评论
打印
In the fall of 2017, we spotted an unexpected visitor to our solar system from deep space.
2017年秋季，我们发现了一个来自深邃太空的太阳系意外访客。
We'd never seen anything like it!
我们从来没见过像这样的东西！
It came out of nowhere, was on a surprising trajectory, and it was MOVING FAST.
不知它从何而来，而且运行轨道奇异，飞行速度很快。
It wasn't aliens, but it's still just fantastic. This is Karen Meech.
它不是外星人，但仍然妙不可言。这是凯伦·米奇。
I'm an astronomer at the Institute For Astronomy University of Hawaii.
我是夏威夷大学天文研究所的天文学家。
Her team spotted the UFO , and eventually: Oumuamua.
她的团队发现了这个不明飞行物，并最终命名为Oumuamua。
It's not aliens, it's an asteroid. But before you leave!
它不是外星人，而是一个小行星。但在你离开之前（，我要告诉你）！
It's an asteroid like none we've ever observed before!
这课小行星我们前所未见！
An asteroid from another star. A piece of interstellar debris!
这颗小行星来自另一颗恒星，是一块星际碎片！
When I first heard about the detection I was very excited because we expected that these things should exist, but nobody had ever seen one before.
我第刚获知这个发现时，感到极其兴奋，因为我们早就认为这些东西应该存在，但以前从来没人见过。
Imagine that our solar system is a fish tank, and we're in the middle of it.
把我们的太阳系想象成一个鱼缸，我们就身在其中。
So we're looking at our fish tank and trying to learn about the whole world outside of it too.
所以我们在看鱼缸，也尝试着去了解外面的世界。
And then, suddenly and without warning something gets thrown in to our tank and WHO KNOWS where that thing is from?!
然后，一个东西未经任何预警突然就被扔进了我们的鱼缸，谁知道呢那东西是从哪里来的？！
It's completely different stuff! From a whole different place! ARE YOU EXCITED YET? I KNOW RIGHT?!
完全不同的东西！来自一个完全不同的地方！你感到兴奋吗？我知道对吗？！
That's what happened here. So here's what we know…
就是这样。我们只知道…
We know that it is not from our solar system based on the path it took through the solar system.
我们知道它不是来自太阳系，只是太阳系的过客。
We know it is the size of a football field, and it's rotating rapidly.
我们知道它跟一个足球场大小相当，旋转速度飞快。
We also know, based on its orbit, where it came from and where it is going.
我们也知道，根据它的轨道（判断），它从哪里来，又到哪里去。
We know it's got no dust coming off it, and it's not icy, so it's not a comet!
我们知道它没有尘埃碎屑脱落，它也不是冰，所以它不是彗星！
We know its color! It's RED! Well, kinda. Yes.
我们知道它的颜色！它是红色的！嗯，有点。是的。
Well when you say red, people instantly picture something red in color.
嗯，当你说红色的时候，人们会立刻看到红色的东西。
But what we mean astronomically is that it more efficiently reflects the red light than the blue light.
我们的意思从天文学角度来说，就是比蓝光，它更有效地反映了红光。
And so it may not necessarily look red, and in fact we think this object is very dark.
所以它看起来不一定是红色的，事实上我们认为这个物体很暗。
And so it's just varying amounts of a very dark surface reflecting the blue or the red end of the spectrum.
所以它极暗的表面只反射了光谱末端的蓝色或红色。
Also, the shape was very unusual. It was not what we were expecting.
此外，它的形状也常同寻常。这令我们始料未及。
For example, observations told us it's 10 times longer than it is wide, but that's the Lower limit.
例如，通过观察我们得知，它的长度至少是它宽度的10倍。
Yeah. It's 10 to 1. At bare minimum.
是的。10比1。还是至少。
The reason I say bare minimum is we were assuming that the rotation axis was perpendicular to our line of sight.
我说“至少”是因为从我们的视线角度来看，我们假设旋转轴是垂直的。
And we don't know that. If the rotation axis were pointing at us as in -- it's spinning like a rectangular platter, you can't tell how big it really is!
但其实我们并不知道。如果旋转轴指向我们，就像一个长方形的盘子那样旋转，你说不出它到底有多大！
If it's tilted over you can foreshortening, in which case it could even be longer than 10 to 1.
如果按照透视法缩短，将其倾斜，这种情况下，它的长宽比甚至可能超过10比1。
And the only way to figure that out would be to get its rotational light curve over a long period of time and get it at all sorts of different viewing angles, and we didn't have that luxury.
确定此事的唯一方法就是，在（相对）较长的一段时间里，从各个不同视角，获得它的旋转光变曲线。然而我们没有那么奢侈。
They didn't have that luxury, because they didn't know it was coming.
