Rebirth of the Super Battleship-Chapter 562: Pair-Instability Supernova
At this moment, Xiao Yu was still in the long process of searching. As for where those Level 5 Civilizations had gone, Xiao Yu had no clear idea. They had departed very cleanly, leaving no information that could indicate their destination.
Xiao Yu faintly sensed the taste of a conspiracy, yet he could not obtain more information.
So Xiao Yu could only continue searching, hoping to find a clue at the locations of the remaining civilizations. That was all he could do. In the boundless sea of stars and the limitless universe, hiding is truly too easy, while looking for a particular object is indeed far too difficult.
After leaving the Boötes Civilization’s location, Xiao Yu set out for the Lyra Civilization’s location. This was another long voyage, a journey of more than four thousand six hundred light years. Even at Xiao Yu’s speed, it would take almost one hundred years to arrive.
But this journey was not peaceful. Halfway through the voyage, Xiao Yu encountered an unexpected event, namely, a supernova explosion.
This supernova exploded at a distance of more than three thousand light years from Xiao Yu, blasting itself entirely into fragments, leaving no white dwarf, no neutron star, and no black hole. All its matter was completely scattered into space in this violent explosion and became a planetary nebula that continued to expand.
This was a very rare cosmic spectacle. It was a pair-instability supernova.
At a distance of more than three thousand light years, if it had been an ordinary supernova, Xiao Yu could actually have ignored it. After all, the distance was too far. Moreover, Xiao Yu’s technology had developed to a certain degree. At this distance, withstanding the incursion of the explosion’s energy was nothing to him.
But a pair-instability supernova is not an ordinary supernova. The energy it releases is far too intense, so intense that even after traveling more than three thousand light years, the energy of the outburst could still affect Xiao Yu’s fleet. There was no help for it. To avoid accidental losses, Xiao Yu had to temporarily drop the fleet out of curvature space. He placed the planetary war star, the Earth, in front and parked all warships behind the Earth’s colossal body, relying on the Earth’s formidable defensive power to weather this disaster.
“A pair-instability supernova… This is the first time I have encountered one since entering the cosmic void. Such events are truly too rare. Mm, the observational data from this time will be enough for me to study for a long while.”
Looking at the distant point of light whose brightness had suddenly increased to the point of being even brighter than the entire Milky Way, Xiao Yu rejoiced inwardly.
Indeed, the pair-instability supernova possesses such overwhelming power. When a pair-instability supernova erupts, any powerful existence will pale into insignificance. Not even a whole galaxy can compare with it.
A pair-instability supernova is an extremely extreme supernova phenomenon. It can only occur in massive stars with between one hundred thirty and two hundred fifty times the Sun’s mass. Xiao Yu had a deep understanding of this type of supernova. In his theory, the main reason for such an explosion is that the gamma-ray energy at the stellar core becomes too strong. Excessively strong gamma rays collide with atomic nuclei to produce free electrons and positrons. In this situation, the pressure at the core of the massive star decreases, causing local collapse of the star. Then a great deal of rapid, uncontrolled nuclear burning blows the entire star completely apart.
A pair-instability supernova will not leave any dense core such as a white dwarf, neutron star, or black hole. Because the explosion energy is too violent, the entire star is completely blown apart in such an explosion, leaving no chance for those dense stellar remnants to form. This is its greatest difference from ordinary supernovae. Although Type Ia supernovae also leave no remnants, those occur on white dwarfs, and their power and scale cannot be compared with a pair-instability supernova.
From this, one can imagine how vast the explosive power of a pair-instability supernova is. Because pair-instability supernovae are too rare, even Xiao Yu had not seen many. Back on Earth, Xiao Yu had seen two remnants suspected to be from pair-instability supernovae. But as for truly witnessing the entire explosion process with his own eyes, this was indeed Xiao Yu’s first time.
“Pitiful indeed. I estimate that all low-level life within a radius of several thousand light years centered on this pair-instability supernova will be killed.” Xiao Yu sighed inwardly. “If such a violent explosion had occurred in Earth’s era, all of Earth’s humans would have died, and Earth’s ecological environment would have been completely destroyed. The fact that Earth developed all the way to the human era was truly fortunate. But unfortunately, Earth was ultimately destroyed.”
