The black tech madman who saves the world

Chapter 299 Drilling the Ice Shell of Europa

"Is the drill ready?"

"Ready, the data is proofread and complete, you can start drilling!"

After the voice fell, everyone in the spacecraft control center became excited.

At this time, 8 hours have passed since landing on Europa.

During these times, under the control of the controller, the multi-armed crab explored the surface environment of Europa.

Got a lot of gratifying news.

There is no doubt that there is enough water ice on Europa.

The body surface of the entire planet is a huge ice shell, and this layer of ice shell is composed of water ice.

After the water ice was cut and collected, it was sent to the spacecraft for thawing, and fresh water mixed with dust was obtained. After filtering through a high-precision graphene water film, a cup of clean and thorough Europa fresh water was sealed up. .

Although water has been discovered on Mars, the water obtained on Europa this time is also of great significance to human beings.

The low temperature of Europa has caused the water on the surface of the body to almost permanently freeze into ice, and the amount of this ice is very huge, which can be used by human beings. This kind of water storage is extremely amazing.Almost as much as the entire Pacific Ocean.

If these ice sheets can be intercepted back to the earth, then the greenhouse effect of the earth's gradual warming can be quickly alleviated.

These topics are discussed everywhere on the Mars base, which is a planned direction for the benefit of mankind.

When Chen Mengchuan came to the remote control center of Suixing Edge No. [-], Zhang Dongyu was directing and arranging the staff to start preparations for drilling work.

"Good job, Lao Zhang." Chen Mengchuan said to Zhang Dongyu with a smile.

Zhang Dongyu blushed: "Brother Chuan, stop teasing me, my little ability can't stand your praise."

"Haha, well done is well done. I heard that this time, you showed your face. The newspapers on the earth are full of photos of your command. You are all doing well in logging into Europa this time, and you all deserve credit for it." For you to remember." Chen Mengchuan said.

"Hey, then I'll thank Brother Chuan first. Haha."

"Is everything ready? I think it's ready to dig."

Chen Mengchuan saw on the big screen that the spacecraft was firmly fixed on the ice, and the drilling equipment was ready.The turbo extraction machine also started to work.

Zhang Dongyu nodded: "I'm going to dig now. I plan to dig through this ice shell at one time, dig directly into the sea under the ice, and find out if there is life on Europa."

"Let me see, you continue to work."

"Okay, all units get ready, start the excavation process, and try to clear the customs in one go!" Zhang Dongyu shouted.

"Okay!" A voice shouted.

The drill bit in the picture moved quickly, and within a few breaths, it began to sink into the surface of the ice layer.

The screen switched quickly, and a vertical 3D rendering appeared on the screen. The green dots represented that the drill bit was driving into the off-white ice shell little by little.

The drilling speed was much faster than Chen Mengchuan imagined.

The icon clearly shows the drilling speed, which is 40 centimeters per second, which is considered very fast.

"Brother Chuan, if an ordinary drill bit is drilling the ground, cooling and soil removal are a big problem, but our drilling equipment does not have these problems on Europa. The high-speed rotation of the drilling hole will quickly drive the ice. The first layer will generate a lot of heat, which will quickly melt the hard ice, and the extraction machine prepared for drilling the second floor will quickly extract the water ice, so we can continue to drill holes farther down. "

"How far can it go, and how long is the pipeline of the extraction machine, should it be blocked?" Chen Mengchuan asked.

Zhang Dongyu pulled out a design drawing and pointed it to Chen Mengchuan.

"Brother Chuan, look, although the length of the pipeline is only 600 meters, don't worry, our high-pressure turbine extraction machine can keep working continuously. Moreover, the gravity device on the drill bit equipment is also multi-layered, with a distance of at least 10000 meters. There is no big problem. Judging from the current speed, it will take some time to drill through the 10000 meters, and it is estimated that it will take half a day to see good progress." Zhang Dongyu said.

"How thick is the ice shell? Have you checked it?"

Zhang Dongyu shook his head: "The stability of the current ultrasonic detection equipment is a bit poor. Europa's magnetic field is different from the simulated environment. Now we need to re-calibrate the data. The thickness of the ice layer initially detected is 27000 meters, but this thickness is not the final data. At least There will also be a drop of 5000 meters up and down."

Chen Mengchuan was a little surprised: "It is much thicker than expected."

Zhang Dongyu said: "Our latest data report has sufficient parameters to confirm that Europa's ice shell has plate tectonics and subduction activities similar to that of the Earth. Based on this, those researchers now have expressed their opinion on whether there is life in the subsurface ocean." Very optimistic, they generally believe that there is life under the ice shell."

"Really?" Chen Mengchuan smiled, but he didn't know this.

"They built a model with Chen to show the process of subduction. When one plate slides under another plate, it will sink into the ice shell. This series of simulations can draw many good conclusions, such as Jupiter The region of Europa's ice crust expansion is similar to that of Earth's mid-ocean ridges, which adds another nice piece of information about Europa's crustal structure."

"And now we have also obtained a very important piece of information, that is, Europa's ice shell does not have only one layer."

"Not just one floor?" Chen Mengchuan looked at Zhang Dongyu.

"Yes, there is not only one layer, but at least two layers of ice shell. The surface ice cover is relatively weaker, and the temperature of the convective ice layer below it will be much higher. Such a two-layer ice shell will definitely make Europa The plate subduction effect occurs because as long as the salt content in the two ice shells is different, it can provide the necessary density difference for the plate subduction. Now, there is sufficient data to prove that there is indeed a change in the salt content in Europa's ice. "Zhang Dongyu's voice was slightly excited.

These are some very important supplements. Human beings are too far away and unfamiliar with Europa. This field exploration has yielded a large amount of data, and these data have been quickly absorbed and digested by scholars, deduced one after another very meaningful speculation.

"Already confirmed?" Chen Mengchuan also got a lot of interest.

Zhang Dongyu nodded decisively.

At this time, his inner excitement was much more than that of Chen Mengchuan.

Because a large part of the pressure during this time has been on Zhang Dongyu, he clearly felt that everyone was looking at him.

Although whether Europa can discover life doesn't have much to do with how hard he works, but discovering life or not discovering life is completely different in terms of the results of his efforts.

He naturally hopes to discover life even more.

(End of this chapter)