Mass Tumor (1): Landfill

65 million years ago, Earth, Victoria Wetlands

The Venusians were technologically advanced, with over a hundred years of history in space exploration. Tens of thousands of artificial satellites, probes, and spacecraft shuttled between Venus, Earth, and Mars.

A side effect of space activities began to manifest: space debris floated everywhere, threatening navigation safety and occasionally falling to planets, causing loss of life and property.

Recycling space debris was time-consuming and labor-intensive. The Venus Alliance decided that the "Cleanup Crew" on Earth, located midway along the flight paths, would handle this troublesome task.

The Cleanup Crew's equipment primarily consisted of the space elevator located in the Victoria Wetlands and specialized debris-clearing spacecraft in near-Earth orbit. As for personnel, they were, of course, high-level criminals exiled to Earth and clones created by Maria.

The Victoria Wetlands on Earth thus became the dumping ground for Venusian space debris.

Maria had assumed that after Tesla bid her farewell and returned to Venus a few days prior, his work on Venus would keep him occupied, and their next meeting might be a long time away.

To Maria's surprise and delight, only a few days had passed before Nikola Tesla arrived on Earth once more, standing before her. Accompanying him was Abbott, the Director of the Venus Academy of Sciences.

After sharing a meal, the three sat around a table.

Abbott asked, "Nikola, our mission can only succeed, not fail. Time is pressing, yet you've dragged me all the way to Earth. Can you tell me why now?"

Tesla gently took Maria's hand and said, "Maria, you are isolated in your place of exile. Unfortunately, Venus has encountered a grave crisis. Abbott and I have been ordered to devise a plan for the safe evacuation of the Venusians."

Tesla turned to Abbott and said, "If the Venusians must evacuate Venus, the only habitable planets are Earth and Mars. Earth is, of course, the first place we need to investigate."

Nikola Tesla shared his thoughts with Abbott and a stunned Maria: "Venus's population currently exceeds 6 billion. Migrating everyone to other planets is an almost impossible task, fraught with immense difficulties and extremely complex factors to consider."

Tesla analyzed and evaluated the data and proposals compiled by the Venus Academy of Sciences. Through the Lightning Ball, he connected to his external brain and formulated a plan.

The solar system had only three planets within the habitable zone for humans: Venus, Earth, and Mars.

Tesla's immigration plan was "one primary, one backup, one waiting." This meant transforming Mars into the main immigration destination, using Earth as a backup, and waiting a long time for Venus's natural environment to recover, allowing the Venusians to eventually return to the planet they were most accustomed to and adapted to.

"According to my plan and the Academy's experts, Earth is the preferred choice. Why would you prioritize Mars?"

"Earth does share many similarities with Venus, and at first glance, it seems like the primary target. Before I explain my reasons to you, let me tell you why the Lightning Ball's external brain ruled out Earth."

Tesla glanced meaningfully at Maria and continued, "The values underlying the Artificial Intelligence Large Models were set by us humans. Therefore, its reason for excluding Earth is that humanity has no right to exterminate dinosaurs."

Tesla's reasons were certainly not just ethical. Earth did share many similarities with Venus, such as similar radii and densities, and a surface gravitational acceleration not far off. Its oxygen concentration was 28%, slightly higher than Venus's 21%, which wasn't necessarily a bad thing.

However, Earth's plate tectonic activity was too minimal, resulting in almost no high mountains and preventing the formation of long rivers and vast alluvial plains. How could a planet unsuitable for agriculture and animal husbandry be considered habitable?

"My plan is to use the Superlight Wave Power Station to inject energy into Earth's interior, intensifying plate movement and creating mountains and rivers. Before that, we Venusians will go to Mars."

Abbott immediately recalled how the Superlight Wave Power Station caused the ground of Tower Island to rise by 3000 meters, leading to a large-scale marine regression event.

He slapped his thigh and exclaimed, "Brilliant! We'll start transforming Earth now, moving the Venusians to Mars. Once Earth's topography becomes habitable, we'll move back to Earth."

"Abbott, don't forget that Mars isn't an ideal place ready for us either; we Venusians can't just 'move in with our bags packed'."

Abbott calmed down and said, "You're right. Aside from Mars's extremely low temperatures, the biggest challenge is that Mars's gravity is only one-third of Venus's. This will be the most difficult aspect for the Venusians to adapt to. If only we could increase Mars's gravity."

Inspired by Tesla, Abbott finally, almost jokingly, proposed the incredibly absurd idea:

Without altering Mars's mass, how could the surface gravitational acceleration be significantly increased?