From this, one can also see the peril of the universe. You never know what kind of crisis you will encounter in the next moment. Know that the energy of a supernova explosion propagates at the speed of light. So when you detect that a star has undergone a supernova explosion, the destructive energy it releases has already arrived simultaneously. You will be killed in an instant, without even time to react. To prevent such things in advance, only the Level 5 Civilization’s tachyon detection technology can be used to actively probe these stars. But there are so many stars in the universe. How could the power of a single civilization possibly monitor the condition of every star in real time? Even if you adopt a method of preliminary screening and monitor only the few stars with a possibility of exploding, how many Level 5 Civilizations are there in the Milky Way?
“Every civilization is a legend. Every civilization has a splendid story.” Xiao Yu thus lamented.
After the most intense explosive energy had passed, Xiao Yu continued on his journey. Though pair-instability supernovae are magnificent, they were not enough to make Xiao Yu stop his steps.
Xiao Yu could treat a pair-instability supernova with little concern, but some existences could not, such as those Pegasus Civilization citizens whom the former Pegasus leader could not forget, the ones who escaped before the Arboreal Race Alien Beast destroyed their capital planet.
They were ahead of Xiao Yu and closer to this exploding pair-instability supernova, so they suffered an even stronger impact. Their technology was not as advanced as Xiao Yu’s. Worst of all, many ships in their fleeing fleet were not warships but ordinary civil, commercial, and industrial vessels. The defensive power of these ships was far inferior to that of warships.
Thus this sudden, unwarranted disaster dealt them a tremendous loss. Nearly half of the ships and populace perished in this disaster, and the remaining half of the ships generally suffered very severe damage. Burned-out engines, completely exhausted energy reserves, damaged precision components, and so on were too numerous to count.
During this period of flight, this portion of the Pegasus Civilization’s populace had already produced a new leader and various related institutions. The new government rapidly assessed the current damage and carried out a series of post-disaster relief efforts.
But the current situation gave him no reason for optimism.
“I have always believed that any hardship is a tempering for our civilization, and our civilization will ultimately be reborn from the ashes and stand at the peak of the universe. I have never wavered in this belief. But now my faith has wavered. I am thinking, why have these disasters all befallen our civilization? Can we truly overcome the difficulties before us?”
Having just concluded a rousing speech that successfully lifted the morale of the surviving populace, the new leader, after ending the speech and returning to his private quarters, slumped in dejection. Looking at the fleet’s damage report before him, he could not help but weep.
The reality before him was harsh. Because the damage was too severe, the fleet had lost the ability to continue long-distance travel. The only viable method was to find a planet nearby on which to settle. But the Pegasus Civilization at this moment no longer had the capability to terraform planets. The populace was too few. The quantity of machinery was too small. Their technology had suffered a break. The scarcity of scientists meant that for at least several thousand years, their technological level would only regress, not advance.
Finding a planet suitable for their survival, or one requiring only very simple transformation to become suitable, then settling there and placing their main effort into raising offspring and developing education to increase the number of scientists as much as possible, that was their only lifeline. But settling nearby meant that, to maintain the populace’s survival, their main effort would have to be spent on planetary transformation. Education would inevitably be delayed.
And that delay might well cost them the hope of their entire civilization.
This series of blows had already pushed the new leader’s mind to the brink of collapse.
After silently weeping for half an hour in the empty room, he stood up, wiped the tears from his face, straightened his attire, and walked out. He once again assumed that air of having pearls of wisdom in hand, of being unable to be defeated by any difficulty.
He had not yet had time to instruct the aide who came up to meet him when he felt a violent shaking, as if an earthquake had occurred on this ship. But he knew that an earthquake could not occur aboard a ship. 𝑓𝘳𝑒𝑒𝓌𝘦𝘣𝘯ℴ𝑣𝘦𝑙.𝘤𝑜𝑚
“What exactly happened? Investigate at once and report to me immediately…”
He gave the order in a steady voice. Although he was inwardly very alarmed at this moment, he knew this emotion could not be revealed and must not be seen by anyone.
