Gossip Heat

Song He went online to dig through the news. As expected, the trending searches were dominated by two major topics.

The first major topic was the space wedding. Many travelers from the First and Second Space Cities had photographed the enormous red heart on the moon. Once the photos and videos were posted online, they immediately racked up a terrifying number of shares.

People were discussing the same topic from different angles. Some wanted to witness a planetary-scale spectacle:

"Ah? They made such a huge artificial red heart on the moon? Is that real? I just spent all night looking at the moon through the astronomical telescope I bought, but I didn't see any red heart."

"It's daytime where I am, so I can't see anything at all. What a shame! When we were kids, huge crowds would crane their necks to watch solar and lunar eclipses. This time, I feel like this is even more incredible than an eclipse—a man-made red heart covering a third of half the moon's surface. How spectacular would that be!"

"Everyone, there's no need to feel sorry. We can't see it with the naked eye from Earth at all. Only people aboard the space cities can see it! The lights on the moon aren't bright enough for us to observe with the naked eye. Humanity hasn't made lights that powerful yet. They should be fairly directional lasers, aimed precisely at the orbits of the space cities. Once the light passes beyond the orbit, the atmosphere scatters it."

"This is a picture of the moon I took from an airplane. The timing happened to be around Song He and Xiang Xiaotong's wedding. Can everyone help me see whether I captured any red light? I zoomed in and stared at it as hard as I could.