tail flame cannot escape the detection of human large-caliber telescopes, but this fleet is obviously in a state of constant speed movement with the engine turned off.

This discovery also allowed Yue Yuan to make a preliminary judgment on the level of civilization to which this fleet belongs.