Ch. 1 - The Bronze Coffin In Outer Space
Life is the greatest miracle in the universe. The four cardinal directions and the two directions above and below are called 'Yu' (space); though space exists, it has no fixed place. The passage from the ancient past to the present is called 'Zhou' (time); though time continues, its origin remains unknown.
In the vast universe and endless starry sky, many scientists speculate that Earth may be the only origin of life.
Humankind is, in fact, very lonely. Among the endless stars of the cosmos, it is incredibly difficult to find a second life-bearing planet. Yet humans have never stopped exploring. Since the last century, many space probes have been launched.
Voyager 2 is an unmanned deep-space probe launched in 1977 from the Kennedy Space Center in the United States. It carries a gold-plated record titled “A Message to the Universe,” which contains popular music and greetings in 55 languages of Earth, hoping that one day it might be intercepted by intelligent extraterrestrial life.
Since the 1970s, Voyager 2 has travelled alone. In the vastness of space, it is as insignificant as a speck of dust. Other space probes from the same era have either broken down or lost contact, disappearing forever into the dead silence of space.
More than thirty years have passed. Technology continues to advance, and humans have built more advanced space probes. Perhaps in the near future, our exploration of the stars will go further. But even so, for a long time to come, the new probes still won't catch up with Voyager 2.
Thirty-three years later, Voyager 2 is already 14 billion kilometers away from Earth. At this point, it has reached escape velocity, the third cosmic speed, and can no longer return to the solar system. It has become an interstellar spacecraft.
In the dark and cold universe, the stars twinkle like glittering diamonds set against a black curtain. Although Voyager 2 is moving at tremendous speed, in the vast and frigid cosmos, it seems like a tiny ant crawling slowly across a dark land.
More than thirty-three years later, and today, at this very moment, Voyager 2 made a shocking discovery! In the deathly silence of outer space, nine enormous corpses lay quietly suspended…
On May 22, 2010, NASA received a mysterious data transmission from Voyager 2. After painstaking decryption and reconstruction, they saw an unimaginable image. At that moment, everyone in the NASA main control room turned pale, and then stood motionless like statues. They were utterly stunned. It took a long time for them to snap out of it, then the control room erupted into chaos.
“Oh my God, what did I just see?”