Chapter 2: The Collision of the Moon and Jupiter!

This was Xiao Yu’s plan, but it had a major flaw: the issue of fuel consumption before reaching Titan.

With Earth’s current technology, spacecraft propulsion relies on rockets to achieve escape velocity. Once free of Earth’s gravitational field, spacecraft rely primarily on inertia for flight, using onboard fuel for minor orbital adjustments and necessary speed changes. Xiao Yu’s spaceship, however, was entirely different.

Constructed in geosynchronous orbit, Xiao Yu’s ship relied on its own fuel reserves to escape Earth’s gravity and embark on its journey into deep space. Despite optimizing fuel usage to the utmost and initially storing as much fuel as possible, escaping Earth’s gravitational pull alone had consumed 35% of the total fuel. Subsequent accelerations further depleted reserves, leaving him with only 60% of his original stock.

Maintaining a position behind Mars for an extended period would also demand significant fuel. Furthermore, decelerating to enter Mars’ orbit, accelerating to leave its gravitational field, and eventually decelerating again to approach Titan would all require substantial amounts of fuel.

Originally, Xiao Yu’s plan was to head straight to Europa, one of Jupiter’s moons. Europa, being the most likely place in the Solar System to harbor liquid water besides Earth, offered the potential to extract liquid hydrogen and oxygen for fuel using specialized techniques adapted to its unique environment. Once Xiao Yu mastered nuclear fusion technology, he planned to collect enough fusion fuel from Jupiter to leave the Solar System and venture into deep space. However, all these plans had been disrupted by the impending collision between the Moon and Jupiter.

Reluctantly, Xiao Yu adjusted the engine’s thrust direction, altering the ship’s trajectory toward Mars.

Ten days passed swiftly. During this time, the Moon had already crossed Mars’ orbit, hurtling toward Jupiter like a maddened behemoth. Xiao Yu’s cameras kept a close watch on its path.

Another twenty days passed in a blur. The reddish hue of Mars came into view as expected.

After decelerating, Xiao Yu’s spaceship reduced its speed to 4,000 meters per second. This deceleration consumed an additional 5% of his remaining fuel, leaving Xiao Yu grimacing at the cost.

Nevertheless, the expenditure was necessary. Without slowing down, the ship would have bypassed Mars entirely. Only by reducing its speed to about 4,000 meters per second could the spaceship be captured by Mars’ gravity and enter an orbit around the planet.

At an altitude of 3,000 kilometers above Mars, Xiao Yu successfully established an orbital path. The spaceship began a leisurely rotation around the planet, awaiting the moment of the spectacular celestial collision.

This altitude had been carefully calculated as the optimal position. At this height, the ship could remain completely hidden behind Mars to shield itself from the energy burst of the collision while minimizing energy consumption for later escape.

The spaceship now revolved in a circular orbit around Mars, completing a full rotation in under two hours.

Even before the Moon collided with Jupiter, fragments of Earth had begun to impact Mars. Over recent days, meteor strikes on Mars had grown significantly in both frequency and mass. Watching flashes of light erupting on Mars’ surface from time to time, Xiao Yu couldn’t help but feel a growing sense of unease.

Some of the meteoric fragments from Earth clearly bore signs of having once supported life. For instance, one meteorite, 300 meters long and 50 meters wide, had an unusually high albedo of 0.7, indicating a smooth, reflective surface. Xiao Yu speculated that it might be primarily composed of steel.

He was tempted to claim the steel for himself, as it would be invaluable for future spaceship upgrades. However, the harsh reality was disappointing—at such high speeds, even a small meteorite fragment posed a danger akin to a grenade. At his current technological level, Xiao Yu’s ship couldn’t withstand these impacts.

This was the largest meteorite Xiao Yu had observed during this period. By comparison, the Tunguska event on Earth—believed to have been caused by a meteorite approximately 30 meters in diameter—had released energy equivalent to over 1,000 Hiroshima atomic bombs when it disintegrated in Earth’s atmosphere. The steel meteorite before him was dozens of times larger in both mass and volume.

Fortunately, Xiao Yu’s ship was on the opposite side of Mars when the impact occurred. Nevertheless, through his optical telescope, Xiao Yu observed the massive effects of the meteorite on Mars.

The collision produced a shockwave that increased Mars’ orbital eccentricity by 0.2%. A towering mountain over 10,000 meters high arose at the impact site’s antipodal point. Countless dormant volcanoes across Mars suddenly erupted, shrouding the planet in thick smoke and ash. The frozen polar ice caps melted, causing a rare phenomenon—rainfall on Mars, an event unseen for millennia. Meanwhile, several violent earthquakes reshaped the Martian surface.

