Tom had always been curious about the Oort Cloud.

That is, does the Oort Cloud really exist?

Although various solar system evolution theories support the existence of the Oort Cloud, and some celestial bodies suspected to be from the Oort Cloud have been discovered within the solar system, such as comets and asteroids, the true Oort Cloud has never been observed by humans, nor by Tom.

It is estimated that among the celestial bodies in the Oort Cloud, those with a size of 1 kilometer or more could number in the trillions, and even those with a size of 20 kilometers or more probably number in the billions.

The total mass of Oort Cloud celestial bodies adds up to more than five times the mass of Earth.

More than five Earths' worth of mass is thus scattered at the edge of the solar system, never having been seen by anyone.

It seems difficult to understand how so many celestial bodies and so much mass have never been seen. But in fact, the reason is very simple.

The Oort Cloud's extent is too vast.

The region from 0.03 light-years to 1.5 light-years from the Sun could all belong to the Oort Cloud.

The total volume of this region is approximately 1.17 \times 10^{45} cubic kilometers, and five times Earth's mass is about 3 \times 10^{25} kilograms. If this mass is spread across such a vast region, the average mass per cubic kilometer is only about 2.6 \times 10^{-12} grams, roughly equivalent to a few hundredths of a PM2.5 particle.

Five times Earth's mass seems enormous, but compared to such a vast region, it is still far too little; the material density here is still far too low.

It is not easy to find a celestial body that may only be tens of kilometers, or even tens of meters, in size within such a vast space.

However, verifying whether the Oort Cloud truly exists holds extremely important significance for Tom.

This will allow him to refine his solar system evolution theory and further increase his understanding of the universe and space.

This may not show benefits in the short term and cannot be converted into combat power or specific technology, but it is extremely important in the long run.

Human Civilization, no, Tom believes that all knowledge and all physical theories mastered by all intelligent life are essentially an understanding of this universe.

The extent of understanding of the universe determines how much knowledge a civilization can master, and thus how high its technology, combat power, and survival capabilities are.

And studying the origin of the solar system is a process of deepening one's understanding of the universe.

If he can reach a higher level of technology in the future, he will also conduct research on more galaxies and larger-scale cosmic structures.

At this distance, Tom controlled numerous unmanned probes to leave the fleet, scattering them across the vast expanse of space, like a sieve, beginning to meticulously scan this vast area of space.

The farthest unmanned probe reached a distance of approximately 100 million kilometers from the main fleet.

With the main fleet as the center and 100 million kilometers as the radius, Tom's detection cross-section reached approximately 3.14 times 10^16 square kilometers.

Using this point as the starting point, assuming the edge of the Oort Cloud is 1 light-year from the Sun, then traveling from here to the edge of the Oort Cloud means Tom has scanned, detected, and searched a cylinder with a base area of 3.14 times 10^16 square kilometers and a height of approximately 1 light-year.

The volume of this cylinder reaches approximately 229 cubic light-years, accounting for about 2.5 times 10^-11 of the Oort Cloud's total volume.

Based on existing theories, where the total mass of Oort Cloud objects is five times that of Earth, or 3 times 10^25 kilograms, and assuming these materials are uniformly distributed, then scanning 2.5 times 10^-11 of the volume, statistically, approximately 7.5 times 10^14 kilograms, or about 750 trillion tons of matter, could be discovered.

750 trillion tons of matter, calculated with the average density of comets or asteroids within the Oort Cloud in theory, which is about 0.6 grams per cubic centimeter, means this matter is roughly equivalent to an asteroid with a radius of 67 kilometers, or 300 asteroids with a radius of 10 kilometers.

Overall, if the current solar system evolution theory is correct, then there is a high probability of discovering macroscopic Oort Cloud matter during this journey.

In a vast void, Tom controlled this massive fleet to continuously accelerate, constantly scanning all the void around him.

Time thus quietly passed.

Tom found that the matter density in the space he was in was continuously decreasing, from approximately 3 to 10 particles per cubic centimeter near the solar system to the current approximately 0.05 to 0.1 particles per cubic centimeter.

The density decreased by more than ten times.

However, a very peculiar thing is that the "temperature" here is very high, even reaching tens of thousands of degrees Celsius.

On Earth, high temperatures of tens of thousands of degrees Celsius can melt everything. But here, high temperatures of tens of thousands of degrees Celsius cannot melt anything.

If a clone were thrown into this high temperature, it might slowly freeze to death instead.

The reason is simple: temperature is an indicator related to the average kinetic energy of particles. The extremely high speed of particle movement here means extremely high temperatures.

But their matter density is also extremely, extremely low, so even if the kinetic energy of a single particle is high, the overall energy is still extremely low from a macroscopic perspective, thus creating a scene where high temperature and freezing to death coexist.

This seemed somewhat different from previous predictions. Tom decisively dispatched more scientific research forces to begin studying this phenomenon, attempting to find the underlying reason for its occurrence.

Even in this vast, empty void, there would still be far too many physical phenomena that Tom had never seen before.

This migration was not just a migration; it was also a scientific research journey.

Time passed amidst continuous observation, continuous research, and continuous acceleration.

Several years quietly passed, and the fleet finally accelerated to its predetermined maximum speed.

Tom's migration fleet was faster than the Bluetoth migration fleet back then, reaching 4 % of the speed of light, or about 12,000 kilometers per second.

Now that the maximum speed was reached, the fleet stopped accelerating, and the approximately 1/250th of Earth's gravity, which had always enveloped the entire fleet due to acceleration, finally disappeared.

The Bluetoth and clones living in the drum-shaped spacecraft finally no longer had to be bothered by that always faint, seemingly always pulling them to one side, tiny gravity.

At this moment, the fleet's distance from the Sun reached 1.8 trillion kilometers, or approximately 0.19 light-years.

At this distance, Tom looked back at the Sun again.

In the sky, the Sun was still exceptionally bright and extremely conspicuous.

The apparent magnitude of the Sun viewed from here was still about -6.34.

If standing on Earth, Venus is the brightest celestial body in the entire sky apart from the Sun and Moon. But its brightness is only -4.89.

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