Chapter 130: Sol Two Hundred and Seventy-Two, Visitor From Beyond the Sky
Translator: CKtalon Editor: CKtalon
“Cot?” Tang Yue was taken aback.
Mai Dong was installing the C1002 conducting wire when she heard Tomcat’s words. She looked up and said, “A cot, like Halley’s Cot?’
“Yes, that’s it,” Tomcat replied. “But it’s not Halley’s Cot, it’s a brand new one. There aren’t any historical records of it. It’s an aperiodic cot, and its orbit isn’t an ellipse but two curves.”
“When did you discover it?” Tang Yue was surprised.
“Just. I just confird its existence.” Tomcat listed the observational data on a monitor. This star has increased seven tis in magnitude over the past forty-eight hours, going from a magnitude of 6 to 4. I originally thought it was a variable star, but I later discovered that it was a celestial body within the Solar System. It’s rapidly approaching the sun at increasingly high speeds.”
“Does this an that we can see a cot?” Mai Dong was pleasantly surprised.
“What does this an for us?” Tang Yue’s reaction was tense. The first thing that ca to mind was of a cot hitting Earth. “There won’t be any danger, right?”
“It’s unknown or the mont. I’ve activated the survey telescope and plan on tracking it. I’ll soon be able to estimate it’s trajectory,” Tomcat replied. “Based on the present results, it’s a cot that has never visited the Solar System. It likely originates from the Oort Cloud...”
“Who cares where it cos from. As long as it doesn’t co to Mars,” Tang Yue quipped.
“Will I be able to see it?” Mai Dong asked.
“Yes, Miss Mai Dong,” Tomcat said. “However, it’s brightness isn’t higher than most of the stars in space. But with the passage of ti, it will narrow the distance with the sun, and the cot’s apparent magnitude will continue rising.”
Mai Dong straightened her body as she looked around. The constellations that filled the sky emitted resplendent light but she couldn’t find the broom-shaped star that she imagined.
“But I can’t find it. Aren’t cots like a big broom?”
“It’s still not close enough to the sun, so the cot’s tail isn’t obvious. But it won’t be long before you will be able to find it. It’s a rare cot. Its head should exceed 280,000 kiloters in diater,” Tomcat said. “Do you know what this ans in terms of size?”
Mai Dong shook her head.
“Jupiter’s diater is only about 140,000 kiloters, so its diater is twice that of Jupiter,” Tomcat explained. “When Tomcat-Tang-Mai I is at perihelion, it will beco the brightest star in the sky. It will also drag out a massive cot tail more than a hundred million kiloters long, sweeping across the entire night sky.
“Wait, what did you just say? What’s Tomcat-Tang-Mai?” Tang Yue frowned. Tomcat often didn’t speak human.
“That the cot’s na,” Tomcat answered.
“You previously ntioned that it’s an unrecorded cot.”
“Yes, that’s why I’ve just given it its na.” Tomcat nodded. “According to the International Astronomical Union, a new cot is given the na of its discoverers.”
Tang Yue ruminated the na a few tis before realizing that Tomcat was using their nas to na the cot.
Cot Tomcat-Tang-Mai I.
This was probably the last cot to be discovered and nad in human history.
“How long will it take before you can confirm its trajectory?” Tang Yue asked.
“The space station’s telescope is tracking it. It will be able to estimate the outco in a few days. At present, it can be confird that the cot will enter Earth’s original orbit, which also ans that it will pass by Mars’s orbit. However, it’s still unknown if it will brush past Mars,” Tomcat answered. “However, you don’t have to worry about this problem. Even though the cot appears like a massive, terrifying celestial body, 99% of it is made of thin gas. The real solid cot nucleus is only a few dozen kiloters in diater.”
“So that ans it’s impossible for it to hit Mars?” Tang Yue asked.
“Impossible. The speed of the cot is too high. It far exceeds the escape velocity of any planet in the Solar System. Unless Tomcat-Tang-Mai plunges straight into the Roche limit between the two bodies and gets ripped apart by the tidal forces, Mars won’t be able to capture it.” Tomcat shook its head.
“We can do a simple calculation. The cot’s nucleus is mainly made up of water. Its density is very close to ice, and Mars’s average density is very low. It’s about 4g/cm³. According to the Roche limit’s equation, d = 2.44R³√(ρM/ρm), one can derive the Roche limit to be 7,004 km.
“That also ans that the cot needs to approach within 3600 kiloters of Mars’s surface to not be ripped into shreds before smashing into Mars... I’m telling you this, not to keep you on the edges of your seats, but to tell you to rember to watch the show when the ti cos,” Tomcat continued. “The cot might be the brightest celestial object of this century. It’s a very rare astronomical wonder.”
Tang Yue heaved a sigh of relief.
He’d rather not see any astronomical wonder than have anything unexpected happen.
Anyone would feel horrified to have Tomcat suddenly tell them that a celestial body was rushing towards Mars’s orbit at nearly 80 km/s.
But in Mai Dong’s eyes, it was a very romantic matter.
However, to Tang Yue, it was like an alert of a nuclear strike.
“As long as Cot Shoemaker-Levy 9’s incident isn’t replicated. Tomcat, you have to know that humans are fearful of celestial bodies. After all, our ancestors were the creatures that survived from a celestial nuclear strike. If it wasn’t that teorite that produced the Chicxulub crater in xico 65 million years ago, I might have a reptilian face now,” Tang Yue said. “I don’t really care about wonders since I’ve already witnessed the disappearance of Earth. What else can still alarm ?”
“It was Jupiter that ripped apart Shoemaker,” Tomcat said. “Compared to Jupiter, Mars is still far from that.”
“Why would there be a cot all of a sudden?” Mai Dong screwed on the screw and asked.
“It’s not sudden. It’s because we just discovered it,” Tomcat replied. “When it passed by Neptune’s and Uranus’s orbit, it didn’t reflect any light due to its distance. It was why we didn’t see it. In fact, it had long entered the Solar System.”
“Will it ever co back again?”
“No,” Tomcat said. “It’s a wandering cot. It will never return after it leaves. In fact, most cots are like that. They wander around everywhere, getting pulled in by the sun’s gravity, circle around it, and leave, never to return.”
“Wandering... Wandering,” Mai Dong whispered as she screwed in the last screw, installing the C1002 wire. “Where do you co from? And where do you belong?”
She looked into the distance again, attempting to find the wandering celestial body that had barged into the Solar System.
But just as Tomcat said, the cot was still too dim. It was like a drop of water that was hidden in the massive sea of stars.
It was an ancient starry sky.
The youngest light that landed in the girl’s eyes was four-years-old.
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