It's a map of the solar system.

這是一張太陽系地圖。

Recently I got really curious and I started zooming out, well past the solar system and deep into the night sky, and this kind of blew my mind.

最近，我非常好奇，於是開始放大，遠遠地越過太陽系，深入夜空，這讓我大開眼界。

We have mapped these stars that are so far away from us, light years away, and yet here they are on this map, somehow positioned in space.

我們繪製了這些恆星的地圖，它們離我們如此遙遠，相隔光年之遙，但它們卻出現在這張地圖上，以某種方式被定位在太空中。

This seems impossible to me.

這在我看來是不可能的。

How is it that we're able to, from this little speck of dust, look up and somehow gauge how far away things are?

我們為什麼能夠從這顆小小的塵埃中抬頭仰望，並以某種方式測量出事物的距離？

Like this one specific star, how do we know that this is 864.3 light years away?

就像這顆特殊的恆星，我們怎麼知道它在 864.3 光年之外呢？

I mean that's like 8 quadrillion kilometers, it's insanely far.

我的意思是，這就像 8 夸脫億公里，這是瘋狂的遠。

The story of how we did this, how we measured the distance to these incredibly far away objects in the sky, it's a story of people looking up and asking questions, and in the process creating a map of the heavens.

我們是如何做到這一點的，我們是如何測量出天空中這些無比遙遠的物體的距離的，這是一個人們仰望天空、提出問題，並在此過程中繪製出天體地圖的故事。

In the old days, people knew about the planets, but they thought the stars were in some sort of vault of heaven just a bit further away than the planets.

在過去，人們知道行星，但他們認為恆星就在比行星稍遠的某個天穹裡。

So mapping the night sky, this is a big topic.

是以，繪製夜空地圖是一個大課題。

Let's start small first, the stuff close to us.

我們先從身邊的小事做起。

How do we know how far Jupiter is, and the moon, and all of that?

我們怎麼知道木星和月球有多遠？

From here, the methods get trippier and trippier the further away you get, but for now, the solar system.

從這裡開始，方法會變得越來越複雜，但現在，太陽系。

Measuring the distance to planets is relatively easy because we see the planets move.

測量行星的距離相對容易，因為我們可以看到行星的移動。

We see them spin around the sun, and we can observe their behavior over the course of decades and generations and record that.

我們看到它們圍繞太陽旋轉，我們可以觀察它們幾十年甚至幾代人的行為，並將其記錄下來。

After a lot of observation, we realize that the planets go around the sun, and they go in this kind of elliptical shape.

經過大量的觀察，我們發現行星繞著太陽轉，並呈現出這種橢圓形。

They don't go like in a perfect circle.

它們並不像在一個完美的圓圈裡。

You can then observe that the planets start moving quicker the closer they are to the sun because of gravity.

然後你就可以觀察到，由於萬有引力的作用，行星離太陽越近，運動速度就越快。

Gravity pulls it in and whips it around.

地心引力把它拉進來，然後把它甩出去。

Observing the planets and how they move around the sun allowed one very smart German astronomer, who apparently exclusively ate with chopsticks.

一位非常聰明的德國天文學家在觀察行星及其如何圍繞太陽運動時，顯然只用筷子吃飯。

I'm kidding.

我開玩笑的。

I know they're not chopsticks.

我知道那不是筷子。

Okay?

好嗎？

It's just a joke.

這只是個玩笑。

It's actually just like a compass.

它實際上就像一個指南針。

Ha ha ha.

哈哈哈。

Anyway, this guy, Johannes Kepler, used his chopsticks to measure all of this movement, how the planets moved.

總之，這個叫約翰內斯-開普勒的傢伙 用他的筷子測量了所有這些運動 行星是如何運動的

He plotted it, and he came up with some really savvy equations, and ratios, and laws that gave us the average distance to each planet.

