247: Chapter 247: It was bombed!!!

Jingdu, National Astronomical Observatory, Computer Simulation Center.

It was 2:00 AM. The outskirts were pitch black, but here, the lights were bright, and the hum of the server room persisted.

Professor Zhang Qinian stood before a brand-new supercomputer screen with four young researchers.

"Run the base model first," Professor Zhang Qinian said, his eyes fixed on the screen. "Then input the orbital parameters of Formula A. Set the position to 2.8 AU between Mars and Jupiter, and set the asteroid's mass to 0.78 times that of Earth."

The young researcher, Zhang Lin, tapped on the keyboard.

"Simulation starting. Time span set to 500 million years after the formation of the Solar System."

A rotating disk appeared on the screen—the primordial Solar System.

A blue-green point of light flickered between Mars and Jupiter, representing the hypothetical planet tiamat.

The first round of simulation began.

Numbers flickered rapidly as the orbital map rotated on the screen.

Five minutes later, Zhang Lin frowned. "Professor Zhang, it failed. The planet was pulled in by Jupiter."

The blue-green point of light on the screen traced a parabola and eventually plunged into the large light point representing Jupiter.

Clearly, this hypothetical planet tiamat, at 0.8 times the mass of Earth, was pulled in and torn apart by Jupiter's gravity!

"The initial orbit was too close," Professor Zhang Qinian said thoughtfully. "Xiao Zhang, adjust the orbital eccentricity and inclination, then increase the stability. Let's try again."

The Enter key was pressed, and the second simulation began.

This time, the point of light lasted longer—roughly eighty million years in simulation time—before being flung out of orbit by Jupiter's massive gravity, becoming a rogue planet that gradually vanished at the edge of the Solar System.

"Still not working," another researcher sighed. "tiamat is a bit too demanding. Even with the data we provide, it's either torn apart by Jupiter or flung out. It seems tiamat really didn't exist in the Solar System, or it just never formed."

Another female researcher analyzed, "Right. Most of the big shots in the astronomical community have already done the math. Why would we succeed this time just because we listened to Xiaoyu's brother's crazy conjecture? How is that possible?"

Clearly, after two failures, no one was surprised at all; it would have been a surprise if they had succeeded.

Professor Zhang Qinian narrowed his eyes and stared at the screen for a long time. "Reduce Jupiter's initial mass by 15%. We'll simulate the true state of the early Solar System—Jupiter wasn't born this large, after all."

Zhang Lin's eyes lit up, and he quickly tapped the keyboard to modify the parameters.

The third simulation began.

This time, the blue-green tiamat remained steadily in its orbit.

Time began to accelerate, and the entire newborn Solar System spun frantically—100 million years, 200 million, 250 million, 500 million...

The time marker in the top right corner of the screen jumped to 1 billion years.

"It finally stabilized!"

A young researcher rubbed his hands in excitement.

Professor Zhang Qinian took a sharp breath, his expression growing more solemn. "Don't rush yet. Let it keep running and see if it can last until 3 billion years."

Time continued to accelerate.

2 billion years, 2.5 billion, 2.8 billion, 2.9 billion... Everyone's expression shifted rapidly as they stared intently at Jupiter's mass gradually increasing. Just as they thought they were on the verge of success...

Suddenly, the orbits of the primordial celestial bodies in the Solar System on the screen began to shake.

"What's happening?" Zhang Lin leaned in. The orbits of the four planets—specifically Jupiter, Mars, Saturn, and tiamat—began to change wildly.

Jupiter, which originally had very low eccentricity and was orbiting in a near-perfect circle, suddenly saw its eccentricity increase, beginning to move in an elliptical orbit.

"This is the orbital resonance between Jupiter and Saturn," Professor Zhang Qinian narrowed his eyes. "They are adjusting their positions, and the gravitational field is changing."

At 2.87 billion years, the blue-green point of light shuddered violently, and its orbit began to decay rapidly.

"Oh no, it's going to fall in!"

Just as everyone couldn't help but gasp...

At the last moment, an unexpected turning point occurred. The planet's orbit suddenly rebounded, and then... it split apart on the spot.

On the screen, tiamat shattered into countless tiny particles of light, exploding like fireworks.

At this point, the computer stopped automatically.

Zhang Lin stared at the frozen data on the screen, his hands trembling uncontrollably. "Pro-Professor Zhang, look!!"

A series of prompts appeared on the computer screen.

[Simulation Result: Approximately 2.87 billion years ago, the target planet encountered dual gravitational resonance disturbance, leading to orbital instability and eventual disintegration due to tidal forces. Distribution of fragments after disintegration—]

[Main fragment belt remains in the original orbital region: approximately 41%!]

[Fragments ejected toward Mars: approximately 36%!]

[Fragments ejected toward Jupiter: approximately 18%!]

[Remaining fragments dissipated: approximately 5%!]

The five people in front of the computer gasped, stunned by the answer.

"36% of the mass slammed into Mars!" one researcher said with a look of surprise. "Isn't that the source of all those craters on Mars?"