Ninety years ago, Nikola Tesla submitted his paper, "Dynamic Principle of Gravity," in which he proposed the Superluminal Wave Hypothesis, which had since been verified by experiments.

Tesla had a different understanding of gravity. Through mathematical derivation, he discovered that within the same gravitational field, the gravitational force on an object is proportional to the intensity of the energy it displaces, and the centripetal acceleration is proportional to the gravitational field constant multiplied by the energy intensity at a given distance.

What about different gravitational fields? By studying the mass-luminosity relationship of thousands of stars, he found that the mass-luminosity relationship of different stars was not linear. Red stars with lower surface temperatures had longer peak radiation wavelengths and relatively higher mass-to-light ratios, while hot blue stars were the opposite.

Did a longer peak wavelength of the gravitational source (star) correspond to greater gravity?

Thus, Tesla concluded: In any gravitational field, the gravitational force on an object depends on the peak radiation wavelength of the gravitational source and the energy intensity at the object's location.

Bold hypothesis, careful verification, falsifiable, predictive.

Nikola Tesla observed the lunar surface gravity distribution map. The gravity at the mountain peaks was anomalous, lower than the average; the gravity in the valleys was also anomalous, higher than the average. This contradicted common sense, didn't it?

The Moon, as a radiation source (reflecting sunlight), had shorter wavelengths at the peaks and longer wavelengths in the valleys.

Mountain peaks were hotter, with shorter wavelengths and relatively less gravity. Valleys were cooler, with longer wavelengths and relatively more gravity. The lunar surface gravity distribution map perfectly coincided with its infrared thermal imaging map! Where was the gravitational anomaly?

To verify what gravity truly was, Nikola Tesla designed an experiment he called the lunar "Mass Tumor" experiment.

"Mass tumor? As a biology expert, how come I've never heard of this disease?" Maria asked.

"It's not a real tumor, just a metaphor, referring to the gravitational anomaly phenomenon on the Moon's surface," Abbott quickly explained.

The lunar surface gravity probe launched by Venusian astronomers orbited 10 kilometers above the lunar surface, mapping the complete lunar gravity field.

"The lunar gravity distribution is uneven. Which do you guess produces more gravity, the lunar mountain regions or the valleys, also known as the lunar maria?" Tesla asked Maria with a smile.

"Of course, the mountains should have greater gravity than the valleys, because there's more rock in the mountains!" Maria answered without hesitation.

Tesla enthusiastically explained to Maria that the lunar surface gravity distribution was the exact opposite of common sense: the surface gravity of the mountain peaks was below average, while the gravity in the valleys (lunar maria) was above average.

Scientists believed this anomalous phenomenon had only one plausible explanation: there were highly dense metallic clusters beneath the lunar maria, which the academic community referred to as "mass tumors."

Nikola Tesla disagreed with this assertion. He believed that the Moon, as a gravitational source, generated gravity not based on mass but on the intensity and peak wavelength of the energy it emitted.

All the energy emitted by the Moon came from reflecting solar radiation. The Moon's rotation relative to the Sun was slow, with a period of 27.32 days. Its surface temperature was extremely uneven: mountain peaks were hotter, emitting shorter wavelengths of radiation, while the valleys (lunar maria) were the opposite.

"Maria, if we were to fill in a six-kilometer-deep lunar mare crater, effectively adding mass to it artificially, would the gravity in that region increase or decrease?" Tesla posed his experimental proposal.

"The lunar maria already have mass tumors underground. With the added mass, gravity would naturally only increase," Maria said.

Tesla's prediction was that filling in the lunar mare would not increase gravity; instead, it would become even smaller than before, and the lunar mare's gravitational anomaly would return to normal, with the "mass tumor" miraculously disappearing completely!

Because gravity isn't caused by mass, but rather determined by energy intensity and peak radiation wavelength, the lunar sea was filled, the temperature rose, and the emitted radiation wavelength correspondingly shortened, thus reducing the gravity and making it no longer abnormal.

Abbott had already learned about Tesla's experimental plan, and he asked doubtfully:

"Nikola, what material do you plan to use to fill the target lunar sea?"

Nikola Tesla pointed to the air, then meaningfully pointed to the distant space junk pile, and said with confidence:

"Space junk!"

Abbott and Maria exclaimed almost simultaneously:

"You want to treat the lunar sea as a new space junk landfill?"

&

Poem composed by collecting chapters:

Moonlit clogs, high and low, Ming, Qian Chengzhi

Dust-covered, recognizing old inscriptions. Song, Lin Jizhong

Not drawn by worldly things, Qing, Hongli

Frequently arriving, the road is still lost. Qing, Tian Wen