Plant and Trees were essential to life back on earth. They produced something crucial that no life could live without, Oxygen. Every life on earth was dependent on oxygen. That was also the case for many exo-planets that were discovered later. The different types of flora and fauna on those planets were also dependent on earth. But that wasn't the case for all of them.
When humanity started to travel to other star systems of the milky-way, Humanity often found life-bearing planets where the Eco-system wasn't dependent on Oxygen at all. The 'Trees' there produced other necessary ingredients that the rest of the Eco-system depended on. But most of the time the trees were similar to the ones back on earth. They were made up of similar organic materials. The exact types of the cells differed from plant to plant and from planet to planet, but the main thing was they all of them were organic in nature.
This was the first time Humanity discovered an 'inorganic tree' so to speak. This was a really important discovery as it led to humans understanding more about different types of alien biospheres. Dr. Helen was an well known botanist in the Arcorn Empire. She was a widely recognized and revered figure in the botany research circle. Although she was quite young, her age didn't restrict her achievement and she had already made big strides in the community.
This was one of the peak moments of her life. Not many knew but trying to develop inorganic plants that could be put into industrial use for different purposes was something that many researchers in the past had tried and failed to produced. But here in front of her was a live specimen of such an object. It was the wet dream of many botanist of the empire and she was the botanist that got the chance to research it first.
This was an once in a lifetime chance for her. And she wanted to make full use of it.
"Yuki, Hawk I need you to go the tree site and perform some deep. It's time we begin the real investigation.", She spoke through the Terminal.
"Copy that, Yuki moving out."
"Hawk Moving out."
The two shuttles and their escorts started to move towards the location of the tree. They needed to make that it's nature was indeed of a tree before they came up with any further conclusions.
They activated their fusion propulsion system and zapped through the planet in high speeds. Although the heavy gravity should've slowed them down, but the shuttle grade anti-gravity modules created a gravity bubble around them that negated all the gravity from the planet and made it as close to regular gravity as possible. The escort mechs also had their own anti-gravity backpacks which also helped them operate as normally as possible. The boosters on the mechs helped them keep up with the shuttles.
The shuttles and the mechs kept going for quite a while, Although there were going really fast, but the planet was just that big. And it took a lot of time to traverse. They soon saw the beach ahead saw the land. They slowed down a bit. After getting closer to the location of the tree.
The mechs landed on the ground first, they created a parameter where the shuttles could land. After the shuttles landed, Rows of researchers clad in vac suits along with their Lab equipment started to started to pour out of the shuttles.
"Have you noticed something?", Helen asked Kita.
"Yes, The ground is also black. Is this also because of carbon?", Kita wondered.
"Probably. This seems like a Carbon rich planet."
The whole planet was quite black in coloration. From the sea water which was pitch black, to the land which also appeared black in color. Everything about this planet seemed black. Except for the cap which had a different color due to all the different gases there was.
"It makes sense if you think about it, The whole planet quite literally burns each heat up cycle, So anything that might grow on the planet turns into pure carbon.", Dr. Helen explained. That should explain the black coloration of everything and the heavy presence of carbon in the sea water. If you took out the carbon, it's quite alike with regular sea waters from other planets.
"I see."
"Ground team, Extensively scan the tree and it's internals. I want to know it's functions. I don't believe this exists for decoration.", Dr. Helen spoke through the terminal.
"Ground Team copies."
The ground team began to take out all sorts of scanners and hooking them up to the ship for power. These lab machines were designed to be portable. Their functions needed to be as powerful as a full-scale equipment while being portable enough to be taken on such expeditions. For that the internal parts got smaller and smaller. But the power draw of them also increased as a result. They could no longer be self-powered and still be kept portable, for this reason, the manufactures and researchers decided to hook them up with the shuttles. Compared to the lab equipment the shuttles were really huge and they had the capacity to carry a bigger fusion reactor that could power all these hungry lab machines while also keeping the shuttle powered.
For this reason almost all the shuttles on-board research ships such as the shore came with a shuttle that was equipped with a really powerful fusion reactor and Means to share the extra power with on-site lab equipment. The ground team extended long cables that carried the power from the ship to the equipment. With this the specialized lab equipment began to scan the exact structure of the tree. From it's branch pattern to the structure of it's molecules. Even the arrangement of specific atoms were being scanned and recorded. These provided valuable data that could explain the function of the tree. But since the tree was a bit big, such detailed scanning would take some time.
"How long till it's done?", Dr. Helen asked.
"13 minutes.", The operator of the scanner replied.
"Good, Send all the data back to the shore."