Chapter 32 Chapter 30 Bubble Scenery

Magnetic tentacles a million kilometers long, sudden explosions of radio waves, charged plasma bodies larger than Earth, and clouds that blanketed entire planets in brilliant light were all equally real and visible to him.He can understand the complex interaction patterns between them, and he also understands that Jupiter is actually far more beautiful than everyone guesses. When he fell through the eye of the "Great Red Spot", a thunderstorm area as wide as a continent, countless lightning bolts exploded around him; "Why it lasted for centuries.As he sank into the calmer depths, the faint shriek of the hydrogen wind died away, and white snowflakes fell from the heights, some merging into the improbable mountains of hydrocarbon foam.It's warm enough to allow liquid water, but no oceans; because the purely gaseous environment is too thin to support water.

He passed through the layers of clouds until he entered a clear area, where the visibility is so high that even the human eye can see 1000 kilometers away.It is just a small cyclone in the great vortex of the Great Red Spot, which protects a secret that humans have long guessed but failed to prove. Moving along the drifting foamy mountains are countless small but defined clouds, all about the same size, and flecked with similar red and brown spots.They are tiny when compared to their planetary-scale surroundings; in fact, even the smallest ones are big enough to conceal a medium-sized city.

Those were obviously living things, for they were moving slowly and deliberately along the sides of the foamy hills, nibbling away the slopes like gigantic sheep.They also call each other in the several-meter band, and against the crackling and vibration of Jupiter, those radio waves appear weak but clear. It is simply a living air bag, floating in the narrow area between the icy peak and the scorching abyss.Narrow, yes—a domain larger than any biosphere on Earth. They are not alone.Shuttle among them are other, much smaller, easily overlooked creatures.Some of them have an almost uncanny resemblance to Earth's craft, and are about the same size.Those are also living things—could be predators, could be parasites, could even be herders.

Like the alien aliens he glimpsed on Europa, what unfolded before him was a brand new chapter in the history of evolution.Torpedoes with jet propulsion, like squid in Earth's oceans, are hunting and devouring giant air cells; but the cells are not defenseless, some with clawed tentacles that are miles long like thunderbolts and chainsaws fight back. There are even stranger shapes, exploiting almost all the possibilities of geometry: strange, translucent kites, tetrahedrons, spheres, polyhedra, tangled ribbons... The gigantic plankton in Jupiter's atmosphere are meant to float, like spider silk in an updraft, until they are able to leave offspring.They are then swept deep to be carbonized and recycled by a new generation.

He searched in a world a hundred times larger than the surface of the earth, and although he saw many wonderful things, there was no sign of intelligence.The radio language of the airbags conveyed only simple warnings or fears.Even the hunters, creatures that might develop higher tissues, are mindless robots like sharks in Earth's oceans. Despite its staggering size and wonder, Jupiter's biosphere is a fragile world.In addition to the fog and foam, there are also some fragile threads and paper-thin tissues, and only a few structures are tougher than soap bubbles; even the weakest predators on earth can easily tear the most terrifying predators there. eater.

Like a larger version of Europa, Jupiter is an evolutionary dead end.Consciousness would never arise here; and if it did, it would be miserable.Perhaps a purely air civilization could develop here, but in a world where fire is impossible and there are few solids, it wouldn't even reach the Stone Age.