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[已完成翻译] [SETI]我们正错失掉外星人的呼叫吗?

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发表于 2010-3-29 11:53:35 | 显示全部楼层 |阅读模式
来源:http://www.distributedcomputing.info/news.html
原载:Singularity Hub - http://cosmiclog.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2010/02/23/2210069.aspx
标题:Are we missing E.T.'s call?  - 我们正错失掉外星人的呼叫吗?
作者:Alan Boyle
日期:2010年2月23日
概要:a review of SETI's progress over its 50-year history

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发表于 2010-3-30 04:28:34 | 显示全部楼层
本帖最后由 hawkwolf 于 2010-3-30 04:45 编辑

Are we missing E.T.'s call?
我们正错失掉外星人的呼叫吗?


The Allen Telescope Array currently comprises 42 radio dishes, each 20 feet in
diameter, which have been placed at the Hat Creek Observatory in California.
The network could eventually knit together data from 350 dishes.

艾伦(Allen)射电望远镜阵列目前由42个、每个直径达20英尺(约6米)的盘状天线组成,这些天线安装在美国加利福尼亚州的哈特克里射电天文台。 这个由多个单一盘状天线组成的网络,最终建成后,将会能从所连接的350个盘状天线上收集数据。
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Scientists have been keeping watch for alien signals for 50 years, but haven't heard anything. Why? Maybe we haven't been looking long enough ... maybe the aliens aren't out there ... or just maybe we're totally missing signals that are being transmitted in a way we didn't expect.

科学家们已经不断搜寻外星信号50年了,可是没有听到任何有价值的消息。 为什么?
也许是我们搜寻的时间不够长....也许外星人根本不在那里...或者,也许是我们根本错失了外星人的信号,因为这些信号是通过我们没有预料到的方式发送给我们的。

One thing's for sure: The search for extraterrestrial intelligence, or SETI, touches upon one of the deepest questions of human existence. Here's how the late Lee DuBridge, science adviser to presidents, put it in a famous quote: "Either mankind is the most advanced intelligence in the galaxy; or not. Either alternative is mind-boggling."
可确定的是: 搜寻地外文明 (SETI),触及到了我们人类生存中一个最深刻的问题。
已故的Lee DuBridge,原总统科学顾问,有句名言:“要么我们人类是整个银河系最先进的智慧生命,要么不是。二者中选择任何一个都是惊人的。”

The leading lights of SETI science reviewed 50 years of a mind-boggling quest over the weekend in San Diego at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science - and previewed some way-out ideas that could become reality 50 (or 500) years from now.

SETI方面的权威们,在圣地亚哥的美国协会科学促进会的年会上,用了整个周末来回顾50年来难以置信的探索,并预估了些在未来50(或500年)里可能实现的超常规理念。

The wizard of Ozma
奥兹玛(Ozma)的魔力

The SETI era got its start on April 8, 1960, when astronomer Frank Drake pointed a radio telescope into the skies over West Virginia and looked for patterns in the signals received. The effort, known as Project Ozma, was put together on a shoestring budget. "All of this cost $2,000," he recalled during the AAAS seminar.

SETI的纪元开始与1960年四月8号,当天文学家 Frank Drake 把射电望远镜伸向西弗吉尼亚州那广袤的天空,找寻所收到的信号模式的时候。这个以奥兹玛计划闻名的研究是在有限的经费上开展的。 在美国科学促进会(AAAS)的研讨会上,Frank Drake回顾时说道:“当时我们所有的经费加在一起仅$2000”。

Drake and his colleagues turned up nothing of extraterrestrial origin, although there was a short-lived thrill of excitement when they came across some intriguing signals that they later found out were military transmissions. That set the pattern for the half-century that followed. Although SETI astronomers have been teased by one-time-only events such as the "Wow" signal, there have been no confirmed messages from E.T.

Drake和他的同事们无法证实信号来自地外,尽管他们收到了一些耐人寻味的信号后也短暂地兴奋了一把,很快他们发现这些不过是军方通讯的信号。这个兴奋+失望的模式一直持续了半个世纪。 虽然SETI的天文学家们在一些难得的小事故里受到了冷嘲热讽,例如:那个内容简单的“哇(Wow)”信号,不过仍有很多未被证实的来自外星人的信息,是否仍是闹剧还不得而知。

Some astronomers say that in the grand scheme of things, 50 years isn't all that long, and the effort expended so far hasn't been all that exhaustive. "I think we have not yet begun to search," said Peter Backus, an astronomer at the SETI Institute in California's Silicon Valley.

许多天文学家认为,在这个庞大的计划里,50年并不长,我们的努力还远远不够。Peter Backus 讲过:“我认为,我们还没开始去搜索。”,这位天文学家来自设在加利福尼亚硅谷的SETI协会。

But the technology is getting better all the time. "Fifty years ago, Frank Drake would never have imagined the directions in which SETI has moved," said Jill Tarter, director of the institute's Center for SETI Research (and the scientist who inspired the main character in the "Contact" book and movie).

