Chapter 60 second quarter

"Just a jump," Trevize murmured. "It's looming large." "Gaia?" Pelorat asked, looking up at the screen behind Trevize. "Gaia's Sun," Trevize replied. "To avoid confusion, you could call it 'Gaia's Sun.' That's how galactic geologists sometimes name stars." "So where is Gaia? Or should we call it 'Planet Gaia'?" "Just call that planet Gaia, but we can't see Gaia yet. Planets are not as easy to observe as stars, and we are still a hundred microseconds away from Gaia's sun. Don't forget that it is just a star." The star, although quite bright, is still too far away at our present distance, so it doesn't look like a disk yet. But don't stare at it directly, Janov, it's still bright enough to damage the retina. When it's done After the observation, I'll insert a filter, and then you can stare at it however you like."

"If converted into a unit that mythologists understand, how much should one hundred microseconds be equal to, dear Grant?" "Three billion kilometers, about twenty times the distance from the terminal star to the terminal sun, is it helpful?" "It helps a lot. Shouldn't we be a little closer?" "No!" Trevize picked up his head, showing an expression of disbelief. "Not yet. Since we have heard the rumors about Gaia, why are we so reckless? Courage is not the same as madness. We need to observe carefully first." "Watch what, Grant? As you said, we can't see Gaia yet."

"Of course it's not visible to the naked eye, but we have a telescope and a brilliant computer for high-speed analysis. We can study Gaia first, of course, and maybe make some other observations - take it easy, Janov." He reached out and patted the other person's shoulder, acting like an elder. After a pause, Trevize said again: "Gaia's Sun doesn't have any companion star, even if there is, that companion star is very far away, much farther than the distance between us and Gaia's Sun, and that star The companion star is at most a red dwarf star, which means we don’t have to worry about it at all. Gaia’s sun is a G4 star, which means that its planet is likely to be habitable. This is a good phenomenon. If its spectral type is A type Or M-type, then we should turn backwards now, there is no need to go forward at all."

Pelorat said: "Maybe I'm just a mythologist, but I still want to ask, can't we measure the spectral type of Gaia's sun on Sessel?" "Of course, and I've done it before, but why not do it again up close. It's not surprising that Gaia's Sun has a planetary system. There are currently two gas giants visible , one of which is large and bright - assuming the computer's estimate of the distance is correct. There is probably a similar gas giant on the other side of this star, but it is not easy to detect, because we happen to be —purely coincidental—very close to the plane of the planet's orbit. I haven't been able to detect anything in the inner circle, which is a matter of course, and shouldn't be a surprise at all."

"Is that bad?" "It's not entirely true. I've expected it a long time ago. The habitable planets are made of rocks and metals. They are much smaller than the gas giant planets, and they are all very close to the stars. Otherwise, there would be no pleasant temperature on the surface. And the above-mentioned ones Both conditions make it difficult to observe them at such a long distance. This means that if we want to detect the four microparsec region around Gaia's sun, we must move to a relatively close distance." "I'm ready." "But I haven't, we have another jump tomorrow."

"Why wait until tomorrow?" "Why rush today? We'll give them a day to wait for them to come out and catch us. If we detect their tracks and find that the situation is not good, we may be able to slip away early."