Rebirth of the Super Battleship-Chapter 619: From Star to Planet
The Galactic Center was a very dangerous place. Even though Xiao Yu had now reached the level of a Level 6 civilization, this point had not changed. The reason was that there were simply too many extreme celestial bodies in the Galactic Center.
This phenomenon was easy to understand. Under Earth’s gravity, heavy things sink while light things relatively rise. Under the gravity of the central black hole of the Galactic Center, extremely dense compact objects would gather in large numbers toward the Galactic Center, while relatively lighter stars, planets, and other bodies would be on the periphery. The principles were the same.
The Galactic Center was the place with the highest density of celestial bodies in the entire galaxy. There, the density of stars could even reach the point of a dozen, or dozens, gathered within a range of one light year. These frenzied multiple-star systems, with stars mixed with various extreme bodies, revolved madly around each other while also orbiting the galaxy’s central supermassive black hole.
Indeed, at the center of the Milky Way Galaxy there existed a supermassive black hole whose mass could reach several million times that of the Sun. It controlled the operation of the entire Milky Way Galaxy, allowing the galaxy to clump together rather than scatter.
The existence of supermassive black holes was a principal force in shaping the universe. The reason the universe formed into galaxies clustered together, rather than becoming a mess of a star here and a star there, was mainly due to the gravity of supermassive black holes.
With technology developed to this day, Xiao Yu had understood more profoundly a truth, namely that every category of life was a legend, developed under the influence of many factors. Take humanity as an example. If not for a supernova exploding near the solar system many hundreds of millions of years ago providing enough heavy elements for the emergence of humans, humans could not have appeared. If the supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way Galaxy had not gathered so many celestial bodies together, allowing different substances to interact, life on Earth could not have appeared either.
If in the solar system there had not been several outer giant planets and a Moon with a disproportionately large mass to shield the young Earth from the barrage of frenzied asteroids from outer space, life on Earth would have been destroyed just as it appeared. If there had been no Moon to generate tidal forces that allowed sufficient material exchange on Earth, life would not have appeared on Earth.
There were many, many similar conditions, too many to finish enumerating. With such a multitude of conditions as a premise, life on Earth appeared and ultimately evolved into intelligent beings like humans.
However, among all these premises, the supermassive black hole at the center of the galaxy was the greatest premise. In a certain sense, humans, no, all native organisms in the Milky Way Galaxy could be considered descendants of this black hole. Without the central black hole, life could not have appeared in the Milky Way Galaxy.
Now Xiao Yu, carrying a complex feeling akin to pilgrimage, sped toward the Galactic Center.
A little over one hundred years after curvature flight began, Xiao Yu personally witnessed the destruction of a star inside the small universe.
This star had originally been a yellow dwarf slightly larger than the Sun. It emitted astonishing light and heat at every moment. But the stellar energy collection device manufactured by Xiao Yu continually stole its mass. Its mass decreased at a rate of roughly eight thousandths per year. The decrease in stellar mass would induce a series of subsequent events.
First, because its mass decreased, its internal pressure would also decrease. As the pressure decreased, the temperature would also decrease. The primary trigger condition for nuclear fusion is temperature. The higher the temperature and the greater the pressure, the more intense the nuclear fusion reaction, and the more energy is released. As Xiao Yu continually siphoned off its mass, he saw its luminosity continually drop and dim, shifting from a yellowish hue gradually toward dark red.
This meant its surface temperature was falling and its radiative capacity weakening. As Xiao Yu kept stealing its mass, its color grew ever redder.
Finally, because of the loss of mass, this star changed from a yellow dwarf to a red dwarf. At that point Xiao Yu still did not stop stealing mass, so it began a new round of transformation. The red light it emitted gradually dimmed.
Darker and darker, ever darker, until now. Today was a turning point, because from today onward, with mass too low to bring sufficient pressure and temperature, nuclear fusion reactions in the core of this star finally ceased. Without nuclear fusion, it could no longer emit light and heat. It could no longer be considered a star, at least not a star in the true sense.
