We're at a tipping point in human history, a species poid between gaining the stars and losing the planet we call home.
属马和属兔
我们正处在人类历史上的一个转折点，人类正徘迴在「取得」其它星球及「失去」我们称之为家的地球之间。
Even in just the past few years, we've greatly expanded our knowledge of how Earth fits within the context of our univer. NASA's Kepler mission has discovered thousands of potential planets around other stars, indicating that Earth is but one of billions of planets in our galaxy. Kepler is a space telescope that measures the subtle dimming of stars as planets pass in front of them, blocking just a little bit of that light from reaching us. Kepler's data reveals planets' sizes as well as their distance from their parent star. Together, this helps us understand whether the planets are small and rocky, like the terrestrial planets in our own Solar System, and also how much light they receive from their parent sun. In turn, this provides clues as to whether the planets that we discover might be habitable or not.
即使在过去的几年中，我们对于地球如何在宇宙中生存的知识已经有大幅度的扩展。美国太空总署(NASA)的Kepler任务已经在银河系发现成千上万的潜在行星围绕著其它恒星，并指出地球在银河系数十亿行星裡并非是唯一的行星。Kepler是一个太空望远镜，藉由行星从恒星前方掠过的「凌日现象」来锁
定观察恒星少许的亮度变化。Kepler的数据揭示了行星的大小以及它们与直系恒星之间的距离。总之，这有助于我们了解这些行星是否像是我们太阳系裡的类地行星具有小及岩石多样性的特性。以及了解它们从它们的直系太阳接收到多少光。因此这提供了我们所发现的这些行星是否适合居住的线索。Unfortunately, at the same time as we're discovering this treasure trove of potentially habitable worlds, our own planet is sagging under the weight of humanity. 2014 was the hottest year on record. Glaciers and a ice that have been with us for millennia are now disappearing in a matter of decades. The planetary-scale environmental changes that we have t in motion are rapidly outpacing our ability to alter their cour.学能训练
不幸的是，当我们在探索其他适合人居的珍贵世界的同时，我们自己的地球也正在急速地失去它的人性。2014年是纪录中最热的一年，与我们相处好几千年的冰川和海冰在近几十年裡，一直在消失中... 这些由我们造成行星级规模的环境变化正将快速地超越我们扭转它们既定方向的能力。
But I'm not a climate scientist, I'm an astronomer. I study planetary habitability as influenced by stars with the hopes of finding the places in the univer where we might discover life beyond our own planet. You could say that I look for choice alien real estate.
街舞的音乐
但我不是一个气候学家，我是一个天文学家。我研究行星受恒星影响的适居性，在宇宙中寻找一个可能有非地球生命地方的希望之地。你可以这样说，我期待选择「外星人不动产仲介」...
Now, as somebody who is deeply embedded in the arch for life in the univer, I can tell you that the more you look for planets like Earth, the more you appreciate our own planet itlf. Each one of the new worlds invites a comparison between the newly discovered planet and the planets we know best: tho of our own Solar System.
身为一个大量投入在宇宙中寻找生命的人，我可以告诉各位，你越是想寻找像地球的行星你会越珍惜我们的地球。每一个新发现的世界都会被拿来做比较，比较新发现的行星与我们最孰悉的太阳系行星之间有甚麽差别。Consider our neighbor, Mars. Mars is small and rocky, and though it's a bit far from the Sun, it might be considered a potentially habitable world if found by a mission like Kepler. Indeed, it's possible that Mars was habitable in the past, and in part, this is why we study Mars so much. Our rovers, like Curiosity, crawl across its surface, scratching for clues as to the origins of life as we know it. Orbiters like the MAVEN mission sample the Martian atmosphere, trying to understand how Mars might have lost its past habitability. Private spaceflight companies now offer not just a short trip to near space but the tantalizing possibility of living our lives on Mars.
