A few days later, at the South Pole of Mars.
Two landing vehicles dragged a drill-like device and slowly moved forward on the snowy ground.
Behind the landing vehicles were five scientists in protective suits. These people followed behind the landing vehicles and chatted. Behind them, a hemispherical building had been built.
The diameter and height of this building even exceeded the size of the Ares spacecraft. It was built with countless steel plates. These building modules were almost exactly the same. Even if one of them was damaged, it could be quickly replaced and repaired.
More than thousands of steel plate modules worked together to build a hemispherical building. A small part of the building was even replaced by glass, forming a transparent dome.
This building built by the XTN engineering robots would be the scientific research station for everyone in the future.
There was a small inertial fusion reactor in the scientific research station, which could provide more than ten years of power for the scientific research station. The inside was divided into three floors. In the center, there was a large garden from the bottom floor to the top dome. The plants inside were all hardy plants brought from Earth. Every morning, the light of Mars would shine in through the dome, forming a greenhouse effect and providing sufficient photosynthesis for the plants.
Rather than calling this a scientific research station, it was better to call it a small ecological park.
The scientific research station was surrounded by a ring-shaped area. There were scientists' living rooms, dining rooms, conference rooms, various laboratories, warehouses for storing supplies, and so on. The indoor area added up to more than 5,000 square meters, more than enough for the scientists here to carry out their daily work and living.
At this time, about a kilometer away from the scientific research station, a drilling rig had been set up high. This was the weak part of the ice sheet found during the geological survey. At this time, as the drill bit was set up, under the control of several XTN engineering robots, it began to drill into the ice sheet under their feet.
The five scientists from before stood on the side and silently watched the drill bit go deeper into the ice sheet.
Ten meters.
Twenty meters.
Fifty meters.
One hundred meters...
As the drill bit continued to go deeper into the ground, a few hours later, there was suddenly a soft sound. On the control interface of the drilling hole, a green indicator light suddenly lit up. Suddenly, everyone's spirits were lifted.
This meant that the drill bit had successfully drilled into the previously expected position.
A scientist walked up and looked at the screen next to the XTN engineering robot. He saw a light shining down on the screen, and the area it shone on was sparkling.
"Found it, it's an underground lake!"
The scientist shouted excitedly. He then turned on his communicator and shouted into it, "This is the drilling team. Reporting to GCH, we have found the underground lake. I repeat, we have found the underground lake!"
While everyone was celebrating the success of the drilling rig, Hannibal was wearing a protective suit in one of the laboratories in the research station. He took out pieces of ice and snow samples and observed them under a microscope.
Time passed slowly, but apart from some crystals and iron scraps, he didn't find any trace of microorganisms.
"Is there really no life on Mars?"
Hannibal raised his head and muttered under his breath with a frown on his face. Just then, the door to the laboratory suddenly opened with a beep.
A man who was also wearing a lab coat walked in excitedly. He brought in a test tube rack with three test tubes inserted on it. The test tubes were filled with a transparent liquid, but no one knew what it was.
At this moment, the man rushed in and immediately said excitedly, "Hannibal, come and look at this!"
"What is this?"
Hannibal was puzzled.
"This is the underground lake water that the drilling team has just extracted from a hundred meters under the ice layer."
The man answered and at the same time put the test tube rack on a shelf.
"It's already drilled into the underground lake?"
Hannibal raised an eyebrow.
"Don't you know?"
The man chuckled. "That's true, you stay in the laboratory all day and don't go out to enjoy the scenery of Mars. No wonder you don't know. Just half an hour ago, the drilling team just arrived. They found a lot of underground space under the ice sheet. These spaces are filled with carbon dioxide and below it is an underground lake with a temperature of about zero degrees. Do you know what this means?"
"Underground water, a temperature of about zero degrees... This means that there is likely to be life in the underground lake..."
Hannibal suddenly came to a realization. He looked at the three test tubes and walked forward without saying a word. He took one of the test tubes into the biological cabinet and then began to extract the liquid from the test tube through a glove and drip it into a petri dish.
Then, he quickly put the petri dish under a microscope and looked down at it.
"How is it, did you find anything?"
Seeing Hannibal's smooth movements, the man next to him asked in a trembling voice. If there was really a new life in the lake, it was equivalent to a milestone in human history. Whether it was him, Hannibal, or everyone in this expedition team, they would all be recorded in the history books of mankind...
At this time, Hannibal had no time to pay attention to the man. He just stared at the drop of liquid in the microscope. In his vision, he seemed to have entered a vast unknown world...
"Hannibal?"
The man next to him called out again.
Only then did Hannibal raise his head. He nodded and solemnly said, "Call the captain here, and also inform everyone that we have a major discovery..."
Half an hour later.
Sixteen scientists had gathered in the conference room of the scientific research station.
The reason why they did not return to the Ares was that the various scientific instruments and living facilities on the Ares had almost been removed, and all the materials had been transferred to the scientific research station. In the near future, the Ares would carry a large amount of soil, water, air, minerals, and other materials that could only be found on Mars back to Earth.
"I believe everyone understands why we have gathered this time."
Without any delay, Captain Zhou Xiong of Ares stood up and said, then looked at Hannibal. "Hannibal, tell everyone about your discovery, I think everyone can't wait any longer."
"Okay."
Hannibal nodded and then walked to the podium. Suddenly, a large screen automatically appeared behind Hannibal. On it was a picture filled with a group of small black dots.
"These are the microorganisms in the water that were discovered after the drilling of the underground lake."
Hannibal said softly, "This is an image seen under a 10x microscope. Most of the black dots are impurities, including minerals, soil, ice particles, and so on. However, when magnified by 30 times, new discoveries will be made..."
