Chapter 6: Brightness of Mars
"Before Li Qi's death, his actions were completely incompatible with the psychological model constructed based on his past behavior. In other words, the Li Qi who did these things was not the same as the normal Li Qi before. We cannot know what caused this change because we do not have enough data."
"Although this psychological analysis method is powerful, it is not omnipotent." Zhao Huasheng silently thought, "This method can theoretically analyze any person in depth, but the reality is that no organization has the ability to monitor any minor actions of a person, hormone secretion levels in the body, cortical operation force, or heart rate 24 hours a day. That is to say, there is no complete data available for modeling. Without complete data, in actual analysis, we can only rely on scattered data such as a hospital physical examination form on a certain day, a segment of video footage taken by surveillance, or some related personnel's memories, which will inevitably lead to errors."
"Despite the errors... this kind of analysis is quite terrifying. From their ability to accurately predict that I would have a bad sleep last night and that I would ask Meng zhuo to be alone today, we can see the power of this method. But their conclusion is unable to assess Li Qi's behaviour pattern...What does that mean?"
Zhao Huasheng shook his head and continued looking through the pile of documents.
"However, we believe that there is a high probability that during the period of Li Qi's imminent death, he was subjected to some kind of external pressure. It is because of this external force that only Li Qi can detect but others can not, that Li Qi's behaviour pattern became so chaotic that it could not be predicted or analyzed. Li Qi's choice of a white paper as his legacy and the message of "Zhao Huasheng will solve all doubts" may have been his attempt to bypass the unknown external constraints and send a message to us. Of course, we still have no clue what message Li Qi wanted to convey to us."
"We are making efforts to collect any image, audio, and action data related to Li Chi in order to comprehensively analyze his behavior and identify the time boundaries between "normal Li Qi" and "abnormal Li Qi". If we ultimately find this time boundary, we will be able to know what happened on that day that caused Li Chi's change and we may also be able to find out what the unknown force behind Li Qi is. More data and conclusions, please wait for our further research."
This data ends here. Zhao Huasheng put down the data in his hand and entered into contemplation again.
The final conclusion of the psychology team was basically the same as what Zhao Huasheng himself had inferred; both parties thought that it was possible that some unknown force had caused Li Chi's behavior. The difference was that the research conclusion put forward by the psychology team was more rigorous and detailed. But because of this, Zhao Huasheng was even more confused.
If even the power of the government can't figure out the truth, can I, alone, solve this important mystery? Zhao Huasheng thought to himself.
"But I'm different from them. The key to solving this mystery must be with me, even though I don't know what it is right now." Zhao Huasheng silently thought to himself, "The key to the problem is with this key, but what is this key?"
This key was the reason Li Qi eventually chose Zhao Huasheng.
After looking through the data from the psychology research team, Zhao Huasheng also obtained recent research and observation data on the sun from the research department of the Sun Crisis Coordination Center. Zhao Huasheng was a scientist in the field of stellar physics, so there were no obstacles for him to look through these materials.
The sun's activity is rapidly declining. In the past 48 hours to the past 24 hours, we have observed a total of 29 small flares, while in the past 24 hours to now, we have only observed 13 flares. Currently, the sun is at the peak of its 11-year cycle, and in the past, C-level flares could be observed almost every day, and occasionally M-level or X-level flares could be seen, but in recent days even B-level flares have been much less. The pictures taken by the Solar Atmospheric One satellite clearly showed the sun going into a strange calm. However, until now, we still have not come up with any valuable conclusions or results. The sun in those pictures is still huge, bright, and hot. But Zhao Huasheng was keen to see some faint red in the pictures.
If classified according to stars, the Sun is a yellow dwarf star. The color of stars is determined by the surface temperature, and the yellow light indicates that the surface temperature of the Sun is around 6000 Kelvin. If it is a red light, then it indicates that the surface temperature of the star is between 2000 and 5000 Kelvin. At this moment, red is beginning to be mixed in the sunlight of the sun, which means that the surface temperature of the Sun has decreased by at least 500 degrees.
This is undoubtedly a very serious disaster for the Earth. But fortunately, the Earth has its own insulation system, so it cannot have too much influence on humans for the time being. Also because of this, human civilization has had a rare buffer time.
"But in our continuous observations, we have also found some places that make us feel puzzled. The most important point is the brightness of Mars." This document said so.
"The brightness of Mars?" Zhao Huasheng had a little doubt in his mind.
Zhao Huasheng has a certain understanding of the laws of motion of the major planets in the solar system. Zhao Huasheng knows that Mars is currently on the other side of the sun, and because of this, from the perspective of the Earth, Mars rises and sets with the sun. During the day, Mars is obscured by the strong light of the sun, so it is mostly invisible and only visible when the sun is dim in the early morning and at dusk.
"Mars is currently on the other side of the sun, so what we see on Earth is the light reflected from the other side of the sun. According to the decrease in solar light we observe now, Mars should also have a corresponding decrease in brightness, but we did not observe such a change on Mars."
Zhao Huasheng was very clear in his heart what this phenomenon meant.
This means that... the intensity of radiation from the Sun has only decreased when facing the earth, while the intensity of radiation from the back side of the Sun remains the same. This is the only way for the brightness of Mars to remain unchanged.
"How is this possible?" Zhao Huasheng thought to himself, "If that were true, then we should have already discovered this. We have launched many satellites that are not all facing the Earth."
In recent decades, human civilization has sent out many interstellar probes, including probes to Mars, Venus, Jupiter, Saturn, and even comets and asteroids. Some of the farthest probes have even crossed the boundaries of the Solar System. According to Zhao Huasheng's knowledge, there are probes such as the Enceladus Comet probe, Stardust probe, and Messenger probe that are on the other side of the Sun. Therefore, if the back side of the Sun really didn't have a decrease in radiation, the research department should have already received the signal instead of only noticing it now through the change in brightness of Mars.
Zhao Huasheng's question only lasted for a moment, and the next second, he figured it out. "Those detectors aren't professional solar detectors, they can't observe the sun, a star so bright, in such detail. That explains why they didn't spot the changes in the luminosity of the sun." Zhao Huasheng organized his thoughts and continued reading. "Upon realizing this, we rushed to control the professional solar observation satellite to quickly reach the other side of the sun, while risking the chance of damaging the detectors by forcing some deep space detectors to observe the sun. We don't have enough accurate data returned yet, but we're eighty percent sure that it's true. This has also been confirmed by the Kepler telescope's observation of an asteroid with the code A7435D on the back side of the sun."
We are not yet clear what this means exactly, but a rough inference is that some physical reaction process that we are yet to understand has taken place in the atmosphere of the Sun (suspected to be the chromosphere layer), which is obstructing the path of photons emitted from the interior of the Sun. Further observation, modeling, and calculation are underway..
This inference is simple and crude, but it is also logical enough. Theoretically, if the composition and mass of the Sun remain unchanged, then its radiation level should not change either. But the fact is that its radiation level has changed, so this inference is capable of accommodating the contradiction between the two sides -- it is not that the radiation level of the Sun has decreased, but rather that some kind of obstruction has appeared in the atmosphere of the Sun, blocking its radiation
Zhao Huasheng silently pondered, "What kind of physical reaction could cause such a consequence? If such a physical reaction process really exists, how long will it persist on the sun? And what does this have to do with the blank paper Li Qi left me...?"