想想我们的邻居，火星... 火星，既小又具岩石多样性，虽然离太阳有点远，它如果被Kepler任务发现的话，可能也会被认为是一个潜在的可居住世界，的确，过去火星可能具有可居住性，虽只有某些部分，但这也是为什麽我们会研究火星的原因。我们的火星车「好奇心号」爬行过火星的表面，找到了贵州医科大学神奇民族医药学院
我们认知的原始生命迹象。MAVEN任务的轨道飞行器採集了火星上的大气层样本，试著了解火星过去是如何失去它的可居住性。私人太空飞行公司现在不只提供短暂的近太空旅行也提供生活在火星上诱人的可能性。
But though the Martian vistas remble the derts of our own home world, places that are tied in our imagination to ideas about pioneering and frontiers, compared to Earth Mars is a pretty terrible place to live. Consider the extent to which we have not colonized the derts of our own planet, places that are lush by comparison with Mars. Even in the driest, highest places on Earth, the air is sweet and thick with oxygen exhaled from thousands of miles away by our rainforests.家与国作文
但是儘管这些火星景观类似于我们地球上的沙漠-- 一些被我们的既有想像所
限制而不会想去开发的地方，相对于地球，火星根本是一个糟糕到无法住人的地方。比起火星，我们地球上还没有开垦的沙漠地相对火星而言还是很奢侈的。即是在地球最乾、最高的地方，从千里远的雨林释放出来的氧气仍是香甜而丰盛的。天下素材网
I worry -- I worry that this excitement about colonizing Mars and other planets carries with it a long, dark shadow: the implication and belief by some that Mars will be there to save us from the lf-inflicted destruction of the only truly habitable planet we know of, the Earth. As much as I love interpl哄女孩子睡觉
非理性行为anetary exploration, I deeply disagree with this idea. There are many excellent reasons to go to Mars, but for anyone to tell you that Mars will be there to back up humanity is like the captain of the Titanic telling you that the real party is happening later on the lifeboats. (Laughter) (Applau)
我担心-- 我担心这种关于火星和其他行星的殖民热潮会带来漫长而黑暗的阴影：一些人对火星有如此的隐喻和信仰-- 「当人类在我们唯一真正能居住的地球上发生自我毁灭衝突时，火星会在那解救我们。」我不同意这种想法的程度就如我热爱的星际探索一样深，是有很多完美的因素要去火星，但要是哪一个人告诉你，火星会在那裡拯救人类时... 他就像铁达尼号上的船长告诉你「等一下会有人开救生船来救你」一样的胡扯。( 笑声) ( 掌声) Thank you.
谢谢你
But the goals of interplanetary exploration and planetary prervation are not oppod to one another. No, they're in fact two sides of the same goal: to understand, prerve and improve life into the future. The extreme environments of our own world are alien vistas. They're just clor to home. If we can understand how to create and maintain habitable spaces out of hostile, inhospitable spaces here on Earth, perhaps we can meet the needs of both prerving our own environment and moving beyond it.
但星球探索与星球维护这二件事的目标互不衝突，虽然是二码事，但有共同目标: 在未来共同了解、维护、改善生活。我们地球上极端的环境是外星人眼裡的美景。它们只是离家较近。如果我们可以在自己的地球上了解如何创造并维护友善的、亲切的可居住环境，也许我们可以满足既保护我们的环境又可以搬到外星球的需求。
I leave you with a final thought experiment: Fermi's paradox. Many years ago, the physicist Enrico Fermi asked that, given the fact that our univer has been around for a very long time and we expect that there are many planets within it, we should have found evidence for alien life by now. So where are they? Well, one possible solution to Fermi's paradox is that, as civilizations become technologically advanced enough to consider living amongst the stars, they lo sight of how important it is to safeguard the home worlds that fostered that advancement to begin with. It is hubris to believe that interplanetary colonization alone will save us from ourlves, but planetary prervation and interplanetary exploration can work together.
最后我告诉各位一个思维实验论述:「费米谬论」。许多年前，物理学家恩里科．费米提出了一个问题: 我们的宇宙已经存在很久是个事实，而我们也了解有很多的行星在宇宙之中，所以我们现在应该早就该找到外星生命的证据... 但他们在哪? 「费米谬论」的其中一种可能就是: 一个存在于星际之间科技相当先进的文明物种，他们一开始就忽视了如何保护家园及培养进步的重要性。所以去相信只靠星
际殖民可以解救我们的这件事是狂妄自大的。星球维护与星际探索可以一起进行。
If we truly believe in our ability to bend the hostile environments of Mars for human habitation, then we should be able to surmount the far easier task of prerving the habitability of the Earth.
如果我们真的相信我们有能力可以去扭转火星的恶劣环境来让人类居住，那麽我们应该可轻而易举地克服维护地球可居住性的这项简单任务。Thank you.
谢谢你!
