Chapter 171 - 170: Frozen to Death by High Temperature

Li Qingsong had always been curious about certain aspects of the Oort Cloud.

’Does the Oort Cloud... really exist?’

Although various theories of Solar System evolution supported the existence of the Oort Cloud, and celestial bodies suspected to originate from it had been discovered within the Solar System—such as comets and asteroids—the actual Oort Cloud had never been observed. Not by humans, and not even by Li Qingsong.

It was estimated that the Oort Cloud could contain over a trillion celestial bodies with diameters greater than one kilometer, and perhaps several billion with diameters greater than twenty kilometers.

The total mass of the Oort Cloud’s celestial bodies was more than five times the mass of Earth.

A mass greater than five Earths was thus scattered at the edge of the Solar System, yet had never been seen by anyone.

The fact that so many celestial bodies and so much mass had never been seen seemed hard to comprehend. But the reason was actually quite simple.

The Oort Cloud was simply too vast.

The region extending from 0.03 to 1.5 light-years from the Sun is thought to be part of the Oort Cloud.

The total volume of this region was approximately 1.17 x 10^40 cubic kilometers. Five times Earth’s mass is approximately 3 x 10^25 kilograms. Spreading this mass across such a vast region meant that the average mass per cubic kilometer was a mere 2.6 trillionths of a gram, roughly equivalent to one-hundredth the mass of a single PM2.5 particle.

Five times the mass of Earth might seem enormous, but it was vanishingly small compared to such an immense region. The matter here was still incredibly sparse.

Trying to find a celestial body perhaps only tens of kilometers, or even tens of meters, in diameter within such a vast expanse of space was no easy task.

But for Li Qingsong, verifying the Oort Cloud’s existence was of paramount importance.

It would allow him to refine his theory of the Solar System’s evolution and deepen his understanding of the cosmos.

While there were no short-term benefits—it couldn’t be converted into combat strength or specific technologies—it was crucial in the long run.

Human Civilization—no, Li Qingsong believed that all the knowledge and physical theories possessed by any intelligent species were, in essence, simply a reflection of their understanding of the cosmos.

The depth of this understanding determined the scope of a civilization’s knowledge, and in turn, its level of technology, combat strength, and capacity for survival.

Studying the origin of the Solar System was one way to deepen that understanding.

’If I reach a higher level of technology in the future, I’ll move on to researching more star systems and even larger cosmic structures.’

At this distance, Li Qingsong directed numerous unmanned probes to depart from the fleet. They dispersed throughout the vastness of space like a sieve, beginning to meticulously scan the empty void.

The farthest probes traveled up to 100 million kilometers away from the main fleet.

With the main fleet as the center and a radius of 100 million kilometers, Li Qingsong’s detection cross-section reached approximately 31.4 quadrillion square kilometers.

Using this as a starting point and assuming the edge of the Oort Cloud was one light-year from the Sun, Li Qingsong’s journey to that edge would mean scanning a cylindrical volume. This cylinder would have a base area of 31.4 quadrillion square kilometers and a height of approximately one light-year.

The volume of this cylinder was approximately 2.95 x 10^29 cubic kilometers, accounting for about 2.5 parts per hundred billion of the Oort Cloud’s total estimated volume.

Based on current theories where the Oort Cloud’s total mass is five times that of Earth (i.e., 3 x 10^25 kg), and assuming this matter is uniformly distributed, scanning 2.5 hundred-billionths of its volume should, probabilistically, lead to the discovery of approximately 7.5 x 10^14 kilograms of matter—or about 750 billion metric tons.

With 750 trillion metric tons of matter, and assuming the average density of a comet or asteroid in the Oort Cloud is about 0.6 grams per cubic centimeter, this would be equivalent to a single asteroid with a radius of 67 kilometers, or 300 asteroids with a radius of 10 kilometers.

Overall, if current theories on the Solar System’s evolution were correct, the probability of discovering macroscopic matter from the Oort Cloud on this journey was quite high.

Within the vast, empty void, Li Qingsong commanded the enormous fleet to accelerate continuously, all while scanning the surrounding space.

Time flowed by quietly.

Li Qingsong found that the material density of his surrounding space was constantly decreasing. It had dropped from roughly 3 to 10 particles per cubic centimeter in the vicinity of the Solar System to the current level of 0.05 to 0.1 particles per cubic centimeter.

The density had decreased more than tenfold.

But one peculiar thing was that the "temperature" here was extremely high, reaching tens of thousands of degrees Celsius.

On Earth, a temperature of tens of thousands of degrees Celsius would melt anything. But out here, it couldn’t melt a thing.

Toss one of the Clones into this "heat," and it would likely freeze to death instead.

The reason was simple: temperature is an indicator of the average kinetic energy of particles. The particles here moved at extremely high speeds, which meant the temperature was extremely high.

However, their density was incredibly low. So, no matter how high the kinetic energy of an individual particle, the total energy from a macroscopic perspective remained negligible. This created the paradoxical situation where "high temperatures" and "freezing to death" could coexist.

This seemed to differ somewhat from his predictions. Li Qingsong decisively dispatched more research teams to study the phenomenon and find its underlying cause.

Even in this vast, seemingly empty void, there were still countless physical phenomena Li Qingsong had never before encountered.

This migration was not merely a journey of relocation, but one of scientific discovery.

Time passed in a blur of constant observation, research, and acceleration.

Several years slipped by, and the fleet finally reached its designated top speed.

Li Qingsong’s migration fleet was slightly faster than the one the Blutuk People had used. It reached 4% of the speed of light, or about 12,000 kilometers per second.

Upon reaching top speed, the fleet ceased its acceleration. The constant thrust, which had created an artificial gravity equivalent to 1/250th of Earth’s, finally vanished.

The Blutuk People and the Clones living in the cylindrical ships were finally free from the faint, almost imperceptible gravity that had constantly seemed to pull them to one side.

At this point, the fleet’s distance from the Sun had reached 1.8 trillion kilometers, approximately 0.19 light-years.

From this distance, Li Qingsong looked back toward the Sun again.

Against the cosmic dark, the Sun was still exceptionally bright, a glaringly obvious point of light.

The Sun, as seen from here, still had an apparent magnitude of approximately -6.34.

For comparison, from Earth, Venus is the brightest object in the sky besides the Sun and the Moon, yet its apparent magnitude is only -4.89.