The rise of nanometers

On the moon, NASA and the Lunar Zone both made the decision to collect meteorite debris.

Judging from the speed, Li Zhen finally successfully reached the edge of the crater after more than thirty minutes of driving.

Due to the meteorite impact, the near surface around the crater is filled with chaotic lunar dust, which was lifted up by the meteorite.

Coupled with the weak gravity of the moon and the dense static electricity in the lunar soil, these lunar dust particles cannot settle for a long time.

Li Zhen did not go in immediately, but turned on some equipment on the electric vehicle and conducted a comprehensive and simple inspection of the crater.

It wasn't until the device collected enough data that he slowly walked off the edge.

This crater is not large, with a radius of about 8.33 to 8.41 meters, and the deepest point in the center reaches a depth of 2.24 meters.

Li Zhen is very clear about the stratigraphic structure of the southern part of Mare Imbrium. The surface here is a layer of soft lunar soil with a thickness of 2 to 3 meters, and below is a dense layer of lunar soil that has been compacted by lunar earthquakes.

Apparently, after the meteorite hit the ground, it lifted up the soft lunar soil layer on the surface, but it was blocked by the dense lunar soil layer below.

Walking to the center of the crater, a dark meteorite was directly embedded in the soil, looking like an obsidian.

In fact, before he came, he knew the possible composition of this meteorite from the detection data of the Lunar Weather and Astronomy Bureau.

This meteorite is an iron-nickel + high-carbon meteorite. If it were not an iron-nickel meteorite, the impact crater would not be so large.

Li Zhen acted quickly, took out the sampling box he carried with him, covered the meteorite with the disposable film in the sampling box, and then put the meteorite, which was slightly larger than his fist, into the sampling box.

Then, 20 soil samples were collected from the surrounding soil.

After finishing everything in a hurry, he took the meteorite and soil samples and began to return to the previous simple stronghold construction area.

…

The words are divided into two parts.

His eyes returned to Balu. After Li Zhen collected the meteorite and soil samples, he came to the area where the meteorite fell.

Looking at the lunar map and satellite positioning, he walked around for half an hour before he found a crater with a radius of about 3.1 meters.

Don't look at this crater, it is much smaller than the one Li Zhen discovered. In fact, the meteorite in this crater is much larger than the one Li Zhen collected.

The reason why large meteorites create small craters is due to the composition of the meteorite.

As mentioned before, the reason for this meteorite shower was the collision of two asteroids.

The iron-nickel-high-carbon meteorite collected by Li Zhen came from one of the asteroids; and the one in front of Balu was part of another asteroid.

The composition of this meteorite is mainly calcium silicate and carbon, and it is a rocky meteorite.

Obviously, the impact destructive power of rocky meteorites is obviously not as good as that of iron-nickel meteorites.

After the meteorite hit a small crater, it exploded into more than a dozen pieces. Except for a few larger fragments, they remained at the bottom of the crater. The other small fragments were scattered to a radius of tens of meters around it.

Balu didn't waste any time. He took out a special collection box and put four relatively large fragments from the bottom of the crater into the box.

I also collected some soil samples and drove directly back to the Outpost 2 base.

During the moonlit night when the sun is out.

In the dry plains of the Tempest Ocean, a lone electric car was driving quietly. Except for the moon soil that was occasionally picked up by the wheels, there was no movement at all.

Quietness is the eternal expression of this Moon Palace.

There are only three people in the Outpost 2 base, standing here in silence.

About an hour and a half later, Balu drove his electric car back to the base. He took the collected meteorite fragments and soil samples, passed through the airtight cabin, and placed them in a special storage cabinet.

When David saw Balu coming back safely, he smiled and asked, "How is the situation?"

"The meteorite crashed into fragments. I collected several larger fragments and some soil samples from the surrounding area."

"OK." David turned around, wrote a mission report on the computer, and clicked to send it back to Blue Star's Houston Space City.

It was still dark outside the cabin.

According to the Dongmi time set by NASA itself, it was already 18:22 in the evening. After David had dinner, he was arranged by scientific researchers from the ground command center to inspect the meteorite.

Research cabin—B3.

Take out the batch of meteorite fragments and soil samples from the sample storage cabin.

David was wearing a spacesuit inside the cabin. He did not wear a special helmet. He only wore a mask and directly operated the equipment. He took out some lunar soil from the soil sample and put it into the equipment for detection and analysis.

The testing of lunar soil samples went very smoothly. Although it was the first time to collect fresh lunar crater soil samples, NASA's research on the moon has continued for decades, and now it is just a verification.

Three hours later.

After conducting preliminary tests on 20 soil samples, David began to play with the four meteorite fragments.

Remove one of the pieces.

Put it into the mass spectrometer and start the component analysis.

"Huh?" David was stunned, then readjusted the equipment and tested it again, and the results were still the same.

"The carbon content is 2.17%. The carbon content of this meteorite is quite high." David said to himself while recording some data on his tablet computer.

It was discovered that the meteorite fragments contained relatively high carbon elements, and David continued to analyze organic matter.

Although he didn't have any expectations, after all, there was carbon on meteorites, which was very normal among various asteroids.

But what happened next was once again beyond his expectation, because the organic analysis equipment actually detected obvious organic reactions from the meteorite fragments.

"This..." David suddenly lost his composure. He hurriedly repeated the test, and the result was still the same. However, he did not jump to a conclusion: "Could it be that I caused the sample to be contaminated during the operation?"

He took out the second meteorite fragment again and put it directly into the organic matter inspection equipment.

Twenty minutes later, the result was exactly the same.

A large number of organic components have been detected from meteorite fragments.

David looked at the two meteorite fragments on the experimental table with surprise and joy in his eyes. After taking a deep breath, he carefully sampled a little bit of debris from the meteorite fragments.

Then he took the debris and came to the scientific research cabin-B5, which is a biological research cabin.

He divided the debris into 10 parts, then placed them in 10 microbial petri dishes, and finally placed the petri dishes in a specific culture cabinet.

After doing all this, David ran back to the living cabin excitedly, preparing to write an experiment report and report this major discovery to the Houston Space City.

It's just that he seemed to have forgotten something important.

The two meteorite fragments taken out of the scientific research module-B3 are still packed in special sealed bags, but they were exposed to the air when the fragments were collected just now.

The two meteorite fragments that were not put back into the cryo-holding cabin seemed to be rapidly emitting some kind of change under the temperature and light of the scientific research cabin.

It's just that this change has not been expressed for a while.

David, who was so excited, was busy writing reports and preparing to report major discoveries to the headquarters, and did not notice this situation.

Thank you for your support (ω｀)