他繪製了圖表，並提出了一些非常精妙的方程、比率和定律，從而得出了每顆行星的平均距離。

Suddenly, the night sky went from 2D to 3D for the first time.

突然，夜空第一次從二維變成了三維。

Which gave us a place, a physical place, relative to all these planets floating around the sun.

這給了我們一個地方，一個相對於所有這些圍繞太陽漂浮的行星的物理位置。

Okay, but this is child's play when it comes to measuring distances in space.

好吧，但要測量空間距離，這簡直是小兒科。

These planets are like our next door neighbors.

這些行星就像我們的隔壁鄰居。

So now, let's step into the big leagues and talk about how we started to map stars and their distance from Earth.

現在，讓我們走進大聯盟，談談我們是如何開始繪製恆星及其與地球距離的地圖的。

For the stuff that's not orbiting the sun, that's really far away, we can use a concept called parallax.

對於那些不圍繞太陽運行、距離我們非常遙遠的東西，我們可以使用一個叫做視差的概念。

Wait a minute.

等一下

Parallax?

視差？

Parallax sounds strangely familiar when talking about physics in space.

在談論空間物理學時，視差聽起來非常熟悉。

It's still scalary.

它仍然是鱗片狀的。

I mean, did we say that?

我是說，我們說過嗎？

But he goes by the pseudonym parallax.

但他的筆名是 Parallax。

Got that great name.

好名字

Okay, no, no, no.

好吧，不，不，不。

Not that parallax, the pseudoscientist from the 1800s.

不是那個視差，是 19 世紀的偽科學家。

I'm talking about the scientific concept.

我說的是科學概念。

Parallax is a concept that says that if you're observing something far away and you shift your position relative to that far away thing, the far away thing will look slightly different relative to the background.

視差是這樣一個概念：如果你正在觀察遠處的事物，而你的位置相對於遠處的事物發生了移動，那麼遠處的事物相對於背景看起來就會略有不同。

Okay, so let's say we're looking up at the night sky and we want to know how far away this star is.

好吧，假設我們正在仰望夜空，想知道這顆恆星離我們有多遠。

Remember that Earth is always floating around the sun at any given time, which is moving us in space.

請記住，地球在任何時候都在繞著太陽飄動，這就意味著我們在太空中移動。

So if we observe this star in May and then wait six months till November and observe that star again, we've now gained a new perspective on the star and what it looks like relative to its background.

是以，如果我們在 5 月觀測到這顆恆星，然後等到 6 個月後的 11 月再觀測這顆恆星，我們現在就會對這顆恆星有一個新的視角，知道它相對於其背景是什麼樣子的。

This gives us an angle that we can use to calculate this distance.

這樣就得到了一個角度，我們可以用這個角度來計算這個距離。

What we don't know is this value.

我們不知道的是這個值。

This is the distance.

這就是距離。

This is what we're looking for.

這就是我們要找的。

But we do know a few things.

但我們確實知道一些事情。

We know this distance because it's just the distance from Earth to the sun, which happens to be 149 million kilometers or one astronomical unit.

我們之所以知道這個距離，是因為它只是地球到太陽的距離，恰好是 1.49 億千米或一個天文單位。

This distance times two.

這個距離乘以二。

And then we also know this angle up here because we measured it from two different perspectives.

我們還知道這裡的角度，因為我們是從兩個不同的角度測量的。

Thanks to the wizardry that is trigonometry, we can use this distance and this angle to determine what this distance is.

多虧了三角法這一奇妙的方法，我們可以利用這個距離和這個角度來確定這個距離是多少。

This works really well and it's allowed us to measure the distance to a lot of stars.

這個方法非常有效，我們可以用它來測量許多恆星的距離。

But remember that a key ingredient to this whole parallax thing is the slight shift in perspective between the first angle and the second angle.

但請記住，視差的關鍵在於第一個角度和第二個角度之間視角的微小變化。

As you start to measure things that are further and further away, this angle becomes slighter and slighter until eventually it becomes impossible to discern.

