Chapter 1367 Unusual Geological Structure

The tires rolled over the gravel and creaked.

In the endless desert, a Mars rover is slowly advancing against the wind and sand flying in the sky.

In this forbidden zone of life that has been undisturbed for a long time, except for this all-terrain survey vehicle controlled by AI, only some microorganisms are still lingering.

Time seems to take away everything it can.

In this dead world, desolation is engraved on every grain of sand.

However, today is definitely a significant day for this dead planet.

With the roar of the engine coming along the thin atmosphere, a silver-white ring slowly descended from the sky. Four thick and long flames and airflow pushed away an arc-shaped umbrella at its front end, blowing away the red sand on the ground from a long distance, and even set off a large-scale sandstorm.

As if hearing the movement from the sky, the all-terrain survey vehicle turned the full-angle camera on the top and cast a "confused" look into the air.

It was also this glance of looking back that recorded the thrilling scene.

Just like a comet hitting the surface, the moment the ring hit the ground, the umbrella-shaped flame was instantly extinguished, replaced by billowing sand and dust rushing up into the sky like a cascading waterfall, pulling away the darkness like a turbid cloud layer. canopy.

[The data has been included...the label is being set. 】

[The setting is complete. 】

Words without emotion flashed across the display screen, and the "reptile", which had lost interest in this silver-white ring, continued to move forward along the original route. The task set by its master was to survey the surface of Mars. landforms and natural resources.

It has been doing this for years, and it will continue to do so until the mechanism breaks down or the battery dies. Unlike the artificial intelligence communicating with it, it has no extra curiosity about other insignificant things except for records.

I didn't meet this "colleague" who came to Mars earlier, and the colony module didn't even take a break after landing, and immediately started the deployment work.

An alloy rod about four or five meters long was driven straight into the ground, firmly fixing the colony cabin to the ground.

Immediately afterwards, the silver-white metal casing expanded outwards in four directions, like an inflated donut, and expanded outwards a planting area that looked somewhat similar to an airbag.

The deployment worked very smoothly.

Just like they have practiced countless times in the desert of the Northwest.

Standing in the communication room of the colony cabin, Liang Youcheng connected to the Xu Fu hovering in orbit through the console, and made a brief report on the current situation.

"This is the outpost of the Mars colony, and we have successfully landed."

"The climate and environment here are worse than we imagined, but fortunately, everything went smoothly... The colony module has been deployed, and the operation of the device has been stable so far, without any troublesome failures."

"After a short rest, we will start today's work immediately."

After completing the work report as concisely as possible, Liang Youcheng sent this short message to the Jinling Space Launch Center, and at the same time updated it to the mission log of Xu Fu.

Next, it is a series of routine ceremonies such as walking out of the cabin, planting flags and taking pictures.

While these routine ceremonies were in progress, a four-wheeled Mars rover that looked like an off-road vehicle slowly drove out of the garage outside the buffer room. Dr. Fan, a planetary geologist, drove in along a straight track. There was a sea of ​​sand.

His destination is the "water source" 7.2 kilometers away from the colony cabin.

There is an underground ice layer 20 meters below the surface, located in the center of a small basin. According to the estimated data provided by the Jinling Institute for Advanced Study, its reserves are about 150 to 400 million cubic meters.

Although many reservoirs on the earth can easily explode this reserve size, compared with the water resources on the moon, this reserve can already highlight the "large land and abundant resources" of Mars.

For this colonial outpost, water resources are the first thing that must be secured. It means fresh water resources and oxygen, and is the most fundamental material basis for the entire artificial ecosystem to operate.

Followed by solar energy, wind energy and other renewable resources.

Although the thin and turbid atmosphere on Mars makes solar and wind power less readily available, being able to harvest energy locally is better than using expensive nuclear power.

After all, the nuclear fusion technology applied to space stations and spacecraft is somewhat different from that used on Pangu Heap.

The latter is a serious magnetic confinement ignition device that releases star-level energy. Every link from ignition to heat discharge has been designed according to local conditions, requiring hundreds of engineers to maintain the stable operation of the device.

The former is nothing more than a pulsed fusion device based on the phenomenon of sonoluminescence in liquid metal.

Although this set of devices is countless times smaller than a series of Big Macs such as the Pangu Heap and the Xihe Heap, it is far inferior to the former in terms of energy utilization efficiency, total power, and cost per unit of electricity.

And this is one of the reasons why even though the Moon Palace is equipped with this kind of fusion battery, it still has solar panels that are several times larger than the main body.