但是,这项技术正在无时无刻发展,变得越来越好。 “50年前,Frank Drake决不会猜到现在的SETI在各方面已发展成什么样。”SETI研究中心主管(就是那位在网站上的主要联系人名单和在视频里经常出现的那位)Jill Tarter的评价蛮现实。

Latest and the greatest
最后写点重要的事

The latest and the greatest SETI search is in its beginning stages at the Allen Telescope Array in Northern California, a $50 million, 42-dish network that is being operated 24 hours a day to look for alien signals ... and do other radio-astronomy experiments as well. Eventually, those 42 dishes could grow to 350, resulting in a sensitivity and resolution comparable to that attained by the 1,000-foot-wide Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico.
最近,庞大的SETI研究正在位于北加利福尼亚的艾伦射电望远镜阵列上开展起来,一个造价$5000万,拥有42只盘状天线组成的射电望远镜群,正在全天24小时不断地搜寻着来自外星的信号.... 当然,照顾一下其他的射电电天文学实验也是不错的,可接受。有朝一日,这42只天线可能发展成拥有350只天线的阵列,那时在接收信号的灵敏度和分辨率上,可媲美于那位于波多黎各阿雷西博天文台的那台天线直径达1000英尺(越305米)的射电望远镜。

The only problem is that SETI astronomers tend to use our own technological capability as a yardstick to estimate what the aliens should be capable of - and the current trend suggests that the more advanced a civilization gets, the less we'd hear from them.

唯一的问题是, SETI的天文学家们倾向于用我们自己地球上的科技水平作为衡量标准,来预测外星人能达到什么级别 - 现在的趋势表明,一个文明发展得越先进,我们能“听”到他们的机会就越少。

For instance, Drake pointed out that television transmissions used to be sent out with 18 megawatts of power. "That was one of the prime signs of our existence," he said. But thanks to advances in signal technology, those power levels have been reduced to 5 megawatts.

例如:Drake指出过,以前电视信号的传播,需要使用18兆瓦的发射功率。“这曾是一个表明我们地球存在的重要标志”。可是,拜我们信号技术方面的日新月异发展所赐,这个功率等级已经降低到了5兆瓦。

Then you have to consider that more and more transmissions are being directed downward to Earth from telecom satellites, instead of upward from terrestrial transmitters. That could reduce the signature of Earth's radio emissions from millions of watts to mere watts of reflected power.

这时候,你不得不考虑这个状况了, 越来越多的信号传输是通过通讯卫星指向地球向下传输的,这替代了原来通过电离层反射而采用的向上反射信号的模式。


"What's happening here is that the earth is growing quiet," Drake said. "If we are the model for the [intelligent] universe, that's bad news."

Drake说:“到底是什么让地球变得越来越沉默,如果宇宙里的所有文明发展模式都如此,这会是个坏消息。”



Way-out ideas
标新立异的计划

SETI searchers would have to trust that other civilizations would be sending out intentional signals - using either old-fashioned radio or perhaps ultra-short pulses of light.

SETI搜寻者们无疑是相信其他地外文明会有意识地发送信号的,也许用老式的无线电信号,或是超短脉冲的光信号。

When astronomers look for light signals, in a relatively recent strategy known as optical SETI, they have to assume that E.T. is directing a powerful beacon at targets around the cosmos. Fortunately for those astronomers, doing optical SETI can be about as inexpensive as Project Ozma was 50 years ago.

当天文学家们搜索光信号时,当前不妨称它为“光学SETI”,他们无疑在想象,那些 E.T.们正在用一个超级灯塔不停地向宇宙里发送光信号。 很幸运的是,这些做“光学SETI”的天文学家们可以很经济地开展他们的项目,就像50年前的奥兹玛计划。

"Two thousand dollars and a smart graduate student, and you can be in the SETI business," Drake observed.

Drake的成本分析是:“2000块 + 1个有头脑的研究生,你就可以入行SETI生意啦。”

Astronomers are working on more expensive strategies as well: One idea that's been around for quite a while calls for putting a radio observatory on the far side of the moon, virtually the only place in the solar system that is perpetually shielded from terrestrial transmissions.

天文学家们正在不断地提出更加昂贵的方案,例如:有个想法是这样的, 为了屏蔽干扰,在月球的另一面建立一个射电天文台,事实上,月球背面几乎是太阳系里唯一一个能屏蔽地球地面通信电波的地方,因为月球一昼夜朝不多是地球的1个月,而且只有正面对着地球。

Another way-out strategy would be to set up a monitoring station far from the sun - maybe 500 to 1,000 times as far away as Earth. At that distance, the sun could focus light waves (and radio waves) from cosmic frontiers like a giant lens.

另外一个离经叛道的做法是, 把一系列的监测站发送到远离太阳的地方,大约是地球到太阳距离的500至1000倍。 在这个距离上,太阳的引力能聚焦监测站面向太阳方向过来的光波和电波信号,就像是一个超级放大镜。

"We could well have an Internet for the galaxy, based on gravitational lenses," Drake said. Berkeley astronomer Dan Wertheimer, one of the scientists behind the SETI @ home alien-hunting screensaver program, said observers at such a gravitational-lens observatory could "read the license plates on an extrasolar planet."

