I want to talk to you about something kind of big. We'll start here. Sixty-five million years ago --
我想和你們談談一件 稱得上大的事情。 我們從這裡開始吧。 六千五百萬年前
(Laughter)
恐龍群過了相當糟糕的一天。
the dinosaurs had a bad day.
(笑)
(Laughter)
一塊六英里的巨石,
A chunk of rock six miles across, moving something like 50 times the speed of a rifle bullet, slammed into the Earth. It released its energy all at once, and it was an explosion that was mind-numbing. If you took every nuclear weapon ever built at the height of the Cold War, lumped them together, and blew them up at the same time, that would be one one-millionth of the energy released at that moment. The dinosaurs had a really bad day. OK?
以比子彈還快 50倍的速度 撞向了地球。 它立刻就釋放了巨大的能量, 那次爆炸真的可謂 是無法想像。 假如你把冷戰期間 所製造的所有核武器 綁在一起 同時起爆, 所釋放的能量 只有那時的一百萬分之一。 恐龍真的是很倒楣啊。 明白麼?
Now, a six-mile-wide rock is very large. We all live here in Boulder. If you look out your window and see Longs Peak -- you're probably familiar with it -- now, scoop up Longs Peak and put it out in space. Take ... Meeker, Mt. Meeker. Lump that in there, and put that in space as well. And Mt. Everest. And K2. And the Indian peaks. Then you're starting to get an idea of how much rock we're talking about, OK? We know it was that big because of the impact it had and the crater it left. It hit in what we now know as Yucatan, the Gulf of Mexico. You can see here, there's the Yucatan Peninsula, if you recognize Cozumel off the east coast there. Here is how big of a crater was left. It was huge.
一個半徑六千米的巨石是相當大。 現在我們正居住在博爾德。 假如你往窗外看, 你會看到你應該很熟悉的郎二峰。 好, 現在把它挖出來 丟到宇宙去。 好,順便帶上米克峰, 把它們綁在一起 也丟到宇宙去, 再加上珠峰 和 k2, 還有印第安峰。 現在你就肯定在想 這石頭到底有多大啊? 我們根據它留下來的彈坑 和所造成的衝擊斷定它十分巨大。 它在我們現在稱為尤卡坦半島 墨西哥灣的地方撞上了地球。 你可以看到這就是 尤卡坦半島, 假如你知道可租米爾島 的話, 它就在離里東海岸不遠處。 這就是當時留下的隕石坑。
To give you a sense of the scale ... there you go. The scale here is 50 miles on top, a hundred kilometers on the bottom. This thing was 300 kilometers across -- 200 miles -- an enormous crater that excavated out vast amounts of earth that splashed around the globe and set fires all over the planet, threw up enough dust to block out the sun. It wiped out 75 percent of all species on Earth. Now, not all asteroids are that big.
十分的巨大。給你幾個具體的數據, 這裡的比例尺是 一格等於50英里, 兩個 100英里。那傢伙就有 300千米寬-- 即是200英里-- 一個巨大的坑 把地球上一大塊土地砸了出來, 然後散開到全球, 並引起遍及世界範圍的火災, 掀起的塵埃足以遮蓋天日。 還順帶毀滅了 地球上四分之三的物種。 但是, 並不是所有的天體都那麼大。
Some of them are smaller. Here is one that came in over the United States in October of 1992. It came in on a Friday night. Why is that important? Because back then, video cameras were just starting to become popular, and parents would bring them to their kids' football games to film their kids playing football. And since this came in on a Friday, they were able to get this great footage of this thing breaking up as it came in over West Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania and New Jersey until it did that to a car in New York.
有些會小很多。 我們這裡就會說道一個 在1992年10月 抵達美國的這個小傢伙。 它在星期五下午入境。 但是爲什麽這是很重要呢? 因為當時攝影機 剛剛流行, 人們會隨身帶著它, 家長也會帶著它, 爲了拍下他們的孩子在參加的 足球比賽。那恰好隕石是在星期五到來, 家長們就如此能把 它是如何一遍粉碎一遍抵達美國的情形拍下來, 途徑西佛吉尼亞州, 馬里蘭州, 賓夕法尼亞州 和新澤西州, 最終這樣 跌在紐約的一輛汽車上。
(Laughter)
(笑聲)
Now, this is not a 200-mile-wide crater, but then again, you can see the rock, which is sitting right here, about the size of a football, that hit that car and did that damage. Now, this thing was probably about the size of a school bus when it first came in. It broke up through atmospheric pressure, it crumbled, and then the pieces fell apart and did some damage. Now, you wouldn't want that falling on your foot or your head, because it would do that to it. That would be bad. But it won't wipe out, you know, all life on Earth, so that's fine.
