Name: 天文學陷入危機… 但這也太令人興奮了！ (Astronomy Is In Crisis...And It's Incredibly Exciting)
Uploaded: 2025-12-02T17:30:34.000Z
Duration: 12 min 18 s

Now's the perfect time to grab the 12,026 calendar and get it in time for the holidays.

現在正是入手 12,026 calendar 並趕在假期前收到的最佳時機。

Our best theory of the universe could be wrong.

我們對宇宙的最佳理論可能錯了。

Finally, we're going through an incredibly exciting moment.

終於，我們正經歷一個令人難以置信的激動時刻。

Thanks to amazing new technology, our understanding of the universe is moving faster than it has in years.

藉由驚人的新技術，我們對宇宙的理解正以前所未有的速度進展。

And if we're fortunate, we could be at the edge of the next revolution in the way we see the cosmos.

如果我們夠幸運，我們可能正站在下一場宇宙觀革命的邊緣。

A moment as exciting as when we first realized that the Earth revolves around the sun, that the stars are other suns, or that our galaxy is just one tiny island in an ocean of trillions.

這就像我們第一次意識到地球繞著太陽轉、星星是其他太陽，或我們的星系只是海洋裡一個小小的島嶼，周圍有兆兆顆星星一樣令人興奮的時刻。

Because for the first time in ages, the universe is misbehaving badly.

因為數十年來，宇宙第一次出現了行為異常。

For decades, we've had a beautiful theory of the cosmos, One that explained how the universe began, what it's made of, and

數十年來，我們有一個美麗的宇宙理論，它解釋了宇宙的起源，它由什麼組成，以及

It matched our observations astonishingly well and made us feel like we'd almost deciphered the cosmic code.

這與我們的觀測結果驚人地吻合，讓我們覺得幾乎破解了宇宙的密碼。

But in the last few years, as our telescopes got better and our data sharper, cracks started to appear.

但在過去幾年，隨著我們的望遠鏡越來越好，數據越來越清晰，裂縫開始出現。

Strange mismatches between what the theory predicted and what we actually saw.

理論預測的與我們實際看到的之間出現了奇怪的不匹配。

At first, they looked like silly mistakes, Noise that would go away with more data.

起初，它們看起來像是愚蠢的錯誤，是隨著更多數據會消失的雜訊。

But as new data came in, the opposite happened.

但隨著新數據的湧入，情況卻恰恰相反。

Some cracks got larger, new ones emerged, and.

一些裂縫變大了，新的裂縫出現了。

And our once perfect picture of the cosmos began to look less and less perfect.

而我們曾經完美的宇宙圖景，也變得越來越不完美。

Two centuries ago, astronomers noticed that Uranus orbit didn't quite follow the laws of gravity.

兩百年前，天文學家就注意到天王星的軌道並不完全符合萬有引力定律。

But instead of throwing those laws away, they proposed that a dark planet was tugging on Uranus from afar.

但他們沒有拋棄這些定律，而是提出有一顆暗行星在遠處拉扯著天王星。

Shortly after, Neptune was discovered exactly where the math said it would be.

不久之後，海王星就在數學預測的位置被發現了。

所以科學家們試了同樣的方法。

但這次，並沒有新的行星出現。

The answer wasn't more stuff, but a completely new idea.

答案不是增加更多東西，而是提出了一個全新的想法。

And we invented general relativity, opening a whole new dimension in our understanding of the universe.

於是我們發明瞭廣義相對論，為我們對宇宙的理解開啟了一個全新的維度。

So, are we going through a Uranus moment or a Mercury?

所以，我們現在是經歷了天王星的時刻，還是水星的時刻呢？

The first signs that something deep could be off began piling up around 15 years ago in the form of a few seemingly impossible cosmic monsters.

大約 15 年前，一些看似不可能的宇宙怪物開始出現，這就是一切深層問題的最初跡象。

A giant arc of galaxies over 3 billion light years wide.

一個寬度超過 30 億光年的巨大星系弧。

A massive group of quasars spanning 4 billion light years.

一個跨越 40 億光年的巨大類星體群。

A ring of galaxies 5 billion light years across.