Another researcher stood up abruptly. "Damn! So what was said in the livestream just now was true—that planet really exploded?"

No one answered; everyone was still processing this conclusion.

Suddenly!

The computer automatically provided a series of spectral data charts.

Group 1: Spectral analysis of Jupiter's moons jointly released by NASA and the ESA.

[Detection: The composition of tiamat matches the surface materials of Callisto and Ganymede, as well as C-type asteroids in the Asteroid Belt, with a 87% match rate.]

Then, the computer automatically popped up a second set of spectral data.

[Detection 2: Jupiter's Trojan asteroids, which were captured by Jupiter's gravity, have a 91% composition match with the main Asteroid Belt.]

Seeing this, Professor Zhang Qinian, Zhang Lin, and the others were all dumbfounded.

It's important to note that this wasn't done manually; it was determined by the computer itself.

[Final Conclusion: After tiamat's self-destruction, it didn't just slam into Mars; it also splattered onto Jupiter!]

"Holy crap!!!"

"The computer pulled up the data and did the comparison itself?"

"What... what does this mean?"

"What else could it mean? The computer found the spectral analysis of Jupiter's moons released by NASA and the ESA and compared it with tiamat's theoretical spectrum on its own."

"So some of Jupiter's moons are fragments of that planet?"

"Not just some," Professor Zhang Qinian suddenly spoke up. "But a very large part."

"An 87% match rate—what does that mean? It means the materials covering the surfaces of Ganymede and Callisto are almost from the same source as the Asteroid Belt. This can't be explained by coincidence."

Zhang Lin's Adam's apple bobbed as he turned to look at the solemn Professor Zhang Qinian.

"Professor, when we were listening to the livestream earlier, we thought what he said made sense, but it felt like we were just listening to a story. But now..."

"Now that these numbers are laid out here, I find it even harder to believe."

After saying this, Zhang Lin solemnly pulled up a set of data.

"I did a quick calculation of tiamat's total mass."

A line of calculation results appeared on the screen.

[Based on the ratio of the total fragment mass, the original mass of tiamat was approximately 0.78 times that of Earth; the current Asteroid Belt's total mass is approximately 4% of the original planet's.]

[Destination of the remaining 96% mass: Mars's surface, Jupiter, Jupiter's moons, and escape.]

96%.

96% of the mass went to Mars, Jupiter, Jupiter's moons, and escaped!!!

Hiss~~~

The sound of people gasping in shock filled the room.

"So the current Asteroid Belt..."

A researcher spoke with difficulty, "Is only 4% of tiamat?"

"Yes," Professor Zhang Qinian nodded. "The remaining 96% either slammed into Mars, was captured by Jupiter, or flew out."

"In other words, the Asteroid Belt we see now is just the debris of debris from that planet."

As the words fell, all five were immersed in this series of results. One researcher, refusing to believe it, ran another simulation using the data provided by Professor Zhang.

[Simulation Result: tiamat could exist, but could not survive beyond 3 billion years!]

[Simulation Result 2: tiamat could exist, but could not continue to exist after the birth of intelligent life on Earth!]

[Simulation Result 3: There is a less than 1% probability that intelligent life ever emerged on tiamat; the probability of an ancient war inside or outside the Solar System is extremely low!]

Looking at the series of derived simulations, one thing was certain—

The planet between Jupiter and Mars, namely tiamat, could absolutely have existed!!!

It's just that...

Its lifespan was not long enough to last until the moment humans looked up at the stars!!!

Looking at these results, the researchers looked at each other, all seeing the regret on each other's faces.

Although the result was positive and beautiful, why did they feel such regret?

It felt as though...

An elder brother Earth had never met had passed away before his time.

After a long time, Zhang Lin lowered his brows and couldn't help but ask, "How did Xiaoyu's brother know? Professor, everything he talked about tonight—Formula A, the bombardment of Mars's southern hemisphere, Xenon-129, and the sumerian tablets—we just spent hours on a comprehensive simulation to verify it with supercomputers and data."

"But what about him? What did he use? An ordinary computer couldn't possibly handle such a massive amount of data!"

Theirs wasn't just a simple celestial simulation; they had simulated the Solar System and a portion of the Milky Way as much as possible...

The butterfly effect and the computational load involved were not something an ordinary computer could handle!!!

If an ordinary computer were used for the simulation, the results would be worlds apart!!!

Professor Zhang Qinian was silent for two and a half seconds. "I don't know. Perhaps he calculated it, or perhaps it's information from another source."

Soon, he shook his head. "But what I do know is that from now on, the astronomical community can no longer use the excuse that it 'never grew' to brush off the world regarding the origin of the Asteroid Belt between Jupiter and Mars."

He looked at the cloud of debris still spinning on the screen. "Because the supercomputer has given us the answer: It exploded!"

...

PS: Thanks to the big shot Bei Zhi Feng for the God-tier Certification. I've run out of manuscripts during the New Year and can't add more for now. I'll owe you one. Let me take a breather after becoming a god; I've been playing like crazy these past couple of days.

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