At Lü Yongchang's command, the [Earth] slowly departed Kepler-452b, heading out of the stellar system under the power of its warp drive.
Under Zero's control, a large number of experimental ships, supply ships, and frigates followed closely behind the [Earth].
Following the Expeditionary Fleet, Human Civilization had once again dispatched a research fleet into the Enrojet Alliance's territory.
A neutron star.
One of the densest celestial bodies in the universe, second only to black holes.
When a brilliant star reached the end of its life and exploded in a supernova, it could form a neutron star.
Its matter was extraordinarily dense-if an external force compressed Earth into a small sphere roughly twenty meters in diameter, it would become a neutron star.
As a result, its surface gravity also reached an astonishing level-hundreds of billions of times that of Earth.
This immense force could even crush atoms, forcing the electrons outside their nuclei into the nuclei themselves.
This was also where neutron stars got their name: they were celestial bodies composed directly of densely packed neutrons.
Neutron degeneracy pressure balanced gravity, maintaining a neutron star's existence and preventing it from collapsing into a black hole; white dwarfs, meanwhile, resulted from a balance between electron degeneracy pressure and gravity.
And this was the research fleet's destination, 627 light-years away in a straight line.
Although Human Civilization had already conducted research near small black holes, its investigation of neutron stars had remained limited to observations from afar.
As for the reason...
There were no neutron stars within Human Civilization's territory, which spanned 500 light-years.
As for before that... Human Civilization had hardly had the leisure to seek out a neutron star to study back then.
Without question, the researchers aboard the [Earth] were excited.
Especially after learning that an artificial celestial body nearly