For several nights in a row, Hyeongseop had been looking up at the sky, turning the same thought over and over. By now he had ridden Byeol-maru to Mars, drifted close enough to almost touch Saturn’s rings, and even peered all the way out at the Andromeda Galaxy. But a new question had crept into his mind. Where exactly does the solar system end? And what is really out there, beyond that edge?
That night, sitting in Byeol-maru’s cockpit beside Byeoli, Hyeongseop asked the question outright.
“Byeoli, we’ve been to so many places together. But I don’t think we’ve ever actually gone all the way to the end. Could we go all the way to the edge of the solar system?”
Byeoli’s eyes flickered blue for a moment, almost as if this question had been expected for a long time.
“Honestly, I always thought you’d ask that someday. A journey to the edge of the solar system is a very long, very far one. It’s not the kind of place you visit in a day or two, like Mars or Jupiter. Do you really want to go?”
Hyeongseop nodded without hesitation.
“Yes. I don’t want to just keep wondering forever. Can Byeol-maru really go that far?”
“Byeol-maru can make it. It’ll just take a very long time. If you’re truly ready, let’s go step by step from here. Past Mars, across the asteroid belt, past Jupiter and Saturn, then Uranus and Neptune, all the way to the farthest edge where the Sun’s power still reaches.”
Byeol-maru’s engines hummed softly to life. Outside the window, the familiar blue Earth slowly began to shrink away. As they broke through the atmosphere, Hyeongseop watched every shade of the sky change, from deep blue to navy to pure black, without missing a single moment of it.
Hyeongseop pressed his forehead to the window and watched Earth grow smaller and smaller for a long while. His school, his home, his parents, all of it was tucked inside that small blue dot. A small ache settled somewhere in his chest. He thought of the space sticker book he’d left behind on his desk. When he got back, he decided, he would fill it with everything he saw on this journey.
“Byeoli, Earth keeps getting smaller. But strangely, I’m not scared.”
“That’s probably because you’re not alone. And no matter how far we go, that little blue dot will always be there waiting for us to come back.”
Hyeongseop kept his eyes on Earth until it shrank into nothing more than a point of light. Before long, the view outside was nothing but black space and countless stars. It looked different from the night sky he knew. The starlight didn’t flicker at all, it burned steady, sharp, and cold.
“So Byeoli, how long will it take to actually reach the true edge of the solar system? A day? A week?”
Byeoli answered, sounding almost like she was smiling.
“Well, to be honest, it takes much, much longer than that. If you made this journey on a real spacecraft, it could take longer than an entire human lifetime. So we’re going to borrow a little of Byeol-maru’s special power. We’ll compress the travel time, but we won’t skip a single thing you need to see and feel along the way.”
“So you’ll tell me every time we arrive somewhere new?”
“Exactly. From now on, we’re going to record this whole journey like a ship’s log. Mars, the asteroid belt, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, and beyond that, the icy worlds and the very last boundary. At every single stop, you’ll learn something new, and I’ll be right here explaining it all along the way.”
Hyeongseop gripped the armrest of Byeol-maru’s cockpit seat tightly. His heart was pounding, not from fear, but from the feeling of something he’d been waiting for, for a very long time, finally beginning.
“Okay. Let’s go. All the way to the edge of the solar system.”
Byeol-maru broke completely free of Earth’s orbit and began picking up speed, heading out into the dark expanse of space. Hyeongseop’s first destination was the red planet, Mars.
Far, far away, a small red point of light was beginning to glow softly in the darkness. Hyeongseop leaned slightly toward it. The first page of this long, long journey was only just beginning to unfold.
(To be continued — Episode 2: Mars, Crossing the Red Desert)
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