As anyone who has used such a pump knows, compressed air grows swiftly hot, and the temperature below it would rise to some 60,000 Kelvin, or ten times the surface temperature of the Sun. In this instant of its arrival in our atmosphere, everything in the meteor's path—people, houses, factories, cars—would crinkle and vanish like cellophane in a flame.
使用过打气筒的人都知道，受到压缩的空气马上会变热，底下的温度有可能升高到大约6万摄氏度，或10倍于太阳的表面温度。在抵达我们大气层的刹那间，陨星所经之处的一切——人、房子、工厂、汽车——都会坍缩，像胶膜那样在烈火中消失。
One second after entering the atmosphere, the meteorite would slam into the Earth's surface, where the people of Manson had a moment before been going about their business. The meteorite itself would vaporize instantly, but the blast would blow out a thousand cubic kilometers of rock, earth, and superheated gases. Every living thing within 150 miles that hadn't been killed by the heat of entry would now be killed by the blast. Radiating outward at almost the speed of light would be the initial shock wave, sweeping everything before it.
进入大气层一秒钟之后，陨星就会撞击地球表面。在那里，曼森人一会儿之前还在各忙各的事。陨星本身也顿时化成蒸气，发生爆炸。爆炸会炸掉1000立方公里的岩石、泥土和过热的气体。在方圆250公里之内，凡是在陨星进入大气层的过程中没有被热死的生物，此刻会在爆炸中死于非命。第一轮冲击波几乎会以光的速度向外辐射，横扫前面的一切事物。
For those outside the zone of immediate devastation, the first inkling of catastrophe would be a flash of blinding light—the brightest ever seen by human eyes—followed an instant to a minute or two later by an apocalyptic sight of unimaginable grandeur: a roiling wall of darkness reaching high into the heavens, filling an entire field of view and traveling at thousands of miles an hour. Its approach would be eerily silent since it would be moving far beyond the speed of sound.
对于直接灾区以外的人来说，第一个感觉是一道炫目的闪光——人的肉眼所见到过的最亮的闪光——紧接着是一幅难以想像的恐怖情景，仿佛世界末日已经来临，持续一刹那到一两分钟：一片翻滚的黑幕以每小时几千公里的速度向前推进，挡住了整个视野，直达九天云霄。它的到来是悄然无声的，因为它移动的速度远远超过了声速。
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