Xiao Yu deeply appreciated the truth of a simple phrase: “The Solar System is an intricately balanced structure; disturbing one element affects the entire system.”

The explosion of Earth wasn’t just Earth’s tragedy—it was destined to have a profound and far-reaching impact on the entire Solar System.

Watching all of this unfold, Xiao Yu couldn’t help but feel an inexplicable sadness, a kind of shared grief: “If there were any lifeforms on Mars, they’d likely be wiped out by now.”

Apart from narrowly dodging a few fragments from the Mars impact, the collision itself had minimal direct effects on Xiao Yu. However, the event had significantly elevated his expectations of the consequences of the Moon’s collision with Jupiter.

As his thoughts wandered, Xiao Yu found himself feeling a faint anticipation: “A collision of this magnitude—maybe not throughout the galaxy, but at least in this sector of the third spiral arm—is certainly rare. Witnessing such an event… it makes this life worth living.”

Twenty days passed swiftly. Only ten days remained until the estimated impact.

Xiao Yu gradually reduced his speed. To avoid being pulled into Mars’ gravity, he increased his engines’ thrust directed toward the planet. Finally, a day before the collision, Xiao Yu positioned his spaceship securely behind Mars.

Now, Xiao Yu’s spaceship, Mars’ center of mass, and Jupiter’s center of mass were roughly aligned. This arrangement maximized his shielding from Jupiter’s influence.

Fueled by curiosity, Xiao Yu couldn’t bear the thought of missing such a cosmic spectacle. Thus, he launched a small satellite into orbit around Mars ahead of time. This allowed him to monitor the collision via the satellite’s broadcast, even while he remained hidden behind the planet.

At this distance, Mars was approximately 500 million kilometers from Jupiter. This meant that, once the collision occurred, the visual effects and impact would take about half an hour to reach Mars.

Based on his latest observations, Xiao Yu began silently counting down in his mind.

In truth, the collision had likely already occurred by this point. The visuals, however, were still traveling across the vast distance of space. Imagining the awe-inspiring scene to come, Xiao Yu was filled with anticipation.

“Ten, nine, eight… two, one!”

Everything unfolded exactly as he expected.

An astonishing scene appeared before Xiao Yu.

On the ecliptic plane, sunlight was almost completely obscured by the debris from Earth’s explosion. As a result, the Solar System was shrouded in darkness.

But amidst this blackness, a massive light source suddenly emerged on the distant horizon. Its intensity was more than ten times brighter than the Sun! The colossal light source illuminated the entire Solar System in an instant.

The image lasted only for a moment before the signal abruptly cut out. Xiao Yu knew that the intense radiation from Jupiter had melted the small satellite.

Before Xiao Yu could recover from his shock, the effects of the Moon’s collision with Jupiter began to manifest.

A surge of light, heat, and high-energy radiation swept across Mars, creating utter chaos.

Previously, the iron meteorite from Earth had covered Mars’ atmosphere with a dense layer of dust, plunging the planet into darkness. Now, the immense energy from Jupiter’s collision rapidly heated Mars’ already chaotic atmosphere. The imbalance in pressure triggered superstorms, with winds so powerful they hurled rocks into Martian synchronous orbit.

Simultaneously, the surface of Mars facing Jupiter began to melt. Rocks and sand turned into rivers of molten red, flowing violently across the planet’s surface.

Confronted with such overwhelming cosmic forces, Xiao Yu dared not make a single move. Hidden behind Mars, he silently observed the unfolding events.

For the first time, Xiao Yu felt a profound gratitude for his decision to use Mars as a shield. Without it, he would likely have been reduced to a pool of molten metal.

The high-energy radiation didn’t pause. After sweeping past Mars’ orbit in an instant, it continued toward Earth’s former orbital path at the speed of light.

At present, Earth’s orbit was home to a collection of comets. Under the Sun’s radiation pressure and heat, these comets had developed long tails. But as Jupiter’s tremendous energy reached them, countless comet tails were instantly scattered. For a brief moment, the Sun appeared to brighten as if a veil had been lifted. However, in the next moment, Jupiter’s energy temporarily overpowered the Sun’s, forcing the comet tails to point directly toward the Sun.

By observing the light reflected from the comets, Xiao Yu estimated Jupiter’s current luminosity.

At this moment, the absolute magnitude of Jupiter had surpassed the Sun’s by at least tenfold. In other words, if Jupiter and the Sun were at the same distance from Xiao Yu, Jupiter’s brightness would exceed the Sun’s by an order of magnitude.

Such immense power was awe-inspiring beyond measure.