Chapter 16 Chapter 15 Escaping from the Giant Palm

Floyd came to the lookout - after spending a few discreet minutes with Rania - Jupiter appeared to have moved away from the ship.This should be an illusion based on his knowledge, not what he saw with his own eyes.They had just burst out of the atmosphere of Jupiter, a planet that still occupied most of the sky. Now, as predicted, they were captives of Jupiter.In the last blazing hour, they had slowed down too fast, or they would have flown out of the solar system, to the unknown among the stars.They are currently in an elliptical orbit—that is, the traditional Hohmann orbit (in 1925, the Austrian scientist Hohmann (W. The double-cut elliptical orbit. This optimal orbit is called the Hohmann orbit. It uses the revolution motion of the earth and the planets, so that the probe can only get the necessary speed in the initial stage, and then most of the time is inertial flight, which saves Fuel, but the flight time is longer. - recalibration note) - orbit, it will lead them to and from Jupiter and 350,000 km altitude between the orbit of Io.If they didn't—or couldn't—fire the thrusters again, Leonlev would circle the range, making one revolution every 19 hours.It will also become one of Jupiter's closest moons -- though perhaps for a short time.Each time the spacecraft skidded through Jupiter's atmosphere, it lost altitude until it spun into destruction.

Floyd never liked the taste of vodka, but he joined the others in toasting the ship's designer and thanking the great Sir Isaac Newton.Then Tanya resolutely put the bottle back in the cupboard, and there were still many things to do. Although they were all mentally prepared, a dull explosion sound and sudden separation shaking still made them startled.A few seconds later, a huge, shiny disk came into view, then slowly somersaulted away from the spacecraft. "Look!" Max exclaimed, "flying saucer! Who's got a camera?" As soon as the words fell, there was hysterical laughter, which was finally stopped by the captain's serious voice.

"Goodbye, loyal heat shield! Well done." "But what a waste!" Sasha said. "At least dozens of tons. Think of the more payload we could have carried!" "If conservative Russian engineering is right," Floyd countered, "I'm all for it. A few tons more is far better than a milligram less." All the people applauded him, and the abandoned heat shield outside had gradually cooled to yellow, then red, and finally turned as black as the surrounding space.It disappeared from people's sight after drifting a few kilometers away from the spacecraft, only occasionally showing its face in the dim starlight.

"The initial detection of the orbit has been completed," Vasily said, "We are running at a speed of ten meters per second, and the results of the first attempt are not bad. Hearing the news, people breathed a sigh of relief.A few minutes later, Vasily announced to everyone: "Change the flight altitude to correct the course; change the speed to six meters per second, please prepare your minds for the twenty-second ignition in one minute." They were still so close to Jupiter that it was hard to believe that the spacecraft was orbiting it; it was as if they were in an air craft that had just emerged from a sea of ​​clouds and soared high into the sky.There is no sense of boundaries, and it is easy to imagine that they are speeding away from a continent bathed in the setting sun, and the changing pale pink, bright red and deep crimson colors below are so familiar.

But that is only an illusion, there is nothing like Earth here.Those colors are inherent, not with the brilliance of the setting sun.The gas permeating here is even more different-a hodgepodge of methane, ammonia and mixed hydrocarbons (Witches's Brew, witches' recipe, witches' drink, witches' decoction; because it often contains many strange formulas, it is also called What people extend to be weird, weird, hodgepodge, etc.—Reviser's note) are stirred together in the hydrogen-helium furnace.Not a single trace of free oxygen, an essential ingredient of human respiration, could be found.

Massive clouds rose in layers from the horizon and were twisted by scattered eddies and spins.Upwelling bright gas stippled patterns here and there, and Floyd saw the dark silhouette of a gigantic vortex—a cyclone plunging into the unfathomable depths of Jupiter. He started looking for the Great Red Spot, and then he laughed at himself for being so stupid.All the huge cloudscapes you see now may only be a few percent of the vast and endless Great Red Spot, which is like trying to discern the shape of the United States while flying low in Kansas in an airplane. "Corrected. We are now in an intersecting orbit with Io. Rendezvous time: Eight hours and fifty-five minutes."

Less than nine hours to climb out of Jupiter and meet whatever has been waiting for us, Floyd thought.We have escaped the Hand - but it represents a danger we understand and are prepared for, and now the fog lies ahead of us. When we have weathered that challenge, we must return to Jupiter.We will use its power to send us home safely.