The current age of the Cosmos is only about 13.8 billion years, placing it in the early stages of its evolution. At this point, the most abundant element in the Cosmos is hydrogen.
This is because it hasn't yet been processed into other elements by countless stars through fusion.
Never mind stars—even gas giants are composed of over 90% hydrogen by mass.
Although this newly designed proton decay detector required an enormous amount of hydrogen, it was a negligible amount compared to the total hydrogen reserves in the Cosmos.
So, Li Qingsong built more Jupiter Planes and sent them into the dense atmosphere of Planet 2.
The previous Jupiter Planes were designed exclusively to collect deuterium, filtering out protium—ordinary hydrogen. But these new Jupiter Planes were different. They would also bring back the protium, which was then transshipped to a location about 100 billion kilometers from the Pegasus V432 Star.
This location was far from the star and any major planets. There wasn't even a dwarf planet within a radius of several hundred million kilometers.
This gave the location an extremely stable Gravitational Environment. Combined with a suitable orbital velocity, the Gravity here was reduced to near-zero.
In this location, Li Qingsong constructed a massive, ultra-pure hydrogen separation plant.
Hydrogen from the gas giant was transported here, where it underwent a series of processes like pressurization and concentration to ultimately refine it into ultra-pure hydrogen.
Its purity was so high that for every few billion hydrogen atoms, there was only a single atom of another element.
While the ultra-pure hydrogen was being refined, Li Qingsong simultaneously began constructing the main body of the proton decay detector.
Under a pressure 400,000 times that of Earth's atmosphere, the density of hydrogen is approximately 0.7 grams per cubic centimeter, or about 70% the density of water.
Based on this density, 1.6 billion tons of hydrogen would have a total volume of 2.285 billion cubic meters.
Converted into a sphere, this volume would have a radius of about 650 meters.
What Li Qingsong now needed to build was precisely this: a massive sphere with a 650-meter radius.
That number might not sound very big. However, some mountains on Earth are only just over a thousand meters tall. The sphere Li Qingsong was building, with a diameter of 1,300 meters, would already be taller than those peaks!
Furthermore, a mountain can be approximated as a conical structure. But what Li Qingsong was building was a sphere!
For the same height, the volume of a sphere far exceeds that of a cone.
Compared to this sphere, even the main peak of the famous Mount Heng on Earth would be utterly dwarfed.
A flood of materials from within the Star System—countless specialized steel plates, innumerable types of connectors, and pieces of precision equipment—converged on the construction site. Under the ceaseless work of hundreds of thousands of general-purpose robots, these components were assembled in space, piece by piece.
Forces are reciprocal. To prevent the sphere's outer shell from bursting under the immense internal pressure, Li Qingsong requisitioned massive quantities of the same high-strength cables used for space elevators. He had them wound, layer by layer, around the enormous metal shell to secure it.
With the main structure complete, the next phase was the most delicate and difficult part: the internal construction.
Li Qingsong installed a vast array of magnetic field control devices inside this outer shell, generating an incredibly powerful magnetic field. Simultaneously, construction began on the detector's inner layer, positioned about five meters from the interior surface of the outer shell.
This inner layer was only 0.5 centimeters thick. Its material strength was unremarkable, completely incapable of withstanding 400,000 times atmospheric pressure on its own.
However, this material had two unique properties.
First, it was extremely resistant to hydrogen embrittlement.
Due to its small molecular size, hydrogen under high pressure can "squeeze" into the lattice of other materials, reducing their structural integrity. This material was designed to prevent that from happening.
Second, it was an excellent electrical conductor, which meant it could be manipulated by magnetic fields.
When operational, the magnetic control devices Li Qingsong had built would apply immense pressure to this inner layer, using it as an intermediary to pressurize the hydrogen within.
While construction on the Detector's main body and the ultra-pure hydrogen refinery was underway, Li Qingsong initiated a third project in parallel.
A dedicated nuclear fusion power plant to support it.
The magnetic control system would consume a tremendous amount of power. Furthermore, it wasn't a one-time process; the system couldn't just be switched off after reaching the target pressure. It had to run continuously, without a moment's pause, to maintain that pressure.
In fact, Li Qingsong estimated that to keep this one Detector operational, he would need to consume an average of 20 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity every hour!
This was roughly equivalent to the power consumption of an entire nation back in the era of countries on Earth. And now, this colossal amount of energy was needed merely to sustain the routine operation of a single Detector.
Assuming a single deuterium-tritium fusion plant had an installed capacity of 3 billion kilowatts, he would need to build seven such plants in the vicinity just to power this one Detector!
And so, in this region of Deep Space, far from any large celestial bodies, Li Qingsong rapidly proceeded with the various construction projects.
Even with Li Qingsong's immense industrial capacity, it took nearly a full year to build the Detector.
Afterward, the infusion of ultra-pure hydrogen began.
The multi-stage refined, ultra-pure hydrogen was pumped through specialized pipes into the inner spherical shell. Soon, the pressure inside the inner shell climbed to approximately one atmosphere.
The relatively pliable inner shell had been somewhat deflated. But now, supported by the internal atmospheric pressure, it swelled up like a balloon being filled with air, resuming the shape of a perfect sphere with no dents or wrinkles on its surface.
Any further increase in internal pressure would have torn it apart.
At this point, the magnetic control system arrayed within the outer shell activated.
Fed by a tremendous power supply and operating on principles similar to magnetic levitation or confinement, external pressure was applied uniformly to every molecule and atom of the inner shell.
The internal pressure exerted on the inner shell was thus transferred to the outer shell.
The space-elevator-grade cables wrapped around the outer shell held it fast, neutralizing the immense pressure. At the same time, the thick armor plating blocked the vast majority of external radiation, preventing it from interfering with the detection process inside.
As hydrogen continued to be pumped in unabated, the pressure inside the inner shell climbed rapidly.
Five times atmospheric pressure, then ten, fifty, one hundred, one thousand...
At this point, the pressure inside the inner shell was nearly equivalent to that at the bottom of the Mariana Trench.
If a Clone were to enter the inner shell now, they would be instantly crushed into a paste.
But even under such immense pressure, the pliable inner shell remained perfectly intact, held in place by the magnetic control system.