這不是一個200英里寬的坑, 但是你是可以在圖片的右邊 看到那隕石 有足球那般大的跌下, 造成導致那車的損壞。 那傢伙在剛進入地球時 估計有一輛校車那麼大。 在大氣的摩擦下它才 分解破散成小碎塊 然後造成一些毀壞。 同時, 你肯定也不會希望它打到你的腳 或你的頭, 因為這是可能的。 那將會很糟糕。 但它顯然不能毀掉地球上所有生命,
But it turns out, you don't need something six miles across to do a lot of damage. There is a median point between tiny rock and gigantic rock, and in fact, if any of you have ever been to near Winslow, Arizona, there is a crater in the desert there that is so iconic that it is actually called "Meteor Crater." To give you a sense of scale, this is about a mile wide. If you look up at the top, that's a parking lot, and those are recreational vehicles right there. So it's about a mile across, 600 feet deep. The object that formed this was probably about 30 to 50 yards across, so roughly the size of Macky Auditorium here. It came in at speeds that were tremendous, slammed into the ground, blew up, and exploded with the energy of roughly a 20-megaton nuclear bomb -- a very hefty bomb. This was 50,000 years ago, so it may have wiped out a few buffalo or antelope, or something like that out in the desert, but it probably would not have caused global devastation.
所以這還好。但是它同時警戒了我們, 我們並不需要6英里寬的石頭 就可以造成破壞。 在小隕石和大隕石件有一個 中間值的傢伙, 假如你們當中有人去過亞利桑那州溫士盧, 在那的沙漠裏面有一個隕石坑 非常具有代表性, 以至可稱為流星坑。 給點具體數據, 那坑應該有一英里寬。 假如從上往下看應該就是個停車場, 在那邊停的就是幾輛旅遊車。 一英里寬, 六百英尺深。 造成這個坑的小行星估計有 30到50碼寬, 大概就和麥基會堂差不多。 它以極大的速度 砸向地面, 並且爆炸, 威力大概和 2000萬頓氫彈差不多-- 重量級的大炸彈。 那應該是在50000年前發生, 當時可能毀滅了數隻水牛或羚羊, 或沙漠內這一類的的物種, 但是它肯定是沒有
It turns out that these things don't have to hit the ground
造成世界性的破壞。
to do a lot of damage. Now, in 1908, over Siberia, near the Tunguska region -- for those of you who are Dan Aykroyd fans and saw "Ghostbusters," when he talked about the greatest cross-dimensional rift since the Siberia blast of 1909, where he got the date wrong, but that's OK.
事實證明了小行星並不一定要 撞上了地球才會帶來很多災難。 在1908年, 近西伯利亞 通古斯地區--你們當中有些人可能 是丹阿卡羅德迷很和看過〈捉鬼特工隊〉, 在他的故事裡所描述到在1909 在西伯利亞巨大的次元裂縫, 就是我們要說的, 即使他把日期弄錯了, 但沒問題。(笑聲)
(Laughter)
那是1908年的事, 但我是無所謂的。
It was 1908. That's fine. I can live with that.
(笑聲)
(Laughter)
Another rock came into the Earth's atmosphere and this one blew up above the ground, several miles up above the surface of the Earth. The heat from the explosion set fire to the forest below it, and then the shock wave came down and knocked down trees for hundreds of square miles. This did a huge amount of damage. And again, this was a rock probably roughly the size of this auditorium that we're sitting in. In Meteor Crater, it was made of metal, and metal is much tougher, so it made it to the ground. The one over Tunguska was probably made of rock, and that's much more crumbly, so it blew up in the air.
