Voyage of the Stars

The real situation of the Milky Way is different from the Milky Way map that humans often see in the Earth era, or in other words, it is different from what ordinary people know from the pictures they see.

It has four major spiral arms, namely the Scutum-Crusus Arm, the Sagittarius-Carina Arm, the Recoil Arm, and the Perseus Arm. There is also an outer arm formed by rotation, which is an extension of the Recoil Arm. The well-known Orion Arm is actually a branch of the Sagittarius Arm. The front section of the Sagittarius-Carina Arm is the Sagittarius Arm, and the end of the Orion Arm is the Carina Arm.

The Orion Arm is a spiral arm added between the Sagittarius-Carina Arm and the Perseus Arm.

And the location of humans today is the middle and end of the Orion Arm, separated from the Perseus Arm by a vast void space with extremely sparse stars.

The location shown in the star map is just opposite, and human telescopes can see it, but because the distance between the stars is too far, it cannot be directly crossed.

Yes, there are stars even between the spiral arms. Like other stars in the Milky Way, those stars are bound by the gravity of the galactic center and rotate around the center of the Milky Way.

However, the stars between the spiral arms are not as dense as those in the spiral arms. They mostly exist as single star systems, surrounded by the vast void, and there is no village in front and no shop behind.

Therefore, humans must find a place with more stars.

It is impossible to turn around and head towards the galactic center, because in today's human cognition, that direction is the battlefield of the sixth-level civilization.

So where to go?

The humans who originally planned to set sail re-deployed various instruments and equipment, especially various telescopes for astronomical observations. They tried to find a possible star road across the spiral arms by comparing actual observations with the Milky Way star map stored in the database.

Yes, a star road, a star road paved with stars.

Most of the human beings are sailing in the Milky Way disk, which will have a certain impact on observation. For example, from the perspective of humans, we cannot see the whole picture of the Milky Way. We can only see a dense cluster of stars in the middle and small on both sides. As for the Milky Way disk that people usually see, it is a picture of the Milky Way synthesized by computers after measuring the distance and position of many stars. In fact, humans do not have a bird's-eye view of the Milky Way.

There is a feeling of not knowing the true face of Mount Lu because you are in this mountain.

In this case, it is not difficult for humans to find the connection between the two spiral arms with more stars.

It can be said that there are stars when you look up, down, left and right, but there are only differences in more, less, thick and thin.

Therefore, in order to find a feasible star path, humans decided to send out more probes and detection spacecraft, let them fly up and down the Milky Way disk, to provide humans with a certain angle of bird's-eye view.

Of course, this is not easy. After all, although the Milky Way is a flat club-shaped galaxy, its Milky Way disk is still very thick.

Taking the center of the Milky Way as an example, the thickness there is at least about 12,000 light years, and the thickness of the solar system is about 6,000 light years. The further out, the thinner it is. At the location where humans are now, the thickness of the Milky Way disk is about 5,000 light years. Of course, humans are not in the center, which is one of the reasons why the plan to launch probes in the upward and downward directions is feasible.

This is due to the choice of human navigation routes. In order to avoid encountering other civilizations, humans generally choose the upper end of the Milky Way disk and the star road where the stars are not very dense.

Perhaps humans are lucky. After combining multi-faceted detection and observation, a possible route was soon discovered.

It is about 2,000 light years away from where humans are now, and the direction is exactly in the direction of human navigation today. It belongs to the middle and end of the Orion spiral arm.

After years of observation by humans, it was found that there are some sparse stars between the two spiral arms at that location. It is the most likely place for the Orion spiral arm and the Perseus spiral arm to pass through. It is also the place with the largest number of stars between the two spiral arms. It can be said to be the fuzzy connection point of the two spiral arms.

If it is really passable there, then the route that humans need to take to reach their destination is probably in the shape of a "博".

If the void between the spiral arms is regarded as a river, then it will take humans two thousand light years to reach the ferry from where they are now. If you count the distance of the return trip and the crossing of the spiral arms, the total journey will be eight thousand light years.

Eight thousand light years, if it were put before, humans would not even dare to think about it. A level three civilization would have to run non-stop for 16,000 years. Of course, a level three civilization cannot cross it, because the distance between stars blocks the possibility of a level three civilization crossing.

The primary stage of the fourth-level civilization cannot cross it either, because the navigation technology of the primary stage of the fourth-level civilization can only reach the speed of light, that is, 1 times the speed of light. After a major breakthrough in the grand unified force field, it has the ability to navigate at a warp speed of 10.079 times the speed of light, which is the intermediate stage of the fourth-level civilization.

Of course, these humans don't know yet. After all, humans have mastered the 10.079 light speed warp technology from the beginning, so now the entire human civilization believes that as long as they enter the fourth level civilization, they can directly possess such navigation technology!

Traveling at ten times the speed of light is only eight hundred years, but this is only an ideal state. It is impossible to travel all the way, that is unrealistic.

Not to mention whether the warp engine can withstand it, the energy resources stored in each ship cannot support it, and it needs to be replenished midway.

Warp speed navigation is different from conventional power navigation. Conventional power navigation can also turn off the propulsion after accelerating to a certain relative speed value, allowing the ship to enter a state of uniform motion. But warp speed navigation is not possible. If the ship wants to maintain light speed/super-light speed warp speed, it must ensure that the warp speed engine is always working.

Once the warp engines shut down, the ship will exit from warp.

This is easy to understand. It is due to different navigation techniques, so the actual sailing time is much longer than the theoretical one.

Having said that, after discovering this possible star road, human civilization did not hesitate, but chose to go directly to the star road and rush to the distant "ferry", where they could take a good look at whether this star road was really feasible. .

Anyway, it is the direction away from the battlefield of level 6 civilization, and we always have to go, so humans naturally have no hesitation.

The captain of the Grand Fleet, led by the planet-class ship, brought a large number of attached civilization spaceships, like a big fish leading a school of small fish, into the void.

With the current antimatter reserves of the human fleet, a single voyage can travel up to five hundred light years. After that, as long as there are resources to continue production and replenish the antimatter inventory, it can continue on the road. This is why humans feel confident that they can cross the spiral arm.

As long as the distance between stars does not exceed 500 light years, humans can be confident that they can safely cross the spiral arms.

The Orion spiral arm is too dangerous, so why not go to the Perseus spiral arm... Many humans thought so after setting foot on the star road.