The rise of nanometers

Two weeks have passed since the Mars 15 probe's drilling mission, and the drill bit has already reached the ultimate depth of 810 meters.

Analysis of the rock samples collected during the drilling process revealed nothing unexpected.

But the underground river between 436 and 454 meters has brought many new discoveries to the scientific community.

In this small ecosystem, a total of 5 types of multicellular organisms and 24 types of microorganisms have been discovered so far.

Five of the multicellular organisms include the "Mars tadpole fish" discovered at the beginning, and the other four are "hot spring brown algae", "red jellyfish", "transparent polyps" and "stone-sucking insects".

These multicellular organisms, together with more than twenty kinds of microorganisms, form this small ecological circle.

Among them, the hot spring brown algae can use geothermal energy and minerals in the water to grow. In this ecosystem, it assumes the ecological niche of producers.

Stone-sucking insects, similar in shape to coral, are animals themselves, but they are autotrophic. In this ecosystem, they also belong to the ecological niche of producers.

Red jellyfish feed on the larvae of stone-sucking worms, while transparent polyps feed on hot spring brown algae, occupying the ecological niche of primary consumers.

The last Martian tadpole fish feeds on red jellyfish, stoneworm larvae, and transparent polyps, and is the top consumer in this ecosystem.

Those microorganisms occupy the ecological niche of decomposers.

However, fluorescent fungi do not seem to be adapted to this environment, and no fluorescent fungi have been found in this ecosystem.

In fact, this is expected. In a series of studies, fluorescent fungi will not reproduce in a closed liquid water environment.

In other words, fluorescent fungi do not like the marine environment. The environment they like is a relatively humid surface, but not too humid.

In hundreds of previous Mars surface surveys, federal scientists have found that the living areas of fluorescent fungi are often in ravines, ravines, fractured valleys and other areas on the ground.

They usually hide in the area from the surface to 35 to 58 meters underground. At noon in summer, when the sun is strongest, mycelium will emerge for photosynthesis.

That's right, fluorescent fungi themselves have organelles similar to chloroplasts, which is one of the means of their existence.

The reproduction of fluorescent fungi is that every summer, usually when the sun is strong at noon, they use mycelium to take root deep underground and absorb the groundwater deep underground; at the same time, they grow a yellow-brown carpet on the surface to carry out photosynthesis. .

But the photosynthesis of fluorescent fungi does not produce oxygen.

Their photosynthesis mode is to absorb carbon dioxide in the Martian atmosphere and use weak solar energy to produce organic matter and oxygen.

This is the first step.

When organic matter and oxygen are produced, fluorescent fungi do not directly release oxygen, but continue to absorb sulfur dioxide and methane in the air, producing behavior similar to oxidation reactions, consuming oxygen.

In fact, the fluorescent fungus is an autotrophic organism that is produced and sold by itself.

After all, the ecological environment on the surface of Mars is very harsh. In order to survive, many microorganisms have evolved unique abilities to achieve genetic continuation.

If it were to be like the Blue Star ecosystem, then the microorganisms on Mars would probably be doomed.

Without a large number of producers and consumers, the microorganisms on Mars can only choose the production mode of self-production and sale, becoming autotrophic organisms.

While Huang Kaixuan, Zhang Maosheng and others were busy studying the drilling data of the No. 15 detector.

The team responsible for the Mars 33 probe next door also started drilling operations in the middle area of ​​Mariner Canyon.

The Mars 33 probe is the heaviest probe currently launched to Mars, with a total weight of 58.36 tons. The various instruments and equipment on it are also very advanced.

This probe was launched from the lunar area in August last year.

Although the working team of Probe 33 also wants to conduct extreme drilling to see if there is a similar hot spring ecosystem in the formation of Mariner Canyon.

However, the work arrangements for the No. 33 detector have not yet reached the final stage, and extreme drilling is not yet possible.

After all, if the drill bit gets stuck in the rock formation during drilling, or the motor fails, the detector will be basically useless.

Therefore, the No. 33 detector can now only perform some shallow surface drilling tasks.

Just when the working team of Probe No. 33 was bored in every possible way.

Suddenly, an automatic alarm signal was sent through the sensor in the radiator of the detector.

Since Mars is too far away from the Blue Star and there is a long communication delay, the emergency system of the on-board supercomputer, after activating the backup nuclear battery radiator, sent a feedback message to the communication relay satellite in Mars' low-Earth orbit. .

The relay satellite then forwards the feedback information back to Blue Star.

By the time the Blue Star Working Group of Probe No. 33 received this feedback information, ten minutes had passed.

"Huh?" The staff member was stunned, then carefully looked through the feedback information, and then notified the team leader Wang Anmin.

Wang Anmin looked at the feedback information on the page and the information from the secondary analysis with a puzzled expression. He turned around and asked:

"Haitao, what do you think?"

Chang Haitao, a mechanical engineer in the team, also looked puzzled: "It's strange, why did the radiator of the nuclear battery suddenly break? It is made of high-performance thermoelectric materials. Logically speaking, it is equivalent to It is very difficult for purely mechanical equipment to malfunction.”

As Chang Beach said.

The heat sink made of thermoelectric materials does not have any precision machine parts or electronic components.

Among the spacecraft failures counted by the Ministry of Aeronautics and Astronautics, radiator failure has not occurred even once.

This abnormal situation attracted great attention from the No. 33 detector working group. On the one hand, they re-checked the No. 33 detector through remote control; on the other hand, they notified the manufacturer of the radiator, Long Totem Company, to let Long Totem Company Send an engineer over.

Fourteen hours later, five engineers dispatched from the Texas branch of Long Totem Company arrived by plane at Dasha Aerospace City in Australia.

After arriving at Dasha Space City, the group went straight to the office of the Mars 33 probe working group.

The two sides did not exchange much greetings and immediately got to the point.

The five engineers had actually analyzed the relevant data sent by the working group during the flight, but they were also confused.

After all, it is often difficult for equipment with this purely mechanical structure to malfunction, even though the thermoelectric composite heat dissipation plate is very sophisticated and uses nano-level processing technology.

However, the service life of this one-piece composite layer will not be less than 15 years even if it is exposed to space radiation.

What's more, Mars also has a weak atmosphere and is relatively far from the sun, so the intensity of radiation it receives is actually not too strong.

If it is due to long-term radiation that the nanostructure is destroyed and the heat dissipation performance of the thermoelectric material is reduced, this possibility does exist.

However, there are no problems with the radiators on the dozens of man-made satellites in Mars' low-Earth orbit and synchronous orbit. There is no possibility that the Mars surface detector, which radiates less, will malfunction due to radiation.

Dragon Totem's engineer was also confused at this time. He didn't understand the radiator failure on detector No. 33 and where the problem occurred.

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