Chapter 71: Impact!
Or… the truth is actually the opposite?
It’s not that the signal and communication were interfered with, but rather that for some unknown reason the communication module stopped functioning, leading to loss of contact, which in turn made our side mistakenly think that communication was interfered with?
Jiang Yang didn’t think too much about this issue. Because in either case, the result was the same.
His attention refocused on the remaining 9 lunar rovers.
On the desolate and dead silent lunar surface, these nine “hounds” were still advancing under their master’s command, continuously shrinking the encirclement around the “prey”.
Moments later, Professor Li Jiaming reported loudly again: “Lunar rover No. 6 has encountered signal interference!”
In the image, the footage transmitted back by it showed slight shaking. It seemed that the interference at this moment was not yet severe.
This time, Jiang Yang changed his previous command: “Retreat 100 meters to observe!”
“Yes!”
Under the command, the crawler wheels reversed, following the previous tracks, bringing this lunar rover back to the rear, and the signal interference disappeared.
“No radiation, no electromagnetic waves, no known sources of signal interference.”
Professor Li Jiaming murmured: “We can’t find the reason.”
Jiang Yang nodded and continued watching the other lunar rovers.
In the subsequent two-plus hours, a total of eight lunar rovers all showed signs of signal interference, so all eight lunar rovers stopped.
In the image, with these eight lunar rovers plus the first one that lost contact, a total of nine coordinate points were connected, forming an image roughly presenting an elliptical shape on the screen.
Longest extent 12 kilometers, shortest extent 10.5 kilometers, total area approximately 95 square kilometers.
Compared to the previously roughly delimited area of about 300 square kilometers, it had shrunk by fully 70%.
These eight still normally operational lunar rovers had already deployed detection on site.
Using the equipment they carried, they began detecting everything in the surrounding environment at zero distance and transmitting data back to Earth in real time.
The corresponding analysis team had long been ready. Scientists from dozens of top universities, research institutes, and laboratories began analyzing this data.
But Jiang Yang knew that these analyses were unlikely to yield any results.
The anomaly was extremely likely to exist only within the area. And for this anomaly zone, our side’s detection power could not enter.
It wasn’t just Jiang Yang who realized this.
The atmosphere in the command room had become much heavier than before. Obviously, everyone already knew that our side’s attempt to uncover the truth of the apocalypse had been declared a failure at this moment.
In this life, our side could not know what the truth of the apocalypse was.
But even if it failed, our side was not truly without gain.
Besides confirming the true existence of the anomaly, one of the anomaly’s manifestation patterns, and the area range covered by the anomaly, our side still had one last detection method.
And this detection method was very likely something that even the anomaly covering this area could not block.
Jiang Yang looked at Professor Li Jiaming: “How long until the impactor reaches the Moon?”
“Nine hours.”
“Good.”
After resting for a while, at eleven o’clock at night, when about 25 hours remained until the apocalypse, everyone gathered again in the command hall.
The large screen displayed the payload bay of Rocket No. 1 Tianzai.
It was a conical cabin with a diameter of about 2.6 meters and a height of about 2 meters. It was equipped with some scientific detection equipment, with a total mass of about 4 tons.
These scientific detection equipment were originally intended to conduct some lunar detection incidentally while approaching the Moon at high speed.
After all, detection opportunities were rare, and even if the detection window was extremely short, it had to be utilized.
Of course, now it seemed that these scientific detection equipment were very likely to go unused.
At this moment, the payload bay was still about 3000 kilometers from the Moon. Its speed was about 0.9 kilometers per second.
This speed seemed very slow, but in fact, before this, its speed had been even slower.
Because its speed had never reached second cosmic velocity, it had never broken free from Earth’s gravitational field.
During the process of flying away from Earth, its speed had always been continuously and steadily weakened by Earth’s gravitational field, and at its slowest, it was even less than 500 meters per second.
But fortunately, at this moment it had entered the coverage range of the lunar gravitational field.
In this area, the strength of the lunar gravitational field surpassed that of Earth’s gravitational field. So under the lunar gravitational effect, its speed began to increase slowly again, reaching 0.9 kilometers per second at this moment.
And in the subsequent process, it would continue to accelerate until about 2.4 kilometers per second.
Time passed bit by bit. The bright spot representing the payload bay drew increasingly closer to the Moon, and its figure was finally captured by the lunar survey satellite.
Against the background of that small planet glowing with bluish light, an even tinier light spot slowly approached from the distant and profound deep space.
“Orbit correction!”
“Attitude adjustment engine started, jetting time 1.6 seconds!”
“Moonquake detector ready!”
On the conical payload bay, more than a dozen streams of hot high-pressure gas jetted out from various nozzles, with each jet lasting only a fraction of a second, fleeting in an instant.
The total jetting time of only 1.6 seconds ended, and the payload bay’s orbit underwent a slight change accordingly.
Its speed was still gradually climbing, and with the speed increase, from its perspective, the lunar surface below appeared increasingly vast.
One of the lunar rovers also raised its lens toward the sky. Thus, under the sunlight, that small bright spot, like a meteor, suddenly plummeted from the vast and boundless deep space, crashing onto the lunar surface almost in an instant.
At this moment, about 12 billion joules, energy equivalent to 2.6 tons of TNT explosives detonating, was instantly released, with the vast majority released into the Moon’s rock, and only a small portion released as splashes of debris, moon dust, and fragments.
The lunar surface trembled slightly.
At this moment, mechanical waves began to propagate rapidly through the lunar rock layer. And mechanical waves are divided into longitudinal waves and transverse waves, and they change due to differences in rock layer density and distribution.
By measuring this change, people can know the secrets inside the planet.
This is true on Earth, and the same on the Moon.
The seismic waves carrying the underground secrets of the lunar special area were precisely captured by the moonquake detectors in the eight lunar rovers, through multi-angle precise capture from different directions and positions.
The corresponding data was quickly transmitted back and analyzed by the automatic plotting program at the first moment.
The next moment, the initial first image was presented to everyone.
Professor Li Jiaming’s pupils suddenly contracted: “There exists an underground cavity there!”