At present, the Jinling Institute for Advanced Study is studying how to build a simplified version of a first-generation magnetic confinement ignition device on the moon to supply energy to the IMCRC collider and other "high-power experimental equipment" in the lunar scientific research station. By the way, While inspiring the second-generation helium trifusion technology, liberate the productivity of the Guanghan Special Economic Zone.

After all, after these years of development, the energy gap on the moon is still not small, and it is still difficult to rely entirely on solar panels and storage power stations.

As for the "Mars Research Station" that doesn't even have a name...

Don't even think about such a force-level energy supply facility.

The rover stopped in the center of the basin, and Fan Tong, who got off the rover, put down the mobile drill that was pulling behind the rover, skillfully manipulated the tablet in his hand, first measured the stratigraphic data with seismic waves, and then analyzed the Multiple sets of core samples were taken from rock formations at depths of 10 and 20 meters in three areas.

"Core sampling completed."

After a series of electric tones, Captain Liang's voice quickly came from the communication channel.

"How's it going?"

"It's unbelievable... I mean unbelievable in the positive sense," Fan Tong leaned against the stowed mobile drilling equipment on the back of the rover, looking at the tablet in his hand, his face full of weird words. Expression, "The data provided by the Jinling Institute for Advanced Study is unimaginably accurate, and one can't help but wonder if they secretly went to Mars... How did they collect such accurate data."

Liang Youcheng is not very clear about the inside story, but he is not particularly interested in these minutiae. As the world's top research institution, Jinling Institute for Advanced Study naturally has their own methods.

What's more, they still have Academician Lu.

Any unbelievable things, put on that man, will appear reasonable.

"Perhaps the Yankee information was collected from the wreckage of the New Virginia. It seems to be a long time ago... Whatever the hell, since the information is accurate, we don't have to worry about fresh water resources for the past three years."

More than 100 million cubic meters of fresh water reserves.

Not to mention three years, even if their population doubled tenfold, it would not be enough in three hundred years.

Originally, the colony cabin was eco-friendly, and the demand for external resource input was very small. If the situation is optimistic, they can even achieve a complete internal circulation of water resources, but the energy consumption will be relatively more.

"Anything else?"

"Well... there is one more thing I have to report to you."

With a touch of excitement in his tone, Fan Tong continued.

"When I was doing seismic wave detection earlier, I found a... somewhat exaggerated seismic crack near here."

"Earthquake crack?" Liang Youcheng frowned, "Are you sure...it's an earthquake crack?"

"I can be sure! There is absolutely nothing wrong. That kind of fault structure can only be produced by natural seismic activity. Because of the relatively low terrain, it was lucky not to be buried by wind and sand! However, surprisingly, According to the information I learned in the literature, the geological activity of Mars should have stopped billions of years ago. This geological structure, which is common in areas with active plate movement...is very unusual. Can I go down and have a look? "

Planetary geology is his specialty.

The excitement and excitement in his heart at this moment can no longer be described in words.

Although it is only a small fracture, its discovery may rewrite human civilization's understanding of Mars! Is there anything more exciting than being an academic?

Compared with Dr. Fan's excitement, Liang Youcheng appeared relatively calm.

Out of prudent considerations, after thinking for a while, he finally rejected this risky proposal.

"You come back first and talk about it. Your task for today is over, so it's better not to make extra trouble."

Fan Tong: "I assure you, there will be absolutely no danger! Its depth is only about ten meters, and I can climb up even without a safety rope...Of course, I will tie it around my waist properly."

"Come back now, this is an order," Liang Youcheng said in a tone that could not be refused, "Take a picture of your discovery and record it in today's work log, and I will ask Ming Wenzhe to follow you tomorrow."

There was a long silence, and finally a sigh came from the communication channel.

"Okay...you're right."

With some reluctance to look at the fracture behind him, Fan Tong shook his head with some pity, threw the tools back on the Mars rover, and got into the cockpit again.

Looking at the positioning signal starting to return on the screen, Liang Youcheng, who was standing in the communication room, finally breathed a sigh of relief.

Identifying freshwater resources is the last job of the day.

Everything has been going well since landing, and he doesn't want to make any extra troubles.

But having said that, he was also full of curiosity about the "earthquake crack" that shouldn't have appeared.

He has already made up his mind, and when Dr. Fan returns, he will have him report the situation to the ground command center, and the researchers on Earth will decide whether to conduct further investigations...