又有一顆隕石造訪了地球, 但在離地球還有幾英里距離的 地方爆炸了。 爆炸所產生的熱量 點燃了下面的森林, 衝擊波 震到了幾百平方米的 樹, 厲害嗎? 這傢伙造成了不小的毀壞。 同樣的, 這石頭估計 也應該和我們的這所禮堂差不多大。 不同的是, 流行坑的那個是鐵質的, 很牢固的綁在一起, 所以才能撞到地面。 這個在通古斯的可能是 石質的有些鬆散
Either way, these are tremendous explosions -- 20 megatons. Now, when these things blow up, they're not going to do global ecological damage. They're not going to do something like the dinosaur killer did. They're just not big enough. But they will do global economic damage, because they don't have to hit, necessarily, to do this kind of damage. They don't have to do global devastation. If one of these things were to hit pretty much anywhere, it would cause a panic. But if it came over a city, an important city -- not that any city is more important than others, but some of them we depend on more on the global economic basis -- that could do a huge amount of damage to us as a civilization. So, now that I've scared the crap out of you --
所以在空中就爆炸了。 無論如何, 同樣的, 龐大的2000萬頓氫彈。 當這些東西爆炸時, 它們不會造成全世界範圍的生態破壞。 不是像滅種恐龍 那樣的大破壞。 因為它們不夠大。 但是它們可能造成世界性的金融破壞, 因為它們並不用碰撞, 便能造成這種的毀壞。 它們不用造成全球性的破壞。 因為不論那石頭落在了哪裡, 哪裡都會引起恐慌。 但是假若它撞向了一個重要的城市-- 不是說某一個城市比另一個重要, 但是在全球經濟下 我們有某些比較需要的城市-- 作為一個文明社會我們肯定 會遭受巨大的毀壞。
好, 我已把你們嚇出尿來...
(Laughter)
(笑聲)
what can we do about this? This is a potential threat. Let me note that we have not had a giant impact like the dinosaur killer for 65 million years. They're very rare. The smaller ones happen more often, but probably on the order of a millennium, every few centuries or every few thousand years. But it's still something to be aware of. Well, what do we do about them? The first thing we have to do is find them. This is an image of an asteroid that passed us in 2009. It's right here. But you can see that it's extremely faint. I don't know if you can see that in the back row. These are just stars.
但是我們面對這又能做些什麽呢? 這是一個潛在的危機。 我想強調的是我們已經有6500萬年 沒有遭到過像恐龍殺手那次一樣 巨大的破壞。因為這些例實在是太罕見。 許多規模較小的撞擊卻是經常發生的, 但是一般間隔 是不會超過幾個世紀或幾千年的, 因此我們還是要關注它們。 但是我們又能做些什麽? 首先當然是找到它們啦。 這是在2009年經過美國的 小行星。 就是這個。 你可以看到它十分微小。 在這一連串的黑點, 說不定你們在後排看不到。看似像其他星星。
This is a rock that was about 30 yards across, so roughly the size of the ones that blew up over Tunguska and hit Arizona 50,000 years ago. These things are faint. They're hard to see, and the sky is really big. We have to find these things first. Well, the good news is, we're looking for them. NASA has devoted money to this; the National Science Foundation and other countries are interested in doing this. We're building telescopes that are looking for the threat.
這石頭大概有30碼寬, 大概和在5萬年前通古斯和亞利桑那州 爆炸的小行星差不多大。 小行星相對于巨大的天空很小。 所以我們要找到它們還是有難度的。 所以第一步要找到這些東西。 呵呵, 好消息是我們已經找到它們。 NASA 在這方面投了相當的錢。 國家自然科學基金委員會和其他國家 對這個項目都很感興趣。 爲了觀察這些危機我們
That's a great first step. But what's the second step? The second step is if we see one heading toward us, we have to stop it. What do we do? You've probably heard about the asteroid Apophis. If you haven't yet, you will. If you've heard about the Mayan 2012 apocalypse, you're going to hear about Apophis, because you're keyed in to all the doomsday networks, anyway.