As he spoke, the image behind Hannibal continued to enlarge and a gray spot appeared. Only then did everyone realize that it was not a still image on the screen, but a recorded video.
At this time, inside the gray spot, there were several strange-looking worms with six or seven small short legs swimming freely in the water.
These small worms were transparent and only their silhouettes could be seen under the microscope, but they were still clearly distinguishable. They had two long tentacles that were even longer than their bodies. At the same time, there was a clear truncated body on their abdomen. It was obvious that they were a very common type of worm creature.
"Chaetognathus marine worm."
Hannibal said with great familiarity, "How about it, don't these tiny worms look like chaetognathus? Except for the lack of eyes and longer tentacles, they are almost identical to the chaetognathus marine worms in the ocean. Their size is about 0.1 to 0.2 millimeters... "
As he spoke, Hannibal turned around and with a swipe of one hand, the video on the screen automatically moved down to reveal a new scene. At this time, the worm creature was seen devouring a pear-shaped worm that was even smaller than it was. It looked like a louse.
"And based on my observations, I also found that they are an extremely fierce carnivore."
Hannibal said cautiously, "And what it is devouring is another type of marine worm. This worm is about 0.04 millimeters in size and is Gram-negative. It is a type of algae.
"In addition, we also found three types of algae. These algae are large single-celled prokaryotes and do not contain chlorophyll or chloroplasts. They are probably anaerobic organisms and do not need photosynthesis. What they need is water temperature, and they use the temperature of the water to produce chemical reactions to survive."
Hannibal's expression grew more solemn as he studied a few strange-looking microorganisms that appeared inexplicably normal in the microbial world. "Next, I've discovered something special..."
As he spoke, the camera behind him once again turned to a round transparent bubble. The size of this bubble was obviously several times larger than the previous worm. Not only that, but there was also a red blob in the bubble, and as time passed, the red blob was still slowly beating.
It looked like a heart.
"This is..."
Everyone whispered to each other.
"That's right, you're not mistaken. This is the egg of a type of creature."
Hannibal revealed a look of awe. "The closest thing to the egg on Earth is fish eggs. Some small fish can indeed produce eggs smaller than one millimeter, but this also proves one thing, and that is, in the underground lake that you see, there are life forms similar to the fish on Earth. But so far, I haven't seen the original owner of this egg, so I'm not sure if it's a vertebrate."
Following Hannibal's words, everyone was even more shocked. One of the men immediately asked, "Then, doesn't that mean that we can fish in the underground lake?"
Everyone laughed when they heard this.
"I don't know if we can fish, but I found that some aquatic algae need methane and sulfide."
Hannibal added, "This is similar to the deep-sea archaea community on Earth. You should know that there is no sunlight or oxygen in the deep sea on Earth, so in the early days of Earth, the archaea on Earth lived in symbiosis with underwater worms. The archaea relied on the endless sulfide of the undersea chimney to provide energy to the worms, and the worms secreted a hard shell to protect the archaea. This morphed into the foundation of the undersea chimney biological chain, and obviously, these creatures are like that."
The undersea chimney, also known as the undersea hot spring, referred to the effect of a fountain in the depths of the sea, similar to a volcanic fountain.
The reason for this name was that the hot water spewed out of the undersea fountain looked like a chimney from afar, and this "smoke" also contained substances such as sulfide and methane. In 1979, a doctor named Bischoff first saw this strange phenomenon at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean, 2,500 meters below the sea level.
Generally speaking, the area around the chimney at the bottom of the sea should be extremely toxic, and no living creatures should be able to survive there. However, the miracle of life was amazing. Those diving scientists discovered that there were all kinds of living creatures living around the supposedly barren chimney. These creatures relied on the heat, methane, and sulfide to survive. Just like how fish needed oxygen and algae needed sunlight, they also had their own unique survival system.
At this time, hearing Hannibal's explanation at this time, everyone came to a sudden realization. Indeed, if life really existed on Mars, this was indeed the situation. Since the ice sheet blocked the sun, and since there was no oxygen, life on Mars had evolved a new set of survival methods.
However, whether they relied on oxygen or methane to survive, these creatures still belonged to the category of carbon-based life.
"Everyone, there's one more mission we have to do next."
At this moment, Zhou Xiong stood up again and said, "The discovery of organisms on Mars is a great discovery of the century because the existence of these organisms proves for the first time that humans are not the only species in the universe. So, from now on, everyone in the biology group may have to work harder. I hope to obtain all the data related to this group of organisms, including their past and possible future."
"Rest assured, Captain Zhou Xiong."
One of the scientists, who was also in the field of biology, suddenly laughed. "Although the fact that there is life on Mars is very shocking, I have to pour cold water on it because these life forms are quite primitive. We are not even sure if there are mammals on Mars. However, based on the current environment, the living environment of this underground lake is not optimistic. According to the previous geological scan, its diameter is about 20 kilometers. Although it is very large, it is not enough for mammals to evolve enough..."
"To put it simply, the environment here is too harsh. It's basically impossible for intelligent life forms to appear here, such as dolphins and whales."
Another scientist echoed, "Even if intelligent species really appear in this environment, they can only reach the level of a tribe like the killer whales at most. Civilization can only be passed down from generation to generation by an old grandmother. There's no climate at all."
"Perhaps."
Zhou Xiong glanced at Hannibal, only to see that Hannibal agreed with this point of view. He smiled and said, "That being said, these extraterrestrial lifeforms are indeed of great research value. The people on Earth are also eagerly awaiting news from us. We must screen a batch of biological samples and all the statistical data before Ares returns to Earth."
"That's not a problem at all."
Everyone nodded their heads in agreement.
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