Drake认为:“基于这个引力透镜,我们可以建立一个星系互联网”。
处于这个引力透镜的观察者,可以“看清楚太阳系外行星上的车牌”, Dan Wertheimer,这位巴克利大学的天文学家,默默为SETI@Home的搜寻外星人(alien-hunting)屏幕保护程序工作的科学家之一,也蛮语出惊人的。

And if things get too quiet on Earth, as Drake suspects, that might be just a temporary situation. The deployment of space solar-power satellites would involve sending gigawatts' worth of power down to Earth, and some of that energy would be reflected back into space. "If we go this route, the earth will become visible again," Drake said.

如果正如Drake推测的那样,我们的科技让地球变得沉默、不可见,这只不过是一个短期的局面。许多利用太阳能发电的空间卫星向地球发射亿瓦量级的能量波, 会有不少能量重新被反射到宇宙空间里。 Drake设想,“如果我们按此方法来做,地球将又能是可见的了”

But would that be a good thing? Would we really want the aliens to know we exist, or should we lie low? That's a completely different story.

只是,这是否是个好主意? 我们是否真的想让外星人得知我们的存在,或者我们应该保持低调、避避风头? 这恐怕是另一个完全不同的故事了。

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参与人数 2基本分 +100 维基拼图 +60 收起 理由
BiscuiT + 100 + 20
霊烏路 空 + 40

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发表于 2010-8-11 20:54:46 | 显示全部楼层
本帖最后由 昂宿星团人 于 2010-8-11 20:55 编辑

回复 2# hawkwolf

一些参考意见
位置:Latest and the greatest(最后写点重要的事)

        第一段的最后一行:
                可媲美于那位于波多黎各阿雷西博天文台的那台天线直径达1000英尺(305米)的射电望远镜。

        最后一段:
                "What's happening here is that the earth is growing quiet," Drake said. "If we are the model for the [intelligent] universe, that's bad news."
                Drake说:“到底是什么让地球变得越来越沉默,如果宇宙里的所有文明发展模式都如此,这会是个坏消息。”
                        我们的地球正变得越来越沉默

位置:Way-out ideas(标新立异的计划)

        倒数第三段:
                "We could well have an Internet for the galaxy, based on gravitational lenses," Drake said. Berkeley astronomer Dan Wertheimer, one of the scientists behind the SETI @ home alien-hunting screensaver program, said observers at such a gravitational-lens observatory could "read the license plates on an extrasolar planet."
                Drake认为:“基于这个引力透镜,我们可以建立一个星系互联网”。处于这个引力透镜的观察者,可以“看清楚太阳系外行星上的车牌”, Dan Wertheimer,这位巴克利大学的天文学家,默默为SETI@Home的搜寻外星人(alien-hunting)屏幕保护程序工作的科学家之一,也蛮语出惊人的。
                        在这样的引力透镜天文台上,观察者可以“看清楚太阳系外行星上的车牌”

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发表于 2013-2-12 22:10:49 | 显示全部楼层
本帖最后由 cuihao 于 2013-2-12 22:12 编辑

校对

Hat Creek Observatory:我查到的翻译有“哈特克里克天文台”和“帽子溪天文台”,建议保留原文。参考:
http://article.yeeyan.org/bilingual/191246
http://www.baike.com/wiki/%E8%89 ... C%E9%98%B5%E5%88%97

American Association for the Advancement of Science:第一次出现处翻译成“美国协会科学促进会”,应为“美国科学促进会”。

The SETI era got its start on April 8, 1960, when astronomer Frank Drake pointed a radio telescope into the skies over West Virginia and looked for patterns in the signals received:其中“pattern”翻译成“模式”,有点看不明白。
(既然看到了,就再说说吧……)感觉因为汉语语序问题,翻译的“当……的时候”这句话容易给人这是后一句的时间状语的感觉。建议调整一下。

Although SETI astronomers have been teased by one-time-only events such as the "Wow" signal, there have been no confirmed messages from E.T.:
翻译的“不过仍有很多未被证实的来自外星人的信息,是否仍是闹剧还不得而知。”是哪里冒出来的?原文我的理解是“没有任何可以被证实来自外星人的消息”,而不是“仍有很多”只是“未被证实的”消息。

What's happening here is that the earth is growing quiet:
到底是什么让地球变得越来越沉默”有误,应为“地球正变得越来越沉默”。

and you can be in the SETI business:
翻译“你就可以入行SETI生意啦”中把business翻译作“生意”感觉怪怪的,“工作”即可。

因为月球一昼夜朝不多(差不多)是地球的1个月,而且只有正面对着地球。”:这句是自己加的吧,不过说明一下也不错。



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参与人数 1维基拼图 +21 收起 理由
昂宿星团人 + 21 哦哦哦!本版有史以来第一个二校出现啦~~.

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