製造了一系列望遠鏡。這是非常偉大的第一步, 但是下一步又是什麽呢? 第二部 當然是在發現它們靠近我們時 把它們停下來。 如何做到呢? 你可能聽說過小行星 阿婆菲斯。假如你沒聽過你肯定將會聽說到的。 假如你知道瑪雅的2012天啟, 你就肯定會知道阿婆菲斯, 因為你對世界末日的關鍵互聯網
(Laughter)
有所關於。
Apophis is an asteroid that was discovered in 2004. It's roughly 250 [meters] across, so it's pretty big -- bigger than a football stadium. And it's going to pass by the Earth in April of 2029. And it's going to pass us so close that it's actually going to come underneath our weather satellites. The Earth's gravity is going to bend the orbit of this thing so much that if it's just right, if it passes through this region of space, this kidney-bean-shaped region called the keyhole, the Earth's gravity will bend it just enough that seven years later, on April 13 -- which is a Friday, I'll note -- in the year 2036 --
阿婆菲斯是在2004年被發現的小行星。 有250碼那麼寬, 所以這夥計有點大-- 和一個足球場差不多-- 而且會在2029年四月經過地球。 並且會以很近的距離經過我們, 準確來說比天氣衛星 還要低一點。 地球的引力將會大大地彎曲它的 軌道, 倘若恰好, 便能穿過這個區域, 這個四季豆一樣形狀的 叫做關鍵孔區域的地方, 那麼地球的引力 就能足夠彎曲它的軌道, 然後再7年後的 四月13日, 星期五, 不得不提,
(Laughter)
是2036年... (笑聲)
you can't plan that kind of stuff --
-- 這不是巧合哦(黑色星期五)--
(Laughter)
阿婆菲斯將會撞擊到地球。
Apophis is going to hit us. And it's 250 meters across, so it would do unbelievable damage. The good news is that the odds of it actually passing through this keyhole and hitting us next go-around are one in a million, roughly -- very, very low odds. So I personally am not lying awake at night worrying about this at all. I don't think Apophis is a problem. In fact, Apophis is a blessing in disguise, because it woke us up to the dangers of these things. This thing was discovered just a few years ago and could hit us a few years from now. It won't, but it gives us a chance to study these kinds of asteroids.
並且那250碼的身姿 肯定會造成不小的傷害。 但是有好消息的是它穿過 這個關鍵區域的可能性 和在下一次回歸時撞上我們的幾率是 100萬分之一, 很小很小的幾率, 所以我個人是肯定不會爲了擔心它而睡不著覺。 我認為阿婆菲斯的存在對我們並不壞。 而是一個變相的好事, 它讓我們察覺到了 原來還有這樣的危機存在。 它僅僅是在幾年前被發現, 然後有可能在幾年後撞上我們。 但是它不會, 而且讓我們得到了
We didn't really necessarily understand these keyholes, and now we do, and it turns out that's really important, because how do you stop an asteroid like this? Well, let me ask you: What happens if you're standing in the road and a car's headed for you? What do you do? You do this. Right? Move, and the car goes past you. But we can't move the Earth, at least not easily, but we can move a small asteroid.
一個去學習這些小行星的機會。我們之前 是並沒有去研究這些關鍵孔的, 但是我們現在明白, 並且知道了 它們的重要性, 關係到我們 該如何停下一個像這樣的天體? 來, 我來問你 假如你站在馬路中間 一輛車向你駛來, 你會幹什麼 你當然會這樣做。 對吧, 動一動。然後車就會從你旁邊經過。 但是我們移不動地球, 起碼 不能如此簡單, 但是我們可以移動那個小行星。
And it turns out, we've even done it. In the year 2005, NASA launched a probe called Deep Impact, which slammed a piece of itself into the nucleus of a comet. Comets are very much like asteroids. The purpose wasn't to push it out of the way; the purpose was to make a crater to excavate the material and see what was underneath the surface of this comet, which we learned quite a bit about. We did move the comet a little tiny bit -- not very much, but that wasn't the point. However, think about this: This thing is orbiting the Sun at 10, 20 miles per second. We shot a space probe at it and hit it, OK? Imagine how hard that must be, and we did it. That means we can do it again. If we see an asteroid that's coming toward us, headed right for us, and we have two years to go? Boom! We hit it. You know, if you watch the movies --
事實證明,我們曾經做到。 在2005年, NASA發射了 一個叫Deep Impact的探針-- 插到了一個彗星的彗核中。 彗星和小行星是很相像的。 目的並不是想把它推到別處去。 而是在上面開個坑, 用來 挖掘彗星表面底下的物質。 我們通過這樣 瞭解了很多東西。 而且同時我們也的確把這個彗星移動了一點點, 很少, 但是這不是它的任務重點。 但是, 想一想這個。 這個東西是以每秒10英里20英里的速度 繞著太陽運行。 我們發射了一個空間探針, 然後準確的命中了它! 試想一下這個事情的難度, 的但是我們做到了。 這就意味著我們還能再做一次。 假如我們現在看到一個小行星 正筆直衝向我們, 我們這是有要移動它的需要的話, 並且有兩年時間準備, 轟! 我們當然可以撞擊它。 假如你看過電影,
(Laughter)
你可能在想,
you might think: Why don't we use a nuclear weapon? Well, you can try that, but the problem is timing. Shoot a nuclear weapon at this thing, you have to blow it up within a few milliseconds of tolerance, or else you'll miss it. And there are a lot of other problems with that; it's very hard to do. But just hitting something? That's pretty easy. I think even NASA can do that, and proved that they can.
