The nearest star to Hawk is a red dwarf, which is roughly fifty percent the mass of the Sun, the most common and most numerous star in the universe.
The smaller the star, the slower its nuclear fusion reaction and the longer its life span. The universe has a lifespan of about 13.7 billion years, and the lifespan of red dwarfs is much longer than that, so there are no dead red dwarfs in the universe.
Eagle Nebula contains several sparse clusters of stars, each of which contains dozens or hundreds of stars. This red dwarf is a very ordinary and insignificant star among all these stars.
Stars are made of cosmic dust, so Eagle Nebula is, of course, a huge stellar factory. In Eagle Nebula, Hawke has observed at least a few dozen protostars.
A protostar is the embryonic stage of a star where, because of gravitational instability, the interstellar dust cloud will collapse towards the centre, during which it will emit infrared light and the core temperature will increase until the onset of deuterium fusion. Then, the core will stop shrinking.
At this point, the interstellar dust cloud is still raining down on the proto-star, its mass will continue to increase, its core temperature will get hotter and denser, and then the fusion of hydrogen begins and it starts to radiate considerable light and heat, signalling the true formation of a star.
Once the star has formed, it will emit a powerful stream of energetic charged particles that will disperse the interstellar dust material that continues to surround it, and this will prevent it from gaining further mass.
It is in this process that a star is created.
Eagle Nebula, the vast stellar factory, is also known by another name: the Pillars of Creation!
A star is the most important kind of star in the universe. It radiates its energy generously, and its presence creates a good basis for the emergence of life. So it was no exaggeration to give the name Pillars of Creation to such a vast stellar factory.
Hawke saw, just one point six light-years away from himself, a stellar embryo in its proto-stellar phase. At its poles, a powerful jet stream was emitted, stretching out tens of billions of kilometres. Under its gravitational pull, the dust of interstellar space converges around it in a dust disk, spinning rapidly around it and converging on it in a constant stream of intense ultraviolet, x-ray, and gamma-ray bursts in the process.
Eagle Nebula, is such an amazing place.
In addition to the star, Hawke noticed several idiosyncratic locations. One location, a little more than four light years away from Hawke's target star, had a star of zero point seven times the mass of the Sun moving chaotically in this spot. It was spinning wildly around an invisible point and, at the same time, it was losing mass at an alarming rate.
Every second the sun engages in fusion of about 500 million tonnes of matter, of which, four million tonnes are converted into energy, which means that the sun loses four million tonnes of mass every second. But this star of zero.7 times the mass of the Sun loses a staggering twenty million tonnes per second!
This is basically impossible according to the theory of stellar evolution, so, combined with its strange orbit, Hawke concluded that it had a companion star that was steadily stealing material from it.
Having come to this conclusion, Hawke became a little worried.
A companion star, which was not visible in the visible band, would be proof that its nuclear fusion reaction had stopped and that it was small, yet it had a lot of mass.
Hawke came to the conclusion that there, there was a white dwarf star present.
This white dwarf, like a fierce piranha, was rapidly tearing chunks of flesh from its companion star.
Based on the efficiency of this bite, there is a high probability that this white dwarf will undergo a nova explosion in the near future.
Of course, the near future is on a cosmic scale, millions of years from now, and a second from now, are both near future. However, according to the observations, Hawke is 95 percent sure that this white dwarf will have a nova explosion within a thousand years.
A nova explosion is different from a supernova explosion, which can be repeated many times in a white dwarf. Type ia supernovae, which are also occurring in white dwarfs, do not have the same mechanism, and are probably the least powerful of the different types of dead star outbursts.
However, even the least powerful nova explosion is countless times more powerful than a Wood-Moon collision, or even an ε Eri a collision with an ε Eri galaxy. Hawke's target star was only one point four light years away from this untimely bomb, and would probably be affected by such a major event.
Hawke considered this for a long time, but decided to continue on his original target. This was done for two reasons: firstly, at such a distance, a nova explosion would not necessarily affect him, and secondly, Hawke hoped to get a chance to observe a nova explosion up close, which would greatly enrich Hawke's theory of stellar evolution.
