Chapter 14 Chapter 13 Galileo Satellites

(Galilean satellites: Refers to the four largest satellites of Jupiter. They are Io, Europa, Ganymede, and Callisto. Putting them next to the giant Jupiter can Visually see the size comparison. Although they were independently discovered by Galileo and Simon Mayus in 1610, these four satellites are nicknamed "Galilean moons". - Rescaler with attached note) Even three decades after Voyager's first flyby, no one really understands why these four large moons are so different from the rest.They're nearly the same size, and in the same part of the solar system—yet they're so different, like children raised on different backgrounds.

Only the farthest Callisto was as expected.When the Leonov passed by at a distance of 100,000 kilometers, the larger ones of the numerous circular pits on it could be seen clearly with the naked eye.Viewed through a telescope, the satellite appeared to be a glass ball that had been targeted by a ferocious rifle;It has been said that Callisto looks more like Earth's moon than our moon. This is not particularly surprising.One can imagine planets here - on the edge of the asteroid belt - being bombarded by the myriad detritus left over from the birth of the solar system.But neighboring Ganymede is very different.Pocketed and pitted by bombardment in ancient times, much of the land there appears to have been plowed—a description that seems especially apt.Ganymede is largely covered with ridges and ravines, as if some cosmic gardener had plowed them with a huge rake.There are also light-colored stripes on it, like the marks left by rake claws up to 50 kilometers wide.Most mysterious of all are the long, sinuous bands, made of many parallel lines.Nikolai Ternovsky decided—it must be a multi-lane superhighway, laid out by drunken surveyors.He even claims to have discovered overpasses and four-leaf intersections.

Leonov sent trillions of pieces of information about Ganymede into the human knowledge base before crossing the orbit of Europa.The icy world of Europa, because of the tragedies of destruction and great sacrifices on it, has never escaped from anyone's thinking, although it is still on the opposite side of Jupiter. On Earth, Dr. Zhang has become a hero, receiving countless letters of condolence from his fellow citizens in obvious embarrassment.One of them was in the name of the entire crew of the Leonov—for this, Freud guessed, Moscow must have rewritten it to a considerable extent.Mixed emotions pervaded the ship—a mix of admiration, regret, and relief.All astronauts, regardless of their nationality, see themselves as space dwellers, sharing their victories and pains with one another.No one on the Leonov was happy about the death of the Chinese expedition, but on the other hand, there was a silent sense of relief that the competition did not need to reach a fever pitch.

Compounding the situation is the unexpected discovery of life on Europa -- one that is being debated at length, both on Earth and in spaceships.Some exobiologists shouted "I told you so", emphasizing that this is really nothing to be surprised about.As early as the 1970s, scientific research submarines discovered a large number of strange marine biomes that were unstable and prosperous in deep trenches on the Pacific seabed in an environment considered to be a forbidden zone for life.Hot springs on submarine volcanoes nourish and warm this abyss, creating oases in the desert. It is almost a dogma of scientists that anything found on earth can be repeated thousands of times in the universe.All of Jupiter's large moons have water -- or at least ice.And there's constant volcanic eruption on Io -- so it's reasonable to expect less volcanic activity on neighboring worlds, too.Combining the above two facts, Europa seems not only to have the possibility of life, but also to happen--this is the case with most natural wonders, and people will only infer it after the fact when they see it.

However, this inference also raises another question that is relevant to Leonov's space mission.Now that life is found on Jupiter's moons—is there a link to Tycho's monolith and even more mysterious artifacts in orbit around Io? This became a favorite topic of discussion at the "Six O'clock Soviet Conference".It is generally believed that the creature Dr. Zhang encountered did not exhibit advanced forms of intelligence—at least, if his description of the creature's behavior was correct.No animal endowed with even a rudimentary faculty of reasoning will allow itself to fall victim to instinct, to be attracted like moths to a flame, and to ignore the danger of catastrophe.

Vasily Olov was quick to argue with a counterexample that weakened, if not refuted, the argument. "Look at the whales and dolphins!" he said. "We say they are intelligent--but don't they often commit suicide by stranding themselves on the seashore in groups! This seems to be a case of instinct over reason." "Don't talk about dolphins," interjected Max Bryrowski, "there was a brilliant engineer in our class who got carried away by a blonde, fair-skinned woman in Kyiv. Last I heard he He was working in a garage when I got the news. You know he won a gold medal for designing the space station. What a waste!"

Even if Dr Zhang's Europa creature is intelligent, it certainly cannot be ruled out that there are more advanced life forms elsewhere.The biology of an entire planet cannot be judged from a single specimen. But there have been widespread debates that advanced intelligence cannot be produced in the sea because there is not enough challenge and stimulation in a peaceful and permanent environment.Most importantly, how could marine life develop any technology without the help of fire? But that situation may also exist, and there will not be only one road to civilization.Other worlds may have civilizations that arose entirely in the ocean.

Still, without the buildings, scientific equipment, launch stations, and other artifacts that conclusively prove its existence, it seems unlikely that an advanced space civilization of that kind could manifest itself on Europa.As far as the eye can see, there are only flat ice and some bare rocks. When the Leonov passed by Io and the small moon Jupiter (Metis is Jupiter, which is the closest to Jupiter among the known Jupiter satellites. The original work is here called "Mimas", which means Earth Wei Yi, suspecting a typo.——Reviser's note) track, there is no time to continue speculation and discussion.Everyone on board was scrambling to get ready for the scheduled encounter and the brief change in months of weightlessness.All free objects must be fixed before the spacecraft enters Jupiter's atmosphere, and deceleration and braking may cause an instantaneous gravity peak of up to 2G.

Floyd was lucky; he was the only one who had time to linger before the gorgeous spectacle of the approaching planet, which now covered half the sky.Having never been exposed to such a huge magnitude, the human mind cannot comprehend its true size.He had to keep telling himself that fifty Earths wouldn't cover the oncoming hemisphere. Those clouds, like the most dazzling sunsets on earth, were moving so fast they would change in the ten minutes he could see them.The huge vortex surged continuously along the ring belt around the planet, and then swirled away like smoke.Gentle plumes of white smoke now and then erupt from the depths, and are immediately blown away by the whirling winds of the giant star.Perhaps the strangest of all are the white spots, sometimes like pearls in a necklace, neatly arranged along the trade winds of Jupiter's mid-latitudes.

Floyd rarely saw the captain or navigator in the hours leading up to the critical moment.The Olovs hardly ever leave the bridge, they are constantly checking the entry track and making meticulous corrections every minute of the Leonov's entire voyage.The ship is now approaching the critical moment of just skimming the outer atmosphere; if it flies too high, the friction of the brakes will not slow it down sufficiently, and it will crash out of the solar system with no hope of recovery; Too low and it becomes a flaming meteor.Between these two extremes, one has to be careful not to make mistakes.

The Chinese have proven the feasibility of air brakes, but there is always the possibility of error.So Floyd wasn't surprised at what Medical Commander Rudenko said an hour earlier, admitting: "I wish, Woody, after all, I should have taken that icon."