當你開始測量越來越遠的事物時，這個角度就會變得越來越小，直到最後無法辨別。

It's so minuscule, the perspective shift, that you can't actually detect it.

視角的轉換是如此微小，以至於你根本無法察覺。

So there's a limit to how far parallax goes.

是以，視差的範圍是有限的。

With our Earth-based telescopes, we've been able to perceive the angle enough to where we can see things that are about 300 light years away.

利用我們在地球上的望遠鏡，我們已經能夠感知到足夠的角度，可以看到大約 300 光年以外的東西。

I mean, that is way bigger than like the things that are close to us in the solar system, but it's still a tiny number compared to like the galaxy or the universe.

我的意思是，這比太陽系中離我們很近的東西要大得多，但與銀河系或宇宙相比，這仍然是一個很小的數字。

Luckily, we have fancier tools like this guy that have really good technology for detecting these slight angle differences from two different perspectives of a star.

幸運的是，我們有了更先進的工具，比如這傢伙，它擁有非常好的技術，可以從恆星的兩個不同角度檢測出這些微小的角度差異。

And that's allowed us to observe and measure the distance to stars that are up to 3,000 light years away, way further out.

這讓我們能夠觀測和測量遠在 3000 光年之外的恆星的距離。

Okay, so here's where we're at.

好了，我們現在的情況是這樣的。

With Kepler's fancy equations, watching the planets move around the sun, we've been able to measure the distance to planets.

通過開普勒的花式方程，觀察行星圍繞太陽的運動，我們已經能夠測量出行星的距離。

With parallax, we've been able to measure the distance to stars that are really far away and get a 3D map of our galactic neighbors.

有了視差，我們就能測量出非常遙遠的恆星的距離，並繪製出銀河系鄰居的三維地圖。

But we're still not really scratching the surface of the distances that exist in the universe.

但是，我們對宇宙中存在的距離的瞭解還遠遠不夠。

So how do we do that?

那麼，我們該怎麼做呢？

This is where it starts to get kind of crazy and trippy and weird.

這裡開始變得有點瘋狂、恍惚和詭異。

And I'm going to do my best to explain this in a way that comes through.

我將盡力解釋清楚。

So here we go.

那麼，我們開始吧。

One of the major methods for measuring the distance to super far away stars and galaxies was pioneered by a computer at Harvard in 1912.

測量超遠恆星和星系距離的主要方法之一，是由哈佛大學的一臺計算機於 1912 年首創的。

Wait, what? A computer in 1912?

等等，什麼？1912 年的電腦？

Yeah, that's what I said. A computer at Harvard in 1912.

對，我就是這麼說的。1912年哈佛大學的計算機

But computers weren't invented until the 1950s.

但計算機直到 20 世紀 50 年代才發明出來。

But computers in 1912 looked like this.

但 1912 年的計算機是這樣的。

This is a group of women who worked in Harvard's astronomy department in the early 1900s.

這是 20 世紀初在哈佛大學天文系工作的一群女性。

Their job title was literally computers, meaning someone who executes predetermined logical calculations on large inputs of data.

他們的職稱從字面上看是計算機，意思是對大量輸入數據執行預定邏輯計算的人。

Harvard astronomers were taking loads of photos of the night sky with their new fancy telescopes.

哈佛大學的天文學家們正在用新式望遠鏡拍攝大量夜空照片。

The images came out like this.

畫面是這樣的

Glass plates with photos of the night sky developed on them.

印有夜空照片的玻璃板。

The computers were tasked with looking at each of these plates and naming and classifying the stars by their brightness and their type.

計算機的任務是查看每一塊星盤，並根據亮度和類型對恆星進行命名和分類。

They were basically creating a 2D map of the sky.

他們基本上是在繪製 2D 的天空地圖。

They didn't know how far away they were, they just were classifying their position in the night sky relative to our perspective on Earth.