In the middle of the pale red universe, Hawke's fleet raced on.
Tiny flashes of light erupted from the shields of Hawke's ship, which Hawke knew were caused by clouds of interstellar dust hitting the shields. Under the countless tiny flashes of light, Hawke's fleet looked like it was clothed in a suit of stars, a glorious sight.
The density of matter here was thousands of times higher than the rest of the world, and the thick gas cloud caused Hawke's fleet to be constantly slowed down, while the impact of the gas cloud particles could also cause Hawke's fleet to deviate from its course. The only way to maintain a speed of over 3,000 km/s was to adjust course and accelerate.
Fortunately, Hawke had plenty of fuel, otherwise, at this rate, it would have been used up.
As time passed, Hawk got closer and closer to the target star. So far, Hawke has only ten years of range left, a distance of about 950 billion kilometres.
This distance is still beyond the top of the star's heliosphere, but Hawke has already begun to encounter a small number of meteorite chunks. These chunks of meteorite, following chaotic orbits, travel through the universe.
On a stellar scale, the whole of Eagle Nebula is a chaotic many-body system, and the orbits of the planets within the many-body system are chaotic and unpredictable, which leads to the instability of interstellar matter, and the orbits of these meteorites are also unpredictable to Hawke, so it often happens that one moment a meteorite is flying around leisurely, seemingly unconcerned with Hawke's fleet The next moment, under the influence of some star, they suddenly changed their trajectory and came crashing down on Hawke, sending a shower of sparks over the shields of his ship.
Hawke was somewhat helpless at such a thing.
To start encountering meteorites at such a great distance had raised Hawke's estimate of the level of chaos within the galaxy by another notch. In all likelihood, the star system here was ten, a hundred times more chaotic than the ε Eri galaxy galaxy.
"It will be another ten years before I can reach my destination, my sailing speed, is really too slow, and I don't know, when will I be able to step into the realm of a class four civilisation and master FTL sailing." Hawk thought somewhat depressingly, "According to Luca II, a peak level three civilization can sail at fifty percent of the speed of light, and a junior level three civilization that has stepped into level three civilization for hundreds or thousands of years can also sail at five percent of the speed of light, hey, after reaching the target galaxy, I need to carry out relevant research as soon as possible."
Under Hawk's constant brainwashing, the tens of thousands of Lucanians on the New Homeworld had long since committed themselves to Hawk's banner, and even if Hawk told them to die, they would obey without hesitation.
Within twenty years, thousands of Lucan children were born, and as soon as they were capable of receiving knowledge, Hawke organised a special school to train them to be loyal from an early age, and the phrase "always be loyal to your master" was even written in the textbooks.
Today, it was time for the monthly debriefing. Hawke got through to Luca II and listened to him report on what was happening on the new homeworld.
After listening quietly to Luca II's report, Hawke passed it some information about the target star and instructed, "Have your scientists plan out the most feasible technological upgrade for me, and I will use it for reference."
Lucca II respectfully agreed, "At your command, Master."
This matter was not on Hawke's mind, compared to the rest of the ponderous things, the Lucasians were not worth too much of Hawke's energy. But, three days later, an urgent communication request from Luca II changed Hawke's mind.
"Master, master, could you ... you give me ... a little more information? Yes, it's about this star field." Lucca II said with some urgency in her voice.
Hawk was a little surprised, but gave Luca II the details of Eagle Nebula. Three hours later, Luca Two sent another urgent communication request.
Hawke answered it with some impatience, and heard Luca Two's somewhat bitter voice: "Master, we are in trouble."
"Hmm?" Hawke expressed his puzzlement in one syllable.
"Eagle Nebula, within the Alliance, is known as the Crimson Starfield, and the Crimson Starfield, which is a Class II moderate danger area, once had a Class IV civilization fleet, three hundred thousand years ago, after passing through this starfield, all the creatures of that civilization, physically, underwent a horrible mutation... ..."