他们没有那么奢侈，因为他们并不知道它会到来。
The asteroid was so shocking, Earth astronomers didn't even know it was there until it had passed the sun already!
这颗小行星如此令人震惊，以至地球天文学家直到它划过太阳以前，都不知道它的存在。
Which means astronomers around the world were in a bit of a race against time.
这也就意味着全世界的天文学家们都在与时间赛跑。
You have to realize we had very little time to observe it.
你必须意识到，我们能够观察它的时间非常有限。
From time at which we realized what it was until it was really too faint to do much science to characterize it was less than about two weeks.
从我们刚刚可以看清它到它（远去）只有不到两周时间，（一旦远去），它将变得非常模糊，以至于很多科学研究都无法再进行下去，而这些研究恰是了解它特征的途径。
If it hadn't come as close to the sun as it did its path would have just been a straight line through the solar system,
如果它没有那么靠近太阳，它通过太阳系的路径就只能是一条直线了。
but it got close enough to the sun that the sun acts like a gravitational slingshot. And that slingshot it really what saved us,
但它非常接近太阳，太阳像一个引力弹弓。而这个弹弓真的救了我们，
in terms of giving us time to do some science.
因为它让我们有了更多可以进行科学研究的时间。
And normally you spend, you might spend a month or so writing a careful proposal to get telescope time that you would be awarded six months later.
通常你要花，你可能要花一个月左右的时间，写一个严谨的申请，以获得六个月的望远镜使用时间。
You get the data, you carefully analyze it. So this was a real time crunch.
你得到数据，你仔细分析。所以时间很紧。
On top of that we know the surface of the asteroid was bombarded by cosmic rays for millions upon millions of years!
最重要的是，我们知道，千百万年来，这颗小行星的表面一直被宇宙射线轰击。
In the end, the biggest discovery here isn't what we learned about Oumuamua, but that the asteroid existed in the first place.
最终，最大的发现并不在于了解Oumuamua本身，而在于，首先我们知道了这种小行星的确存在。
This is this tells us that they're out there and there's probably a lot of them. Before we wrap up here.
这是这件事告诉我们的，他们在那里，而且可能有很多。结束之前。
There are projects pointing telescopes at Oumuamua to determine if it's an interstellar probe, or some kind of spacecraft.
有人立项架设望远镜，来探查Oumuamua究竟是某个星际探测器，还是某种航天器。
I get that, it's not been ruled out. And I asked Karen what she thought and … well, she had some feels.
我明白了，这些也都有可能。我问凯伦她怎么想的…嗯，她有一些感觉。
Proving that it's not artificial, if there was intelligence behind it would be really difficult.
证明它不是人造设备，如果它背后存在智能因素，那真很难（分辨）。
But this is entirely consistent with a natural trajectory.
但这完全符合自然轨迹。
Now if it had deviated from this path suddenly, that would be a good indication it's not natural, but it didn't do that.
现在，如果它突然偏离了这条轨道，将是一个很好的迹象，证明它不是自然之物，但它没有偏离。
The surface materials are consistent with natural things in the solar system, but so is metal.
它的表面材料与太阳系中的自然物质完全一致，都是金属。
So that's not proving things one way or another. It's consistent with being natural.
所以这并不是以某种方式证明事物。这是与自然一致的。
The size is consistent with being natural. Just because we can't explain the elongated shape doesn't mean it has to have an unnatural explanation.
它的大小也与自然物质吻合。虽然我们无法解释其拉长的形状，但这并不意味着它就是非自然的。
So given that it's entirely consistent, yeah if you were gonna go out on the edge and say it's something extraordinary you better have extraordinary proof.
因此，由于它诸多特征都与自然物质完全吻合，是的，如果你非要否认，说它超越了自然，是人工所为，你最好也拿出点特别的证据。
And given that it's totally consistent with a natural object there's no proof of anything.
由于它诸多特征都与自然物质完全吻合，目前尚无任何证据。
So now we know intergalactic objects do occasionally fall into our little fish tank, and hopefully,
所以现在我们知道星系间的某些物体的确偶尔会掉进我们的小鱼缸里，我们也希望如此，
next time, we'll know what to look for and get even more data, and this armchair twitter astronomer will be ready to heart every bit of it.
下一次，我们就知道该寻找什么了，也会获得更多数据，而这位推特天文学家将悉心守候。
Thanks for watching Seeker, make sure you come back again for more videos, and if you have suggestions for more topics, we're always looking, so let us know!
感谢收看，欢迎浏览更多视频，如果您有更多话题，更多建议，我们始终欢迎，所以请告诉我们！
One last fun fact from Dr. Meech she got excited about science by watching Star Trek with her parents. Same Karen. Same.
最后告诉大家一件有趣的事，米奇博士爱上科学，正是源于她与父母一起观看了电影《星际迷航》。凯伦也一样。一样。