Xiao Yu retained hundreds of millions of images of this star, fully recording its entire process of quickly changing from a star in its youth to a brown dwarf that could not emit light. This star could have had a lifespan of ten billion years, spending its long life peacefully in the cosmos, ultimately becoming a red giant then dispersing into a planetary nebula, leaving a white dwarf in the universe as its corpse. Yet under the influence of technology, its fate was completely and utterly changed. In a little over one hundred years, it hurried through the remainder of its lifespan that would originally have taken at least eight billion years to complete, and it could not even leave its corpse behind.
Xiao Yu retrieved two photos from his mind. In the first photo, the star still emitted a faint glow. Although extremely weak, with highly sensitive optical instruments and after excluding the influence of other stars in the small universe, it could still be captured. In the second photo, the star had completely ceased to emit light.
In the first photo, that faint red light was like the most desperate yet most powerless accusation directed at Xiao Yu, the murderer who had killed it.
Before the force of technology, a star was fundamentally nothing. A single war between Level 6 civilizations could implicate hundreds of stars, leading to their destruction. Even as a Level 5 civilization, in order to encircle and intercept the Level 5 Civilization Alliance, Xiao Yu had once transported more than a dozen stars and deliberately detonated them to inflict damage on the Level 5 Civilization Alliance.
Before technology, stars that had once been incomparably magnificent were gradually becoming weak, gradually becoming pitiful things that could be held in the palm of a civilization’s hand and wantonly ravaged.
“Perhaps it is precisely for this reason that the universe dislikes the existence of civilizations and that something called Luck Value appears.” Xiao Yu thought silently as he looked at this dead star.
Xiao Yu once again personally destroyed a star, turning it from a true star into a brown dwarf.
A brown dwarf is an intermediate body between a planet and a star. It is neither a planet nor a star, or one could say it is an oversized planet and an incomplete version of a star. A brown dwarf cannot sustain hydrogen fusion, but in some regions of its interior there may be a certain degree of deuterium fusion. Because deuterium fusion has lower requirements than hydrogen fusion. However, the scale of this nuclear fusion is too small and can be ignored.
Xiao Yu still did not stop ravaging this star and continued to steal its mass. In the end, the temperature and pressure inside this star could not sustain even the simplest deuterium fusion. It completely left the category of stars and returned entirely to the category of planets.
At this moment, this star was like Jupiter in the solar system. It had changed from a star into a giant gaseous planet. The main components of stars are hydrogen and helium, and the main components of giant gaseous planets are also these two elements. So apart from mass, there is essentially no difference between stars and giant gaseous planets. Therefore, when a star’s mass drops below a certain threshold, it becomes a planet, and when a planet’s mass rises above a certain threshold, it becomes a star. The two can transform into each other.
Xiao Yu had now completed this transformation process. As this star’s mass continually decreased and its volume continually shrank, Xiao Yu had already assigned a large number of mass-theft devices to go work around other stars. Now that this star had become a planet in the true sense, Xiao Yu still did not plan to let it go.
A gaseous planet had no need to exist inside the small universe. It could not provide energy for Xiao Yu like a star, nor could it serve as a place for intelligent beings to live like a rocky planet. It had no value to Xiao Yu. The only consequence of having no value was to be completely destroyed by Xiao Yu with nothing left behind.
Thus, those mass-theft devices continued to work around this planet until they had completely stolen all of its mass, leaving not a scrap. Only then did they depart and were dispatched by Xiao Yu to another star, continuing this task.
A once brilliant star had thus completely disappeared from the universe. The only purpose of its existence had been to allow Xiao Yu’s vast fleet and the entire small universe to advance nearly three thousand light years via curvature flight.
At this moment, Xiao Yu was piloting the vast fleet and the small universe to halt around a star system. Prior detection had shown that there existed a large amount of a certain rare element urgently needed by Xiao Yu in this system. Xiao Yu needed to resupply here and then set out again.
Just then, Xiao Yu received a message transmitted via spatial broadcast.
“Although this is very presumptuous, we are still sending you this request. No matter which civilization receives this message, if you are a Level 6 civilization, then we hope you can come help us. As repayment, we are willing to present this small universe to you. We are the Pegasus Civilization.”
