Chapter 13 Chapter 12 Dive Down

The spacecraft finally picked up speed as it swooped down toward Jupiter.It took a long time as it crossed the uninhabited gravity zone of the four small outer moons - IX, VIII, XII, and XI - which were in their respective reverse oblate ellipses. Swaying on an eccentric track.These were undoubtedly captive asteroids, completely irregular in shape, and the largest one was only thirty kilometers in diameter.No one but a planetary geologist would be interested in these rough, chapped, angular boulders, torn between their allegiance to the Sun or Jupiter.Someday, the sun will take them captive once more.

But Jupiter can still retain the second group of four small moons, which are half as close to Jupiter as the other moons.Ganymede VII, Ganymede X, Ganymede, and Ganymede XIII are quite close together and run on the same plane.It has been inferred that they originally belonged to the same parent body; if this is true, their parent body can reach a diameter of one hundred kilometers. Although only Eleven and XIII are close enough to observe their surfaces with the unaided eye, they are warmly welcomed as old friends.This is the first land I saw after a long sea drift, the beacon island on the edge of Jupiter.The last few hours flew by; the most critical moment of the entire mission-entering Jupiter's atmosphere was approaching.

It appears that Jupiter is already larger than the Moon in Earth's sky, and the giant inner moons orbiting it are clearly visible.Their bright discs and brilliant colors can be seen, but are still too far away to make out the distinctive markings to differentiate them.The eternal ballet they perform—disappearing behind Jupiter and emerging, trailing their long shadow tails across the bright side—is a spectacle of endless fascination.This is exactly how astronomers have observed motion since Galileo first discovered it almost four centuries ago, but the Leonov crew are the few people alive who have seen it all for themselves .

Raj-style chess games are over; free time is spent astronomically observing, or sitting in conversation, or listening to music, often gazing out at the landscape.And at least the shipboard romance is reaching its climax: the frequent trysts of Max Brerowski and Rania Mashenko are the object of good-natured teasing. In Freud's view, the two of them were not a good match.Max is a tall, blond, handsome young man who participated in the 2000 Olympics and won the championship in one fell swoop.Although in his early 30s, he has a candid face and an almost childlike expression.This is not entirely a misunderstanding, despite his excellent record as an engineer, Freud often felt his naivety and inexperienced - a person who anyone would like to talk to, but it doesn't last long. people.While he was masterful in his field of study, he was otherwise charming but rather ignorant.

Rania—at 29, the youngest on the ship—remains elusive.With no one willing to speak about it, Floyd had no way of knowing what happened to her and his sources in Washington could not provide any intelligence.It was perfectly obvious that she had been in some sort of serious accident, but probably no more unusual than a car crash.The notion that she had flown a secret space mission -- part of a myth that prevailed outside the Soviet Union -- was dismissed.Thanks to the global tracking network, it has been impossible for more than fifty years for this to happen. Rania was unmistakably wounded physically and mentally, and there was another shadow hanging over her.She was a last-minute backup before takeoff, and everyone knew it.Irina Yakunina was supposed to be a nutritionist and medical assistant on board the Leonov, but she unfortunately collided with a hang glider, causing a large fracture.

Every day at 18:00 GMT, the seven crew members and one passenger gather in the small common room on the bridge that separates the galley from the sleeping cabin.The round table in the middle was just big enough for eight people to squeeze together; by the time Chandra and Kono woke up too, there would be no room for that table, and two would have to be found elsewhere. Although the "six o'clock Soviet meeting," as they called the daily round-table meeting, rarely lasted more than ten minutes, it played an important role in maintaining morale.Grievances, suggestions, criticisms, progress reports—anything goes, as long as the issue is not vetoed by the captain.In fact the veto is rarely exercised.

There was little agenda for the meeting, and the typical topics were requests for menu changes, requests for more personal time with Earth, suggestions for movie shows, spreading news and gossip, and, overwhelmingly, good-natured jibes at the Space America contingent.Floyd warned them that when his companions woke up, the staff ratio would rise from 1:7 to 3:9.He made no mention of his personal opinion that Curnow must have spoken more and shouted louder than any other three on board. Floyd spent most of his waking hours in the common room—in part because, though small, it was less claustrophobic than his own pitifully small sanctuary.Beautifully decorated, all available surfaces are adorned with beautiful sea and land photos, sports photos, movie star photos and other decorations reminiscent of the earth.What makes the room even more majestic is the oil painting "Side of the Moon" painted by Leon Lev himself. In 1965, when he was still a young lieutenant colonel, he took off on the "Sunrise II" and became the first person to walk in space in human history. In this year, he also completed this painting paintings.

Clearly the work of a talented amateur rather than a professional painter, this painting shows the porous moon's rim, and the beautiful "Rainbow Bay" (the most beautiful place on the moon, It looks as beautiful as a pearl necklace.—Revisor Note)—like a rainbow-colored bay—in the foreground.Hanging like a gigantic phantom on the moon's horizon was a slender crescent of Earth in the planet's dim night.Farther away is the brilliant sun, whose corona is like a crown of ribbons, fluttering around it, stretching millions of kilometers into space. It is a work of astonishing beauty - and a vision of a future that is only three years away.During their Apollo 8 voyage, Anders, Bowman and Lovell will witness the spectacle as they watch the Earth rise from the far side on Christmas Day 1968.

Freud admired this oil painting very much, but at the same time he had mixed emotions of sadness and joy.He wouldn't forget that the painting was older than everyone else on board - with one exception. Alex Leonov was nine years old when he made this painting.