他們不知道它們有多遠，只是根據我們在地球上的視角來劃分它們在夜空中的位置。

At the time, a lot of legit astronomers figured that what was in our galaxy was all there was to the universe.

當時，許多合法的天文學家認為，我們銀河系中的一切就是宇宙的全部。

We had no idea of knowing how far away some of these objects were, so we just figured that maybe everything is somewhat close by in our galaxy.

我們不知道其中一些天體離我們有多遠，所以我們只是想，也許所有的東西都離我們的銀河系很近。

One of these computers was named Henrietta.

其中一臺電腦名叫亨麗埃塔。

She was assigned to focus on one big cluster of stars in the night sky and to look at and classify those stars.

她被分配關注夜空中的一大群星星，並對這些星星進行觀察和分類。

She documented thousands of stars but was bothered by this one question.

她記錄了成千上萬顆星星，卻被一個問題困擾著。

If you look up at the night sky and you see a super bright star, if you look up at the night sky and you see a super bright star, is it super bright because it's a big bright star or is it super bright because it's just close by?

如果你仰望夜空，看到一顆超級明亮的星星，那麼它之所以超級明亮，是因為它是一顆大亮星，還是因為它就在附近？

By the same token, if you see a really dim star, does that mean it's just really really far away and it's actually a big star that's super bright or it's actually just a small dim star?

同樣的道理，如果你看到一顆非常暗淡的恆星，這是否意味著它只是非常非常遙遠，實際上是一顆超級明亮的大恆星，或者實際上只是一顆暗淡的小恆星？

We really had no way of knowing because again they had no idea how far away these objects were that they were measuring.

我們真的無從得知，因為他們也不知道他們測量的這些物體有多遠。

She was looking at this one part of the night sky, this one cloud of stars.

她注視著夜空的這一部分，這一團星星。

She didn't know how far away that cloud was but she figured all the stars were about the same distance from Earth and she noticed that some of these stars were pulsating.

她不知道那片雲有多遠，但她估計所有的星星離地球的距離都差不多，而且她注意到其中一些星星在跳動。

They were getting brighter and dimmer, brighter and dimmer and they were doing it at a strangely consistent rate.

它們變得越來越亮、越來越暗、越來越亮、越來越暗，而且它們的速度驚人地一致。

If one of the stars took four days to get brighter and it took four days to get dimmer and four days to get brighter, it would stick to that pattern, that period over and over again.

如果其中一顆恆星用四天的時間變亮，又用四天的時間變暗，再用四天的時間變亮，那麼它就會一次又一次地堅持這種模式和週期。

Very reliable, very consistent.

非常可靠，非常穩定。

You may be wondering what does this have to do with mapping the night sky?

您可能想知道，這與繪製夜空地圖有什麼關係？

We're getting there.

我們快成功了

So Henrietta decides to make a graph to start to plot every one of these stars that are pulsating and determine if there's any sort of pattern.

於是亨麗埃塔決定做一張圖，開始繪製每一顆正在脈動的恆星，並確定是否存在某種模式。

On one axis she put how long it took for these stars cycle to go from bright to dim.

她在一個軸上標出了這些恆星從明亮到暗淡的週期所需的時間。

Maybe it was two days, maybe it was five days, maybe it was ten days.

也許是兩天，也許是五天，也許是十天。

Remember that each of these stars were showing a very consistent pattern of sticking to their cycle.

請記住，這些恆星中的每一顆都表現出非常一致的模式，堅持自己的週期。

On the other axis she plotted how bright they were at each of these phases, at their dimmest and at their brightest point.

在另一條座標軸上，她繪製了它們在每個階段最暗和最亮時的亮度。

So you've got brightness on this side and you've got how long it takes for this pulsating to happen on this one.

是以，這邊有亮度，這邊的脈動需要多長時間。

So let's say she sees a star.

比方說，她看到了一顆星星。

She sees that it takes two days for it to go from dim to bright and then two more days to go from bright to dim.

