- The Robert A. Pritzker, Associate Curator for Meteoritics and Polar Studies.

羅伯‧A‧普立茲克館副館長，負責隕石學與極地研究。

- There. - I practiced this many times.

沒錯。 - 我練習過很多次了。

- Yeah. Today we're going to talk about the age of the solar system.

對呀，嘻嘻嘻嘻。今天我們要談的是太陽系的年齡。

-These large, white, aluminum ridge inclusions that you can see here, these are the oldest minerals that formed in the solar system,

你所看到的這些大顆白色的鋁化合物雜質，它們是太陽系裡所組成的最古老的礦物，

and they can be dated, and it' basically the start of the solar system. We call it T-0, time 0. It's 4.567 billion years.

而且能夠判定其年代大約是在太陽系一開始就有的。我們把它叫做 T-0，時間零點，也就是四十五億六千七百萬年前。

It's an easy number to remember. 4.567 billion.

這個數字很好記。四五六七百萬。

- We know how old the solar system is because of this specific specimen. - Exactly, exactly. This defines T-0.

我們就是靠這個樣本才知道太陽系有多老的。 - 正是如此，正是如此。它決定了 T-0。

When I give public talks, I usually give people a slice in plastic, and I say "You can hold the oldest piece of material in the solar system."

當我去公開演講的時候，我通常會給人們摸一小片包在塑膠裡的切片，我會說：「你可以拿著這片全太陽系最古老的物質。」

And, even, you don't see it, but the oldest material available to anyone on this planet is in there.

而且就算你看不到，這就是全世界所有人所能找得到的最古老的物質了。

There's nothing older that you can touch. - Wow.

你能摸得到的東西沒有比這更古老的了。 - 哇。

- Pre-solar grains. They're older than the sun, older than the meteorite itself.

太陽前晶粒。這些顆粒比太陽還老，比隕石本身還老。

Some of them might be as old as 5.5 billion years. - And how do you know that?

它們有一些可能已經有五十五億年那麼老了。 - 你怎麼知道的？

- So these pre-solar grains, they can be analyzed chemically.

這些太陽前晶粒可以用化學方法分析。

Their isotopic composition is highly anomalous, very different than anything in the Solar System.

它們的同位素相當異常，跟太陽系裡其他的任何東西都不一樣。

Their composition cannot be explained by any process that can occur in the Solar System.

它們的成分無法用任何可能發生太陽系裡的過程來解釋。

The fact that they are embedded in that rock tells us they could not have been incorporated later;

光是它們龕在石頭裡這一點就表明了它們不可能是以後才組成的；

They must have been part of that mixture from which the rock formed.

它們一定是在那石頭形成時的混合物的一部份。

And since the rock formed 4.6 billion years ago, they must be older. - Older the 4.6 billion years.

而因為那顆石頭組成於四十六億年前，它們一定比那更老。 - 比四十六億年更老。

- And some minerals even can be dated. So far we have only dated approximately 30 grains.

而且有些礦物甚至可以測出年代。到目前為止我們只測了大約三十個顆粒。

Most of them are about 200 million years older than the sun.

它們大部份比太陽還老大約兩億年。

And a few of them are about a billion years older than the sun, which makes them about 5.6 billion years old.

有一小部份大約比太陽老十億年，所以總的來看應該有五十六億年那麼老了。

We think the solar system formed, basically from a cloud of gas and dust, and this cloud of gas and dust formed from different sources, from different stars.

我們認為太陽基本上由氣體跟灰塵的星雲所形成的，而這個氣體跟灰塵的星雲有不同的來源，來自不同的星星。

Some of these stars were indeed stellar explosions, supernovae. They exploded, and during these explosions, new elements formed.

這些星星有些爆炸而成為超新星。在它們爆炸的過程中就形成了新元素。

After the matter cooled down, some of this matter condensed as gas.

在這一團物質冷卻之後，有些就凝成了氣體。

There were other stars—many other stars—which were like the sun, but they were already at the end of their life.

其他的一些星星...其實很多啦...就像太陽一樣，只不過它們已經到了生命的終點。

They expanded, became red giants, and expelled the matter into space. And from all these mixtures of stellar ejecta, this pre-solar cloud formed.

它們擴張成紅巨星，然後把物質散發到太空中。然後所有這些星體的噴出物就混合並組成太陽誕生前的星雲。

Within this pre-solar molecular cloud, the protosolar disk formed. It's basically a rotating disk of gas and dust.

在這個太陽誕生前的分子雲中，碟狀原始太陽形成了，基本上就是個旋轉的氣體跟灰塵的碟子。

The protosun formed, and later, the sun. Planetary building blocks formed.

原始太陽形成之後，後來就成了太陽。行星的組成份子也形成了。

Most of the matter was altered—heated—the pre-solar signature is not visible anymore, but some of this pre-solar matter survived without having been altered.

大部份的物質因為加熱而改變，失去太陽系誕生以前時期的特徵，但是少數這種太陽系誕生以前物質沒有改變而留存下來。

That's whats trapped in here—it's only a tiny fraction. The most abundant type of pre-solar materials are diamonds—nano-diamonds.

卡在這裡面的就是...雖然只有一小部份。太陽系誕生以前物質最多的型態就是鑽石...奈米鑽石。

These diamonds are tiny—they're only 2 nanometers across—maybe consist of 1000 to 2000 carbon atoms. We can extract them from meteorites.