An unfathomable wall of galaxies stretching 10 billion light years from end to end.

一堵難以想像的星系之牆，從一端延伸到另一端長達 100 億光年。

A whopping 10% of the entire observable universe.

There are also monstrous voids, vast cosmic deserts with far fewer galaxies than normal.

還有巨大的空洞，廣闊的宇宙沙漠，裡面的星系比正常少很多。

And according to some surveys, we happen to be living deep inside one of them, a gargantuan Local Hole 2 billion light years across.

根據一些調查，我們正好就住在其中一個裡面，一個橫跨 20 億光年的龐大在地空洞。

Well, the universe is organized in ever larger galaxies, galaxy clusters, superclusters, and eventually filaments.

嗯，宇宙是由越來越大的星系、星系團、超星系團，最終形成纖維狀結構所組織起來的。

Truly gargantuan structures separated by equally enormous voids.

這些結構非常巨大，被同樣巨大的空洞分隔開來。

But our cosmic theory says that these things can't get arbitrarily large.

但我們的宇宙理論說，這些東西不能無限變大。

At distances beyond 1 billion light years or so, the filaments and voids should blur into a uniform soup.

在超過大約 10 億光年的距離，纖維狀結構和空洞應該會模糊成均勻的湯。

And this is more than a technical detail.

It's a basic pillar of all our attempts to make sense of the cosmos itself.

這是我們理解宇宙本身所有嘗試中的一個基本支柱。

Our understanding of the universe rests on one key assumption, the cosmological principle.

我們對宇宙的理解建立在一個關鍵假設上，也就是宇宙學原理。

This is the idea that if you zoom out far enough, the universe should be uniform, looking the same everywhere.

這個想法是，如果你拉遠足夠的距離來看，宇宙應該是均勻的，到處看起來都一樣。

This is crucial because it means that our limited view of the cosmos is a fair sample of the whole.

這點很重要，因為這意味著我們有限的宇宙觀，可以代表整個宇宙。

That even if we are tiny creatures living in a speck of dust, we can learn things about the entire universe.

即使我們是住在塵埃上的渺小生物，也能學到關於整個宇宙的知識。

Both the cosmos itself and our place in it might be more unruly and chaotic than they should be.

宇宙本身以及我們在其中的位置，可能比應該的還要混亂和無序。

But if the cosmological principle turns out to be wrong, we have a huge problem.

但如果宇宙學原理被證明是錯的，我們就有大麻煩了。

Because if the universe isn't the same everywhere, we could be like ants trying to guess the flavor of a cake while sitting on its only cherry.

因為如果宇宙到處都不一樣，我們可能就像螞蟻試圖猜測蛋糕的味道，卻只坐在唯一的櫻桃上。

Everything we see might just be local weirdness, a cosmic quirk that doesn't tell us the actual story of the universe.

我們看到的一切可能只是局部的怪異，一個宇宙的怪癖，無法告訴我們宇宙的真實故事。

The next crack appeared about 10 years ago.

大約十年前出現了下一個裂痕。

It tore straight at the fabric of space, challenging how fast it grows.

它直接撕裂了空間的結構，挑戰了它的成長速度。

Every second, the universe gets a little bigger.

每秒鐘，宇宙都會稍微變大一點。

We know this because we have different ways to measure it and all confirm that space is expanding.

我們之所以知道這一點，是因為我們有不同的測量方式，而且都證實了空間正在膨脹。

It's like measuring the speed of a car using two devices and getting different results.

這就像用兩個裝置測量汽車的速度，卻得到不同的結果。

You read 67 on the speedometer, but 73 on the GPS.

速度計顯示 67，但 GPS 顯示 73。

One of the instruments must be broken, right?

But then you check them again and again and again, and both work flawlessly.

但你一次又一次地檢查，兩個儀器都完美無缺。

This is very much what happens with the universe.

這跟我們的宇宙發生的情況非常相似。

The details are messy and complicated, but they don't matter for this.

細節有點雜亂複雜，但對這裡來說不重要。

The important part is that as measurements and calculations have become more and more precise, the disagreement has only become worse.

