250: Chapter 250: Alarming NASA

Ten minutes later, the office of the Director of the Astrophysics Division.

Gregg Hoffman was holding a cup of coffee, looking over today's observational briefing.

In his fifties, slightly pudgy, and with graying hair, he had worked at NASA for nearly thirty years and had seen far too many subversive crackpot theories.

There was a knock at the door.

"Come in."

Linda pushed the door open and entered, holding her phone.

"Director, there's an arXiv paper you might want to take a look at."

"Is it another crackpot claiming they've discovered aliens?"

"No, it's not. It was published by the Xia National Astronomical Observatory, Professor Zhang Qinian's team; and the first author is J. You might be interested!"

J?

Interest sparked in Gregg's eyes. He remembered that name. Last month's paper on parallel universes and black holes was by this J. At the time, he had forwarded the paper to those old guys in the Theoretical Physics Division, leaving that usually arrogant bunch speechless.

He took the phone and glanced at the title. "tiamat..."

A look of disdain appeared on his face. "Isn't that a name from Sumerian mythology? Using mythology to name an astronomical paper is highly unprofessional!"

However, for J's sake, he would still give it a look.

Two and a half seconds later, he set down his coffee.

Twenty-five seconds later, he sat up straight.

Fifty seconds later, his expression became intensely focused. His lips parted slightly, and his fingers began sliding across the screen, skipping the abstract and flipping directly to the data section of the main text.

Meanwhile, Linda stood quietly to the side and secretly lit a cigarette.

The director's office was silent, save for the sound of Gregg swiping the screen.

After about twenty-five minutes, Gregg finally raised his head slowly. "Call Richard, Emily, and Thomas over."

"Ten minutes from now, in the small conference room."

...

Ten minutes later, in the small conference room.

Four people sat around the conference table.

Richard from the Theoretical Physics Division, Emily from the Planetary Science Division, Thomas from the Celestial Dynamics Division, and Gregg himself.

The projection screen displayed the paper.

"Have you all read it?" Gregg glanced around at the three of them.

"Yes, just scanned it," Richard said with a skeptical look. "To be honest, Gregg, did you call us in early this morning just to look at this? tiamat? A non-existent planet? This sounds more like something for a mythology class!"

"I agree with Richard," Emily chimed in. "Regarding the location between Mars and Jupiter, our explanation has always been that the Asteroid Belt failed to accrete into a planet due to Jupiter's gravitational perturbations. This is the standard model. Now the Xia people have run a simulation and claim a planet exploded? Where's the evidence?"

"The evidence is in the spectral data section."

Gregg didn't argue. Instead, he manipulated the data to pull up page 7 of the paper. "Look closely."

A table appeared on the projection.

[Surface spectrum of Ganymede match with C-type asteroids in the Asteroid Belt: 87%]

[Surface spectrum of Callisto match with C-type asteroids in the Asteroid Belt: 87%]

[Spectrum of Jupiter's Trojan asteroids match with the main Asteroid Belt: 91%]

Seeing this, the three of them looked confused. This could be called evidence?

But Gregg continued scrolling down.

The next page contained citation links to raw data from NASA and the ESA. It was all public data that anyone could verify.

The following page detailed the simulation parameters and the comparative results of three simulations.

First attempt: tiamat was pulled in by Jupiter!

Second attempt: It was flung out of the Solar System!

Third attempt: It existed stably for 2.87 billion years before disintegrating!

"They ran three sets."

Gregg nodded slightly. "The first two sets failed, but the third succeeded. What were the parameters for the success? They reduced Jupiter's initial mass by 15% to simulate the actual state of the early Solar System."

As his voice trailed off, the small conference room fell silent for two and a half seconds. The three of them looked at each other, shaking their heads in disbelief.

Thomas opened his laptop and pulled up a page. "I just checked the spectral data for Ganymede. Our agency's public database does indeed have data that matches perfectly with what's cited in the paper."

"Even so, that doesn't prove the planet ever existed," Richard said somewhat defiantly. "Spectral similarity only means the material source is the same. It could be a natural result of material distribution in the early Solar System!"

