The rise of nanometers

Shi Keji and his teammate Li Jianxian drove the electric off-road vehicle cautiously along the way. They had other tasks during this exploration mission.

In addition to exploring the geological conditions around the base, there is also the task of finding rich mineral veins.

The night of the moon is very different from that of the blue star.

On the moon, the night is about 15 blue star days, which means that a "day" on the moon is actually 30 blue star days.

This corresponds to the moon's revolution time. Due to tidal locking, the front side of the moon is almost constant and can only face the blue star.

In areas where the sun shines, the moon waxes and wanes due to the moon's revolution. The moon's revolution here refers to the moon's revolution towards the blue star, which is similar to the blue star's revolution towards the sun.

In fact, according to precise calculations, the night time on the moon is slightly longer than the day time, because the moon will be obscured by blue stars, which is a lunar eclipse.

A lunar eclipse causes the moon's night time to be slightly longer than its day time.

At this time, Shi Keji and Li Jianxian will spend a long moonlit night in the dark wilderness of the moon sea.

The reason why we choose the moonlight period to go out to explore geology is mainly for safety. After all, the moonlight period is when we face the sun directly. You must know that the moon's geomagnetism is relatively weak, and it is basically almost non-existent.

Without a strong geomagnetism, a magnetic cage protective field cannot be formed, and solar storms and charged particle flows can drive in unscrupulously.

This is also the main source of hydrogen, helium, nitrogen, and carbon atoms in the lunar soil.

The small electric off-road vehicles used in scientific expeditions cannot be equipped with bulky artificial magnetic cage systems, and can only use 0.15 cm thick composite lead plates to resist solar storms and charged particles.

However, if you encounter a solar storm with a disaster level of 10 or above, small equipment can easily be disturbed by the solar storm, and even electronic equipment may be damaged or scrapped, endangering the lives of astronauts.

The disaster level of solar storms is set up by the space agency to imitate the typhoon level, and is divided into levels 0 to 16.

Normally, without the protection of the planet's native magnetic cage, the intensity of solar storms on the moon is around level 4 to 8, with occasional levels of 9 to 11.

Levels 12 to 13 are the intensity that will affect all Blue Stars. Level 14 is an intensity that is rare in a century. Levels 15 to 16 can already endanger the entire Blue Star ecosystem and even destroy the Blue Star ecosystem. It is second only to the sun. The terrible disaster of helium flash.

In order to protect the lives of astronauts, the lead composite panels on off-road vehicles are not 100% safe. Increasing the thickness of the lead composite panels will cause the off-road vehicle to increase in weight and lose its original cost performance.

After much deliberation, the space agency made a compromise arrangement, which was to try to go out during the moonlit night and become a group of night owls.

The appearance of the electric off-road vehicle is similar to that of an armored vehicle, except that it has two more satellite communication pots, and its proportions are larger than that of an armored vehicle.

The reason for enlarging the scale is mainly because the astronauts’ exoskeleton spacesuits are larger than the old extravehicular spacesuits.

During the stop-and-go process, the two of them arrived at an area 42 kilometers away from the Guanghan Palace base on the third day.

Looking around, there is endless darkness, and under the searchlight, the only clear land.

Shi Keji stopped the car and opened the special tablet he carried with him. The off-road vehicle can directly connect to communication satellites to achieve high-speed and high-throughput satellite communications.

Open the tablet, first locate the detailed location of this place, and then call up the detection database of geological remote sensing satellites.

Naturally, the location where Shi Keji stopped to carefully explore was not chosen casually, but related data analysis had been done in advance.

"Kenji, the escape of radon 222 was detected." Li Jianxian said through the shortwave communication system.

"It seems we have arrived at our destination." After Shi Keji finished speaking, he contacted the Toad Palace Space Station and asked the other party to mobilize a geological remote sensing satellite to cooperate with his exploration work.

Judging from the real-time remote sensing geological data at this time, the temperature of the area under the two men's feet was slightly higher than that of the ordinary lunar sea.

Especially during the moonlit night, when there is no sunlight, the temperature of the moon's surface is minus 183 degrees Celsius.

The area under your feet presents a concentric temperature gradient layer, with a very clear dividing line from minus 183 degrees Celsius in the outer layer to minus 27 degrees Celsius in the core.

The radius of this area is about 2.3 to 2.5 kilometers.

The radon 222 detected by Li Jianxian just now is an iconic element, because generally speaking, radon 222 comes from the decay of uranium, and the half-life of radon 222 is very short, only about 3.7 days.

Therefore, radon 222 is generally regarded as a signature substance of underground magmatic activity. The discovery of radon 222 can basically confirm that there is volcanic activity in the area.

In fact, although the volcanic activity on the moon stopped on a large scale more than three billion years ago, it does not mean that it is completely dead.

At least since the establishment of the Toad Palace space station and the comprehensive lunar satellite system, remote sensing satellites have detected 736 areas with 2,417 transient events.

So-called transient events are: local blurring of the moon, color changes (emitting infrared light) and brightness changes.

Most of these transient events are concentrated on the edges of craters with fragile stratigraphic structures.

The location of Shi Keji and his wife at this time seemed to be a smooth road. In fact, this was the location where the Rainbow Bay intersected with the Imbrium during the formation of the rainbow bay. It was a typical hidden crater edge area.

Obviously this is a "fire fountain" of underground magma. Although only two transient events were detected here before, one for 1.7 seconds and one for 2.4 seconds, radon 222 was detected here, as well as obvious concentric layers of ground temperature. All prove that this is a "fire fountain".

The two of them came here to explore, and their purpose was not just to take a look.

Because in order to develop large-scale industry on the lunar base, one problem must be solved, and that is the energy problem.

At this stage, the controllable nuclear fusion power station is huge in size, and it still has not got rid of the restriction of boiling water. It is obviously immature to apply it to the lunar base.

As for the solar power station, you can consider it, but the solar panels will face several big problems on the moon.

One is the electrostatic adsorption of lunar dust, which can be solved through technical means.

The second is the aging problem. In the lunar environment, the power generation efficiency of solar panels will increase, but dense high-energy rays, charged particle flows, and neutron flows will cause rapid aging of solar panels.

In particular, the possible super solar storms are a fatal threat to solar panels. Industrial areas require a huge amount of power and require stable power supply.

The moon's alternating time between night and moon is as long as 15 days, which is not conducive to the large-scale application of solar panels.

The carbon powder energy storage power station is also not adapted to the moon, because the moon has no obvious atmosphere and does not contain a large amount of carbon dioxide, methane and the like.

As for the carbon-14 nuclear decay batteries currently used in large quantities in the base, they are fine for small-scale power supply, but when used for industrial production, it is obviously difficult for nuclear batteries.

Therefore, the space agency had no choice but to focus on the moon's geothermal energy, hoping to build a geothermal power station to support the initial lunar industrialization.

While Shi Keji was busy exploring this geothermal point, suddenly the signal on the tablet in his hand became intermittent.

Seeing this scene, he frowned.

Just as he was about to say something, the signal of the satellite communication system was completely interrupted.

Thank you for your support (ω｀)