Deceph 3
Week 15.382
The expedition was going as planned, we had already set up our living quarters, and were able to start our research. We rose early in the morning and were ready to test the conditions of Europa. Mini labs and testing areas were made for our experiments, and we went straight to work. Dr. Cheung had been testing the atmosphere and humidity of the moon, and was in a laboratory. Dr. Saglir and Dr. Lee’s crew were working outside, examining the moon’s surface. The two crews worked on opposite sides of each other, and thoroughly checked every inch of the ground that they could. Dr. Saglir had taken samples of dust and rock mostly on the surface, and Dr. Lee excavated a small amount into the crust.
Research was going smoothly, however, a few hours in, an accident occurred. A minor leak of gases had been ignited due to Dr. Cheung’s experiments, causing a miniature explosion near the labs. There were no injuries to any of the crews, however, large chunks of debris of the labs and housings had been scattered. The teams had temporarily stopped the research in order to clean up the debris and to make sure nothing important was lost. Dr. Saglir happened to find a massive piece of a wall sitting in the bottom of a nearby crater, and requested help from Dr. Lee’s crew to retrieve it.
They went down into the crater to lift up the chunk, and bring it back up. Dr. Lee, while going down into the crater, caught sight of a shine of something within the crater. He went to get a closer look at the odd substance, and upon closer inspection, he identified it as some sort of metal ore sticking out of the ground. He asked the crews to help him investigate this shiny red material, and they dug out the raw ore to be examined. Dr. Lee and Dr. Cheung later took the ore in for a closer inspection, and it seemed to be a unique metal that does not seem like anything found on Earth so far.
The metal was naturally smooth and shiny, even in a raw state, and had a reddish hue to it. It seemed harder than iron but softer than diamond, and the main thing about it was that the metal emitted small amounts of radiation, and had little to no electrical conductivity whatsoever.
It seemed like an average material just by looks, but further research questions whether it is even a metal. It doesn’t have all the properties of normal metals, and it was found relatively close to the very surface of the moon. The crews later decided to name it “Rubdurcidium”, for its natural hardness and red hue.Soon after it was found, we did many experiments on rubdurcidium, as well as trying to identify its properties. Many things are unknown about it, but it seems to have potential for being an important metal for building purposes.Dr. Lee decided to add the research of rubdurcidium to the long list of things to do on this expedition, in hopes of finding a good use for it.