重要的是，隨著測量和計算越來越精確，這種分歧反而越來越嚴重。

By now, the chance that this mismatch is just an accidental fluke is less than one in a million.

到現在，這種不一致只是偶然巧合的機率已經不到百萬分之一了。

The universe is literally giving us two different answers to the same Question.

宇宙實在是給了我們對同一個問題兩個不同的答案。

所以一定有什麼根本性的東西壞掉了。

Either our measurements of the universe or our basic understanding of it.

要嘛是我們對宇宙的測量，要嘛是我們對它的基本理解。

Third crack Old galaxies In a baby universe, the latest surprise is only about three years old.

第三個裂縫：嬰兒宇宙中的古老星系。最新的驚喜大約只有三年。

It shattered a key part of our cosmic timeline how and when the first galaxies formed.

它打破了我們宇宙時間軸的關鍵部分，也就是第一批星系是如何以及何時形成的。

Light from distant galaxies takes so long to reach us that we don't see them as they are now, but

來自遙遠星系的光需要很長時間才能到達我們，所以我們看到的不是它們現在的樣子，而是

In 2021, we launched the James Webb, the most powerful space telescope ever built.

2021年，我們發射了詹姆斯韋伯太空望遠鏡，這是史上最強大的太空望遠鏡。

And almost immediately, it began finding bright, massive galaxies so distant that they belonged to a time when the universe was extremely young.

幾乎立刻，它就開始發現一些明亮、巨大的星系，它們如此遙遠，屬於宇宙非常年輕的時期。

Some are so premature that they date back to 280 million years after the Big Bang, far earlier than anyone expected.

有些星系太早熟了，它們可以追溯到大爆炸後2.8億年，遠比任何人預期的都要早。

Our theory says that the amorphous soup of matter that emerged from the Big Bang gave rise to the first galaxies.

我們的理論認為，大爆炸產生的無定形物質湯，孕育了第一批星系。

Through a long chain of mergers, tiny lumps of dark and normal matter gathered under gravity, building larger chunks that then fused into even bigger ones and so on.

透過一連串的合併，微小的暗物質和普通物質團塊在重力作用下聚集，形成了更大的塊狀物，然後這些塊狀物又融合成了更大的塊狀物，依此類推。

By our best estimates, the first large galaxies should have emerged 500 million years after the Big Bang or so not much before.

根據我們最好的估計，第一批大型星系應該在大爆炸後約5億年出現，或者說不會早很多。

But it isn't only that we found large galaxies existing way before that.

但不只如此，我們發現了比那更早存在的大型星系。

The new galaxies also seem to be too mature.

這些新發現的星系似乎也太成熟了。

Matter in the baby universe was made up almost entirely of hydrogen and helium.

在嬰兒時期的宇宙中，物質幾乎完全由氫和氦組成。

Heavy elements like carbon or nitrogen were only forged later in the cores of stars, which had to explode to release them.

像碳或氮這樣的重元素，是在恆星核心裡晚期才鍛造出來的，然後恆星必須爆炸才能釋放出來。

But some of these super early galaxies contain a lot of heavy elements, meaning that entire generations of stars must have lived and died even before them.

但這些超早期星系中，有些卻含有大量重元素，這意味著好幾代的恆星必須在它們之前就已經誕生並死亡。

So this is like finding grown up kids in a kindergarten.

這就像在幼稚園裡發現了長大了的小孩一樣。

Either the first galaxies sprouted in fast forwards, or we're missing something huge about the infancy of the universe.

要嘛是第一批星系以快轉模式出現，要嘛是我們對宇宙的嬰兒時期有所誤解。

From cracks to crisis these problems aren't the only ones.

從裂縫到危機，這些問題並非唯一。

Our theory also says that the Big Bang should have created three times more lithium than we see out there, a decades old itch that astronomers just can't scratch.

我們的理論也指出，大爆炸應該產生比我們觀測到的鋰多三倍的量，這是天文學家數十年來一直無法解決的難題。

It predicts that dark matter should pile up sharply at galaxy centers, but instead we find gentle hills.

它預測暗物質應該會在星系中心急劇堆積，但我們卻發現了平緩的山丘。