Chapter 19 (Hot Jupiter I): The Lens

65 million years ago, Victoria Wetlands, Earth

“Maria, I need your help.” The moment Nikola Tesla reunited with Maria, he could not wait to speak.

“Nikola, what’s happened this time? I know nothing of astronomy or physics—what do you need me for?” Maria retorted, teasing her beloved, “Is it my help you need to save the solar system?”

Tesla smiled wryly and pointed toward the warehouse where space debris was stored. “I’d like you and your friends to help me transport these items to the moon as quickly as possible. I have a crucial experiment to conduct.”

Maria could see that Tesla was serious, not joking. After a brief consideration, she replied, “The space elevator is ready to use, and we have enough manpower here, but lunar transport would require a vast fleet of ships. That’s something only you can solve.”

“I’ve been granted the highest special authority by the Alliance to mobilize Venusian ships and resources. I rushed to Earth specifically to assess your manpower situation—if it’s insufficient, the Alliance can dispatch a large number of robots, even special forces,” Tesla explained.

Understanding his intentions, Maria described Earth’s status as Venus’s place of exile. The exile settlement was not a prison; there were no guards, and the barriers served only to keep out dinosaur incursions, not prevent escape.

Those sentenced to exile enjoyed freedom upon arrival, living as equals. They were self-sufficient and sometimes performed tasks for the Venusian Alliance in exchange for supplies unavailable on Earth.

Maria, along with several hundred clones she had created, lived in a small village, hunting, gathering, and farming. She did not view exile as punishment; among these clones—who communicated only through music and song—she had found a new kind of freedom and happiness.

“Nikola, not everyone here is a clone. My best friend, Venu, was an accountant before. I’ll ask her to help you with the calculations.” As she spoke, Maria produced an instrument Tesla had never seen and played a series of melodious notes.

Venu soon arrived, accompanied by a girl in her early teens. Maria introduced Tesla and Venu, then took the girl’s hand and said, “This is our Cynthia, Venu’s daughter. Cynthia and I were exiled to Earth, and Venu followed us here voluntarily.”

Cynthia’s large eyes were shy in the presence of strangers. She clung to Venu’s sleeve, half hiding behind her mother. If Maria hadn’t told Tesla that Cynthia was a clone, he could not have distinguished her from any normal Venusian.

Venu was slightly plump, with straight black hair, a rosy complexion, and eyes free from sorrow or grief. She smiled at Tesla, saying, “Thank you, Mr. Tesla, for bringing my pickled bracken—the local specialty—to Brahma. How is he?”

Only then did Tesla realize that the Brahma he had met on Venus was related to Venu and Cynthia.

After exchanging greetings, Tesla entered the data Venu provided into his portable computer: the quantity of space debris, the local manpower, and the maximum daily work capacity.

With priority use of the interstellar emergency communication channel authorized by the Alliance, Tesla could maintain visual contact with Venus from Earth or even Mars, using relay satellites.

The video link connected, and the image of Dean Abbott on distant Venus appeared before Tesla.

“Abbott, how’s the preparation of the transport fleet between Earth and the Moon? By my calculations, we’ll need at least a thousand ships,” Tesla asked directly.

Abbott’s expression was grave as he shook his head gently. “Transport capacity is tight. We’re working on it, but you left in such haste that we still don’t know exactly what we’re facing.”

Tesla paused in thought, then said, “According to my theory and the calculations provided by the Lightning Sphere, the explosion of Saturn’s satellite will cause Jupiter to move closer to the sun.”

“If Jupiter moves closer to the sun, Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars will be squeezed inward as well. The habitable zone will disappear, and the entire structure of the solar system will be destroyed?” Abbott voiced the worst possible outcome in shock.

“I, too, hope my theory is wrong more than I ever have before. That’s why I’m insisting on the urgent lunar mass anomaly experiment,” Tesla replied, equally resigned.

“Nikola, whether your gravity theory is right or not, I’d advise you that the experiment’s result won’t change our predicament. Rather than stirring up a lunar experiment, we ought to work together to find a solution,” said Abbott, the rational and sincere Dean of the Venusian Academy of Sciences.

“I don’t insist on this experiment for its own sake. It’s just that my gravity theory, and the rescue plan derived from it, are so outlandish and risky that I hardly dare to voice them. Even if I did, neither Alliance officials nor Academy scientists would believe my predictions or remedy—they’d think me mad!” Tesla frowned and continued, “But let me describe what happens to the solar system’s gravitational balance once Saturn’s Sedna satellite explodes, creating that massive ice conglomerate.”

Tesla’s gravity theory was indeed extraordinary. He believed that the gravitational force an object experiences depends on the intensity of energy it displaces and the radiation form of the gravitational (energy) source. The so-called radiation form could be represented and calculated by its peak radiation wavelength.