她看到，從暗到亮需要兩天時間，從亮到暗又需要兩天時間。

And then at its dimmest point its brightness value is down here and at its brightest point it's more like up here.

在最暗的地方，亮度值在下面，而在最亮的地方，亮度值則在上面。

So this is what an entry would look like for one of these stars that she's observing.

這就是她正在觀測的其中一顆恆星的參賽作品。

She did this for a bunch of stars night after night and she started to see a pattern.

她這樣做了一個又一個夜晚，她開始發現了一個規律。

What this graph tells us is that stars that have a really long cycle going from dim to bright, let's say they take like ten or twenty days to do that, those stars are overall really bright.

這幅圖告訴我們的是，那些從暗到亮的週期很長的恆星，比方說它們需要十天或二十天的時間，這些恆星總體上非常明亮。

They're probably big, they have more energy.

他們可能身材高大，精力充沛。

Whereas the opposite is true.

而事實恰恰相反。

Stars that pulsate really quickly, that maybe just take a day or a half a day to go from dim to bright to dim to bright, those stars are actually overall much dimmer, potentially smaller, not actually as bright and intense as the stars that take a really long time to do their cycle.

那些脈動非常快的恆星，也許只需要一天或半天的時間就能從暗到亮，再從亮到暗，這些恆星實際上整體上要暗得多，有可能更小，亮度和強度也不如那些需要很長時間才能完成周期的恆星。

So now if you look at the night sky and you see a really dim star, let's say, you don't know if it's dim because that's just a really small star or it's dim because it's really, really, really far away.

所以，現在如果你仰望夜空，看到一顆非常暗淡的恆星，比方說，你不知道它暗淡是因為那只是一顆非常小的恆星，還是因為它真的非常非常非常遙遠。

It's actually a super bright star but it's just super far away from our perspective so it looks dim.

它其實是一顆超級明亮的恆星，只是從我們的角度看它超級遙遠，所以看起來很暗淡。

But now with Henrietta's formula you could look at the pulsating of that star and if it's pulsating really slow, taking ten days to go from dim to bright and bright to dim, then you can be sure that that's actually a really big bright star that just looks dim to us because we're super far away from it.

但是現在有了亨麗埃塔的公式，你就可以觀察那顆恆星的脈動，如果它的脈動非常緩慢，從暗到亮再從亮到暗需要十天的時間，那麼你就可以確定那其實是一顆非常大的亮星，只是因為我們離它超級遠，所以看起來比較暗而已。

This gave astronomers a yardstick that they just didn't have before to observe and understand the distance to stars that were way, way outside of the previous tools that we had to measure distance.

這給天文學家提供了一個以前沒有的尺度，讓他們能夠觀察和了解恆星的距離，而這些恆星的距離遠遠超出了我們以前測量距離的工具。

They took another swath of the cosmos and took them from 2D to 3D.

他們把宇宙的另一片區域從二維變成了三維。

Soon after Henrietta Leavitt discovered this amazing relationship, a man by the name of Edwin Hubble, famous astronomer, decided that he wanted to use this to settle the grand debate on whether or not the galaxy was all there was to the universe.

在亨麗埃塔-利維特發現這一奇妙關係後不久，一位名叫埃德溫-哈勃的著名天文學家決定利用這一發現來解決銀河系是否是宇宙全部的大爭論。

He'd been looking up at the sky and been seeing this kind of fuzzy cluster of stars that he didn't really understand. Was it close? Was it far away?

他一直在仰望天空，看到了一簇模糊的星星，他不太明白。是近嗎？遠嗎？

Hubble was able to pick out one of the stars in this cluster and look at how it pulsated.

哈勃能夠找出這個星團中的一顆恆星，並觀察它是如何脈動的。

Using Henrietta's formula, it became very clear to Hubble that this little fuzzy dot in the sky was very far away, way outside of our galaxy.