這些鑽石非常細小...直徑只有兩奈米...大約只有一兩千個碳原子。我們能從隕石裡萃取出來。

We basically dissolve everything else, just are left with the acid residue of diamonds—and in this little vial I have billions of diamonds.

基本上我們把其他一切都溶解掉，直到酸性溶液裡殘留鑽石...而我手裡這個小瓶子裡就有幾十億個鑽石。

You normally wouldn't see them because they are so small they wouldn't scatter light, but they clump together—as you can see, that white residue

一般而言你是看不見它們的，因為它們小到了不能反射光線的程度，但是它們會聚集在一起，如你所見的，形成白色懸浮物

- Yeah - These are all diamonds. It's literally stardust.

- 對呀。 這些全是鑽石。名副其實的星塵。

- It's awfully ethereal looking. Kind of like floats around in this nebulousness.

看起來超空靈的。好像是飄在星雲裡面。

-These diamonds, they were discovered in Chicago, in 1987, at the University of Chicago, with a Field Museum meteorite.

這些鑽石是1987年在芝加哥市的芝加哥大學從一顆菲爾德博物館的隕石裡發現的。

-Really? That...it's overwhelming.

真的嗎？那真是...太超過了。

It's...It's— How did you... how did you get into this?

它...它真是...你怎麼...你都是怎麼開始參與這個的啊？

- Yeah, so when I heard about this first, I was extremely fascinated, and I heard about it when I was a student of earth science in Switzerland,

這個啊，當我剛聽到這個的時候，我深深的著迷了，那個時候我在瑞士當地球科學系的學生，

and did an undergraduate project in a cosmo-chemistry lab there. "This is so fascinating, would it be possible to do a PhD there?" -Yeah

而且在那兒參與了一項大學部的宇宙化學實驗室的研究計畫。我想：「太有意思了，能不能在這裡做博士研究啊？」 - 對呀。

- Just because I was completely hooked. I was always interested in astronomy, and volunteered at the local observatory there, and thought, "Oh, if I could do that for a living, that would be fantastic."

那完全是因為我著了迷啊。我一直都對天文學有興趣，因而在當地天文台當志工，我在想：「哦，如果幹這個能當飯吃就更好了。」

And, yeah, actually, the opportunity came up, and I was able to work on the stardust during—for my PhD. -Really?

然後，對呀，機會真的來了，我在攻讀博士時真的參與了星塵的研究。 - 真的哦？

- And everything, yeah, so I'm very fortunate to work on such a very—I would say—on the oldest matter that is available anywhere on this planet.

然後一切水到渠成，沒錯，我有幸能從事地球上最古老物質的研究工作。

It keeps us very motivated, and it's really great. -Yeah

這讓我們興趣盎然，真的很棒。 - 對呀

- With every question that you answer, you open 10 more questions that can be studied, but then you have to make a wise decision, which questions are actually worth pursuing to answer?

每次解答了一個問題，就會有十個新問題冒出來，但是你必須明智地抉擇，要挑對下一個值得花心力去解答的問題。

-Yeah. - Worth the time and money. And one of these is the origin of those nano-diamonds.

- 對呀。 要值得花時間跟經費。而追尋奈米鑽石來源就是這種問題。

Because nano-diamonds are basically pure carbon, and they survived the formation and evolution of our Solar System—and almost nothing else did survive—almost everything has been altered.

這是因為奈米鑽石基本上就是純碳，它們能熬過太陽系誕生時的變遷...其他一切物質都熬不過來...幾乎都被改變了。

So the carbon in our body and our skin, you don't see a pre-solar signature anymore. - Yeah

但是在我們身體裡跟皮膚上的碳，你就看不到太陽系誕生的痕跡了。 - 對呀。

- Although it might have the same origin as these diamonds. -So, the carbon that makes up those diamonds is the same carbon that makes up—like the carbon within me and you.

儘管它跟這些鑽石的來源是一樣的。 - 所以構成這些鑽石的碳跟你我身體裡的碳是一樣的。

- Exactly. - And all of life on Earth.

正是如此。 - 而且所有地球上的生物也是。

- Exactly. - So this is like our great times infinity—great, great—ancestor, essentially.

沒錯。 - 所以這等於是我們的很古老很古老以前的老祖宗了。

- Yeah, so I think we have a common origin. - Yeah.

對呀，所以我認為我們有一個共同的起源。 - 對呀。

- These diamonds, and life on Earth, and this is a proxy of—it's basically the tiny fraction that survived all these billions of years since the planets and the Earth formed.

這些鑽石，還有地球上的生命，就只是個代表...基本上它就是幾十億年前行星和地球組成時所殘留下來的一小部份。

And by studying those diamonds, they open up—they are like a time capsule. By studying them, we can learn about the past—about the time before the Solar System.

經由研究這些鑽石，打開了一扇門...它們就像時光膠囊。經由研究它們，我們可以知道過去...關於太陽系開始以前的時光。

(So if you were to take those diamonds down to a pawn shop, how much is one of them worth?)

那如果你拿這些鑽石去當鋪，一顆該值多少錢？

- He would not even know.

他根本不知道啦。

- I don't know, but I always tell—they probably wouldn't make nice engagement rings, because they are so small, but there are millions!

我不知道欸，不過我一直都知道...它們大概不能拿來做訂婚戒指，因為太小了，可是它們有好幾百萬顆呢！