Within the solar system, the sun’s peak radiation wavelength was a constant, and the acceleration of any planet toward the sun depended solely on the strength of the energy it displaced—a fact supported by mathematical formulae, yielding results identical to Newton’s law of universal gravitation.

According to the blackbody radiation law, energy intensity decreases with the square of the distance. Thus, a planet’s acceleration toward the sun also diminishes with the square of its distance.

Energy intensity, measured in watts per square meter, is calculated by imagining a sphere with the planet’s semi-major axis as its radius and the sun at its center. The total energy on the sphere’s surface equals the sun’s total energy output. Ignoring eccentricity, a planet’s orbit traces a closed circle along this sphere’s energy contour.

For example, Earth, being closer to the sun than Mars, receives a higher energy intensity (E) than Mars; thus, its acceleration toward the sun is proportionally higher. Physics and mathematics are wondrous this way—the linear relationship between energy intensity and acceleration can also be expressed as the linear relationship between the notional photospheric temperature of solar radiation at the planet’s location and the planet’s average orbital speed.

The sun’s effective surface temperature is 5772 K; by the time its radiation reaches Earth, it’s 395 K, and at Mars, 319 K. The ratio, 319/395 = 0.8076, matches the ratio of Mars’s to Earth’s average orbital speed. Earth’s is 29.78 km/s; multiplied by 0.8076 gives Mars’s average speed: 24 km/s.

Is the sun’s effective radiative temperature really proportional to a planet’s average orbital speed? Remarkable!

According to Tesla’s gravity theory, energy transmission is the fundamental cause of motion. The wavelength of superluminal waves is extremely long (170,360 km), while their frequency is extremely high—above 10^16 Hz. If a body’s diameter (such as the sun’s) exceeds 180,000 km, it entirely intercepts the superluminal waves.

The sun absorbs immense energy, triggering high-frequency resonance in its hydrogen nuclei, leading to nuclear reactions and the massive release of energy.

In the solar system, Jupiter is the largest body after the sun, with a diameter of about 143,000 km—smaller than the superluminal wave’s wavelength, so these waves cannot be fully absorbed, only diffracted, by Jupiter. Thus, Jupiter does not undergo intense nuclear reactions within its micro-particles.

But a weak reaction is not the same as none. Tesla had discovered an anomaly: among all solar system bodies, only Jupiter and Saturn showed weak nuclear reactions.

The evidence was straightforward: a body should emit exactly as much energy into space as it absorbs from the sun. Observations of Venus, Earth, and Mars confirmed this. Yet, Jupiter and Saturn were found to emit twice as much energy as they absorbed from the sun. Venusian scientists attributed this to their massive cores, where internal pressure induced slight nuclear reactions.

But this explanation was flawed. The pressure inside a gas giant correlates strongly with its density. Neptune and Uranus, also gas giants, have densities of 1.6 and 1.3, respectively—higher or at least equal to Jupiter’s 1.3, and much higher than Saturn’s 0.7. Yet their nuclear reactions are far weaker than those of Jupiter and Saturn.

Tesla’s explanation was that although these planets’ diameters were less than the superluminal wavelength, their spherical surfaces meant that when the semicircular arc length exceeded the wave’s wavelength, they could still partially absorb energy and undergo weak resonance.

Saturn’s (183,000 km) and Jupiter’s (225,000 km) hemispherical arc lengths exceeded the superluminal wavelength, whereas Uranus’s (80,000 km) and Neptune’s (77,000 km) did not.

When two such planets align with the sun, the outer planet blocks superluminal waves, and the diffracted waves focus on the inner planet, like a lens. In simple terms: if Saturn grows, Jupiter suffers!

If the inner planet (Jupiter) has a hemispherical arc length greater than the superluminal wavelength, it will receive more superluminal energy and undergo a stronger reaction.

“Three years from now, Jupiter and Saturn will align with the sun and Eta Leonis, with Eta Leonis and Saturn’s massive post-explosion ice conglomerate forming a superlens across millions of kilometers. This will cause Jupiter to absorb even more superluminal energy,” Abbott exclaimed, following Tesla’s logic.

“Jupiter’s internal temperature will rise, its energy emission will increase, its acceleration toward the sun will strengthen, and its orbit will contract, drawing it closer to the sun. Jupiter’s orbit is about twelve years; in a few cycles, it will squeeze all the inner rocky planets—including us—into the sun!”

“Then we will have nowhere to go…” Maria murmured.

Collected lines, with seal:

Plunging into the ravine, silver waves collapse. (Song Dynasty, Zhu Xi)
Wild geese startled, fleeing the high archer’s bow. (Song Dynasty, Yang Yi)
Dust begrimes the mirror, unwelcome. (Jin Dynasty, Li Kui-bao)
In a single night, shooting stars fall like banners. (Song Dynasty, Su Song)