爲什麽我們不用核武器? 那當然可以, 但是問題時引爆時間的問題。 你可以用核武器向小行星丟去, 但是你的引爆誤差要在幾毫秒內, 否則你就會錯過沒打中。 然後這還有很多其他連結的問題, 這些問題都很難解決。 但是只要僅僅是擊中它? 那是很容易的。 我認為NASA都可以做到,
(Laughter)
同時他們也證明過他們可以。(笑聲)
The problem is, if you hit this asteroid, you've changed the orbit, you measure the orbit, then you find out, oh yeah, we just pushed it into a keyhole, and now it's going to hit us in three years. Well, my opinion is: fine! It's not hitting us in six months -- that's good.
但是問題是, 假如我擊擊中了 這顆小行星, 我們成功改變了其軌道, 再次測量發現, 噢, 我們把它又丟進了一個關鍵孔, 然後再3年後它就來了。 我的想法是, 還好啦, 起碼不是在六個月內就來了。還好。
Now we have three years to do something else. And you can hit it again. That's kind of ham-fisted; you might just push it into a third keyhole or whatever, so you don't do that. And this is the part -- it's the part I just love.
我們還有三年時間去對付它。 然後你又擊中了它。雖然這比較有點扯。 但是你又再次把它丟入了關係孔, 或者直接就撞上來什麽的, 你當然不希望這樣。 但是我就喜歡這一部份。 (笑聲)
(Laughter)
在無腦一番後, 啪咚, 我們
After the big macho "Grr ... bam! We're gonna hit this thing in the face," then we bring in the velvet gloves.
要從正面攻擊它了, 然後結果卻很糟。
(Laughter)
(笑聲)
There's a group of scientists and engineers and astronauts, and they call themselves The B612 Foundation. For those of you who've read "The Little Prince," you understand that reference, I hope -- the little prince lived on an asteroid called B612. These are smart guys -- men and women -- astronauts, like I said, engineers. Rusty Schweickart, who was an Apollo 9 astronaut, is on this. Dan Durda, my friend who made this image, works here at Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, on Walnut Street. He created this image for this. He's actually one of the astronomers who works for them. If we see an asteroid that's going to hit the Earth and we have enough time, we can hit it to move it into a better orbit.
有這樣一批科學家和工程師, 還有宇航員, 他們自稱為 笑聲612委員會。 對於那些讀過〈小王子〉的人, 你們應該知道這個引用。 小王子就是住在小行星B612上的。 這的都是些很厲害的人-- 宇航員, 工程師。 魯斯提•思維瓦特, 阿婆羅九號的宇航員 就在裏面。丹•杜爾達, 我的好朋友 做了這張圖片, 現在在 位於Boulder 胡桃街的西南研究院 工作, 他為委員會製作了這樣一幅圖, 同時也是一位為他們工作的天文學家。 假如我們看到了一個小行星 將要撞向地球, 同時我們有足夠的時間 我們就可以撞擊它, 把它推向一個更好的軌道,
But then what we do is launch a probe that has to weigh a ton or two. It doesn't have to be huge -- a couple of tons, not that big -- and you park it near the asteroid. You don't land on it, because these things are tumbling end over end. It's very hard to land on them. Instead you get near it. The gravity of the asteroid pulls on the probe, and the probe has a couple of tons of mass. It has a little tiny bit of gravity, but it's enough that it can pull the asteroid, and you have your rocket set up -- you can barely see it here, but there's rocket plumes -- and these guys are connected by their own gravity, and if you move the probe very slowly -- very, very gently, you can very easily finesse that rock into a safe orbit. You can even put in orbit around the Earth where we could mine it, although that's a whole other thing; I won't go into that.
