Name: TED】Sara Seager:尋找太陽系以外的行星（Sara Seager：尋找太陽系以外的行星）。 (【TED】Sara Seager: The search for planets beyond our solar system (Sara Seager: The search for planets beyond our solar system))
Uploaded: 2021-01-14T05:38:20.000Z
Duration: 16 min 15 s

I'm here to tell you
about the real search for alien life.

在這裡我要告訴各位一個有關
探尋外星生命的真實故事。

Not little green humanoids
arriving in shiny UFOs,

我所說不是長得像人的綠色小個子
乘坐發光飛碟抵達地球，

轉承詞

But it's the search for planets
orbiting stars far away.

我們在找尋的是
繞行恆星的遠方行星。

天空中每一顆恆星都是一個太陽。

如水星、金星、地球、火星等等，

surely those other stars
should have planets also,

當然那些其他恆星也應該有行星，

astronomers have found
thousands of exoplanets.

天文學家已發現數千顆系外行星。

Our night sky is literally
teeming with exoplanets.

夜晚的天空幾乎佈滿系外行星。

and in the future,
planets that might be like Earth,

some of the most amazing
and mysterious questions

這問題已經圍繞人類數百年之久。

地球是如何形成與演變而來的？

How and why did life originate
and populate our planet?

生命的起源是什麼
我們為何生活在這顆星球上？

The second question
that we often think about is:

我們經常思考的第二個問題是：

You know, this question has been around
for thousands of years,

你知道，
這個問題已經圍繞人類數千年了，

since at least the time
of the Greek philosophers.

至少從古希臘哲學家那時候起
就已經有這個問題。

But I'm here to tell you
just how close we're getting

但此時我要告訴你
我們有多接近

to finding out the answer
to this question.

It's the first time in human history
that this really is within reach for us.

Now when I think about the possibilities
for life out there,

當我思索其他生物存在的可能性，

I think of the fact that our sun
is but one of many stars.

這是一張真實銀河星系的照片，

we think our Milky Way
looks like this galaxy.

But our [sun] is one
of hundreds of billions of stars

and our galaxy is one of upwards
of hundreds of billions of galaxies.

我們的銀河是千億銀河中的一員。

Knowing that small planets
are very common,

我們知道小行星是非常普遍的，

And there are just so many stars
and so many planets out there,

that surely, there must be life
somewhere out there.

Well, the biologists get furious
with me for saying that,

生物學家
對我這樣的說法會非常生氣，

because we have absolutely no evidence
for life beyond Earth yet.

因為我們的確無法證明
地球之外有生物存在。

Well, if we were able to look
at our galaxy from the outside

如果我們能夠從外部觀察銀河系

我們看到一張真實的恆星地圖。

And the highlighted stars
are those with known exoplanets.

高亮度的恆星
是那些為大家所知的系外行星。

This is really just
the tip of the iceberg.

Here, this animation is zooming in
onto our solar system.

as well as some spacecraft
that are also orbiting our sun.

和一些太空船一樣繞著太陽轉。

Now if we can imagine going
to the West Coast of North America,

And you can see
the constellations overlaid

There's a special patch of the sky
where we have thousands of planets.

天空有一特殊區塊
那裡有數千顆行星。

This is where the Kepler Space Telescope
focused for many years.

這是克卜勒太空望遠鏡
多年來關注的地方。

Let's zoom in and look
at one of the favorite exoplanets.

我們放大畫面
觀察其中一顆我們喜愛的系外行星。

是一個由五個行星組成的系統。

And by the way, most of these exoplanets,
we don't know too much about.

順道一提，大部分的系外行星
我們並不太了解。

We know their size, and their orbit
and things like that.

我們知道它們的大小，
運行軌道之類的。

But there's a very special planet
here called Kepler-186f.

有一個非常特別的行星
被稱為克卜勒-186f。

This planet is in a zone
that is not too far from the star,

這顆行星所在區域
距離恆星不遠，

so that the temperature
may be just right for life.

Here, the artist's conception
is just zooming in

這是藝術家的觀念，將畫面放大

and showing you what that planet
might be like.

So, many people have this
romantic notion of astronomers

因此，
很多人對天文學家有浪漫的想法

going to the telescope
on a lonely mountaintop

and looking at the spectacular night sky
through a big telescope.

透過大的望遠鏡
觀察壯觀的夜空。

But actually, we just work
on our computers like everyone else,

但事實上，我們只是
和其他人一樣在電腦前忙碌，

and we get our data by email
or downloading from a database.

透過郵件或從資料庫下載
以取得資料。

about the somewhat tedious nature
of the data and data analysis

有點冗長乏味的資料和資料分析

I have a different way
to try to explain to you

some of the things
that we're thinking about exoplanets.

Where the grass is always redder
on the other side."

這草的顏色
總是比另一邊的草還要紅。」

That's because Kepler-186f
orbits a red star,

那是因為克卜勒-186f
繞著紅恆星運轉，

and we're just speculating
that perhaps the plants there,

if there is vegetation
that does photosynthesis,

會有不同的色素
看起來是紅色。

We know of a dozen planets
that orbit two stars,

我們知道繞著二顆恆星
運轉的十二顆行星，

如果我們能夠參觀其中一顆行星，

So actually, science fiction
got some things right.

事實上，
科幻小說的故事有些是正確的。

TED】Sara Seager:尋找太陽系以外的行星（Sara Seager：尋找太陽系以外的行星）。 (【TED】Sara Seager: The search for planets beyond our solar system (Sara Seager: The search for planets beyond our solar system))