"Then what about this?"

Hearing this, Director Gregg flipped to page 11 of the paper.

On the big screen was a topographic comparison of Mars.

On the left was Mars in reality—

The Tharsis Plateau at the North Pole rose high; the 21,000-meter height of Olympus Mons formed a large red dot on the map; and at the edge of the Hellas Planitia in the South Pole, a ring of 9,000-meter mountains was clearly visible.

On the right were the supercomputer simulation results—

An evolutionary diagram showing the simultaneous bulging of Mars' North and South Poles under the state of dual-source tidal locking.

When the two images were placed side-by-side, the quality and features were almost identical. Aside from the real Mars appearing somewhat weathered, there were no other differences.

"Oh my god!" Emily couldn't help but cover her mouth when she saw this, her eyes filled with shock.

The other two looked at each other, both seeing the same disbelief on each other's faces.

Gregg didn't have time for them and flipped to the next page.

On the big screen was a dynamic screenshot of the Mars orbit simulation—Mars was in the middle, a point of light to the north was tiamat, and a point of light to the south was Planet X.

As the Time Stream flowed.

The gravity of both planets acted on Mars simultaneously. Mars' North and South Poles were like clay being pinched by invisible hands, slowly bulging out.

At the 2.8-billion-year mark, the point of light to the north suddenly exploded and vanished.

Immediately after, Mars shuddered slightly. The bulge at the North Pole solidified, leaving behind the Tharsis Plateau and Olympus Mons.

Meanwhile, the point of light to the south continued to exert its influence, and the bulge at the South Pole continued to grow, right up to this very moment in 2026.

Seeing this, Richard took a breath and asked with squinted eyes, "This is?"

"Tidal locking." Gregg looked at Richard. "And it's an extremely rare bipolar tidal locking. Mars was once a shared moon of two planets."

After he spoke, silence...

After a long while, Emily spoke with difficulty, "But, but we've never observed that southern one. Could it be invisible???"

"No, Professor Zhang and the others also followed J's advice and simulated it." Gregg manipulated the laser pointer to the final page of the paper on the screen. "The orbital evolution of Planet X."

A complex orbital line appeared on the screen.

After tiamat exploded, Planet X's orbit began to migrate outward. It was a spiral outward migration caused by being repeatedly pulled by the Sun's gravity.

Ultimately, Planet X stopped at the very edge of the Solar System, beyond the Kuiper Belt.

That position perfectly explained the orbital anomalies of Kuiper Belt objects and the bizarre phenomenon of dozens of small celestial bodies all crowding in the same direction.

"Hiss~~ Holy shit!!!"

Thomas finally spoke, also unable to stop himself from covering his mouth, his face full of disbelief.

Gregg closed his laptop, and the screen went dark. He scanned the three of them. "Now, does anyone still think this is a myth?"

The conference room was silent for another few dozen seconds before Richard slowly spoke, "This J, it's him again?"

"Yes." Gregg nodded. "You should remember his paper from last month about parallel universes and black holes, and even that very exaggerated possibility of the Sun's interior being 36 degrees."

"I remember it all," Richard said solemnly. "At the time, I thought it was the delusion of a madman!"

"And now?"

"Now... I don't know. But I have to admit, the data in this paper is solid."

The discussion in the conference room continued for a long time. Director Gregg thought carefully for a while and ultimately decided not to bring up the point about the nuclear explosion on Mars.

For no other reason than...

It was too crazy. And tiamat between Jupiter and Mars—they had even thought about naming it Planet J just now...

All of this was kept suppressed in the hearts of the four people.

The Sun-splitting hypothesis was certainly novel and could explain the Asteroid Belt...

But there was a fatal flaw: the evidence only existed in supercomputer simulations. In reality, evidence was almost non-existent. Therefore, they couldn't present an award to Jiang Zhe; they could only treat it as an ultra-cutting-edge scientific fantasy.

"Meeting adjourned. Remember to have your subordinates pay close attention to any anomalous data within the Solar System. Perhaps J will bring us more surprises next time!"

...