利用亨麗埃塔的公式，哈勃非常清楚地發現，天空中這個模糊的小點非常遙遠，遠在我們銀河系之外。

This settled the debate about whether or not our galaxy was the entire universe or not.

這解決了銀河系是否是整個宇宙的爭論。

That little fuzzy spot in the sky that Hubble was looking at turned out to be the Andromeda Galaxy.

哈勃在天空中看到的那個模糊的小點原來是仙女座星系。

It was a groundbreaking discovery, all made possible because of Henrietta Leavitt's formula.

這是一項劃時代的發現，而這一切都要歸功於亨麗埃塔-裡維特的配方。

And at the time, Hubble estimated that it was probably around 700,000 light-years away.

據哈勃當時估計，它大概在 70 萬光年之外。

We've since honed that estimate to more like 2.5 million light-years away.

後來，我們將這一估計縮小到 250 萬光年的距離。

And now, using the telescope that bears Hubble's name, we've been able to observe that there aren't just a few galaxies outside of our own, but billions.

而現在，通過使用以哈勃命名的望遠鏡，我們已經能夠觀測到，在我們自己的星系之外並不只有幾個星系，而是有數十億個。

Okay, that's it. That's the answer to my question.

好吧，就這樣。這就是我問題的答案。

That's how I'm able to zoom around the solar system and the galaxy using this computer program.

是以，我才能用這個電腦程序放大太陽系和銀河系。

The methods I talked about here are kind of the main building blocks of measuring distance in space.

我在這裡談到的方法是測量空間距離的主要組成部分。

We're continuing to push the bounds on this.

我們將繼續推進這方面的工作。

There are now methods for measuring the distance to all sorts of types of galaxies, all sorts of types of distances, and we continue to build out a map of the night sky in 3D.

現在已經有了測量各種類型星系距離和各種類型距離的方法，我們還在繼續繪製三維夜空地圖。

And I'm really grateful for that.

我真的很感激。

Honestly, I'm grateful for the pioneers who put their minds to giving us perspective because it allows me to see where I live in the cosmos and what kind of space I occupy in the night sky.

老實說，我很感謝那些為我們提供視角的先驅們，因為他們讓我看到了我在宇宙中的位置，以及我在夜空中佔據的空間。

And for some reason, that perspective, knowing where the stars are and knowing how far away they are, just kind of has ingrained itself into my mind and allowed me to keep perspective as I live my day-to-day life.

出於某種原因，這種視角，知道星星在哪裡，知道它們有多遠，就這樣深深地紮根在我的腦海裡，讓我在日常生活中也能保持這種視角。

Anyway, that's that. Thanks for watching.

總之，就是這樣。感謝觀看。

Also, I want to thank Squarespace for sponsoring this video.

另外，我要感謝 Squarespace 贊助本視頻。

Squarespace is a really easy-to-use place where you can build a website or a portfolio or an online presence of any kind.

Squarespace 是一個非常易於使用的地方，您可以在這裡建立網站、作品集或任何形式的在線展示。

I'm currently rebuilding my portfolio and website using Squarespace.

我目前正在使用 Squarespace 重建我的作品集和網站。

I'm learning a ton about these features and how useful they are.

我學到了很多關於這些功能的知識，以及它們的實用性。

There are really easy-to-use, beautiful templates that allow you to get a website up in minutes.

有一些非常簡單易用的精美模板，可以讓你在幾分鐘內建立一個網站。

But then, in addition to just, like, hosting and websites,

但是，除了託管和網站之外、

Squarespace gives you integration with all sorts of things that make running an online business easier and better, like email marketing campaigns.

Squarespace 為您集成了各種功能，讓您更輕鬆、更好地經營在線業務，例如電子郵件營銷活動。

And, of course, integration with social media platforms.

當然還有與社交媒體平臺的整合。

All of the tools you need to build out a beautiful-looking online presence and to do it without a ton of work.