然後我們就要發射一個重1到2頓的探測器。 不需很大--就幾頓大吧-- 然後把它停在小行星旁邊。 不必要在上面著陸, 因為這些東西 是會在一直轉動, 很難在上面降落。 因此我們就停在它旁邊。 小行星的引力會吸引探針, 同時探針只是一個幾頓的很小引力的物體。 但是足夠土洞一個小行星, 然後把火箭點燃, 你就可以看到 一縷青煙, 基本上來說這些天體是由引力 鏈接的, 所以假如你 很慢, 徐徐地移動探針, 你就可以簡單並巧妙地把那石頭移到安全的軌道。 你當然可以把它推到地球的軌道, 在哪裡我們可以開採它, 但是那又是別的一回事。 我不會在這裡討論它。
(Laughter)
(笑聲)
But we'd be rich!
但我們會很富有!
(Laughter)
(笑聲)
So think about this, right? There are these giant rocks flying out there, and they're hitting us, and they're doing damage to us. But we've figured out how to do this, and all the pieces are in place to do this. We have astronomers with telescopes, looking for them. We have very, very smart people, who are concerned about this and figuring out how to fix the problem, and we have the technology to do this. This probe actually can't use chemical rockets. Chemical rockets provide too much thrust, too much push. The probe would just shoot away.
想一下, 在太空中飛著巨大的小行星, 然後它們要撞向我們, 它們對我們造成了危險, 但是我們已經知道了怎麼對付他們, 所有的零件也已經拼在一起執行這項任務。 我們有天文家用望遠鏡 看著它們。我們有人才, 相當厲害的人正在關注這個, 並在思考解決問題。 同時我們也已經有了成熟的技術去攻克這個難關。 這個探針不是用的化學火箭。 化學火箭提供的動力太大了, 探針一下子就會被推開。
We invented something called an ion drive, which is a very, very, very low-thrust engine. It generates the force a piece of paper would have on your hand -- incredibly light, but it can run for months and years, providing that very gentle push. If anybody here is a fan of the original "Star Trek," they ran across an alien ship that had an ion drive, and Spock said, "They're very technically sophisticated. They're a hundred years ahead of us with this drive." Yeah, we have an ion drive now. We don't have the Enterprise, but we've got an ion drive now.
我們發明了一種叫做離子推力器的東西, 是一個很小功率的推力器。 它所產生的力 和你頭頂一張紙差不多, 十分輕便, 但是它能持續工作幾個月, 幾年, 不斷提供平緩的推力。 你們當中有人是〈星艦奇航記〉迷話, 他們就有一個外星飛船裝有 離子推進器, Spock還說過: 「 這個技術上的工藝很複雜。 這東西起碼比我們領先幾百年。」 怎麼樣, 我們現在已經有了離子推進器。(笑聲) 我們沒有〈進取號〉,
(Laughter)
但是我們有了離子推進器。
(Applause)
(鼓掌)
Spock.
Spock。
(Laughter) So ... That's the difference -- that's the difference between us and the dinosaurs. This happened to them. It doesn't have to happen to us. The difference between the dinosaurs and us is that we have a space program and we can vote, and so we can change our future.
(笑聲) 所以, 這就有不同了, 我們和恐龍之間就有了不同。 災難降臨了在牠們身上。 但是不會降臨在我們頭上。 我們和恐龍的區別就在於 我們有太空計劃, 我們可以投票, 所以未來就在我們手中。
(Laughter)
(笑聲)
We have the ability to change our future. Sixty-five million years from now, we don't have to have our bones collecting dust in a museum. Thank you very much.
我們有能力改變命運。 6500萬年後, 我們不用 把我們的骨頭陳列在博物館裡。
(Applause)
非常感謝你們。