地平线系列：大黑洞的恐惧（2009）

There's something deeply disturbing
在太空深处 有一些东西
in deep space.
令人深感困扰
Something so incredibly massive,
它们硕大无朋
it could swallow an entire star.
足以吞噬一整颗恒星
People tend to be fascinated by things which are big
人们容易被巨大而可怕的东西所吸引
and scary,like dinosaurs,
比如恐龙
and there's really nothing that's bigger
真的没有东西能比黑洞
and scarier than a black hole.
更巨大 更可怕
Black holes are one of the most destructive forces in nature
黑洞是大自然最具破坏性的力量之一
But far from being monsters,scientists now believe
但并非不可理解 科学家们现在相信
they could hold the key to the greatest mystery of all...
他们能破解开天辟地以来最大的秘密
..where the universe came from.
宇宙来自何处
Black holes are the doorway to
黑洞是理解我们所在宇宙的
understanding the basic laws of the universe around us.
基本定律的入口
The trouble is, they're practically invisible
麻烦的是 它们是完全不可见的
and billions of kilometres from Earth.
并且距离地球几十亿千米远
We think right there is a black hole.
我们认为在那儿有一个黑洞
Right there.
就在那儿
The more we try to understand them,
我们越是试图了解黑洞
the stranger black holes become.
它们就变得越奇怪
Everything we know about common sense
我们所知的常识
is thrown out the window.
都被彻底抛弃
The equations no longer make any sense.
那些等式变得没有任何意义
Black holes could force us to abandon
黑洞强迫我们舍弃宇宙中
everything we thought we knew about the universe.
所有我们自认为了解的部分
There aren't questions much bigger than this.
没有比这个更大的问题
There's really a lot that we don't understand.
我们不明白的真的还有很多
Time stops. What does that mean?
时间停滞 那是什么意思
We humans have evolved to make sense of planet Earth
人类一直试图为地球的存在找寻意义
and so far,we've made a pretty good stab at it.
如今 我们也已经有所建树
In the last century,
上个世纪
we've made sense of the impossibly small
我们已经理解了不可思议的微小
..and the unimaginably large.
和无法想象的巨大
The enormity of space,
太空中巨大规模的活动
and the microscopic behaviour of atoms.
以及原子的微观行为
Yet there are some things
但仍有一些东西
that threaten to elude us completely.
令我们迷惑不解
The harder we look,the more questions we uncover.
我们越是努力研究 就会发现越多的问题
Nowhere is this more true than for a black hole.
黑洞正完完全全体现了这一点
I think of a black hole as the symbol
我认为黑洞标志着
of what it is we don't understand about the universe.
宇宙中我们不了解的那部分
Black holes are one of the most mysterious objects in the cosmos.
黑洞是宇宙中最神秘的物体之一
What are black holes made of?
黑洞是由什么构成的呢
Oh, OK.
好的
Already you've asked me a question that I can't answer.
你这就问了一个我还无法回答的问题
They fell out of Einstein's theory of relativity in 1916,
1916年随着爱因斯坦提出广义相对论
and they've defied some of our greatest minds ever since.
黑洞横空出世 令许多天才也束手无策
Are black holes made of anything?
黑洞是由什么东西组成的吗
Black holes... Hmm.
黑洞...
We don't really have any idea what's going on, so....
我们也不知道到底是怎么回事 所以...
I don't understand black holes.I love black holes.
我不了解黑洞 我爱黑洞
I love black holes because I don't understand them.
我爱黑洞 因为我不了解黑洞
There are many strange things in this universe,
在这个宇宙中有许多奇异的东西
but I think I've picked the weirdest thing
但我想我挑了个最怪异的
to actually study which is the black hole.
也就是黑洞 来研究
Until recently,
直到最近
there wasn't much evidence they existed at all,
才首次出现了黑洞真正存在的证据
because while we think they're out there,
因为虽然我们认为黑洞存在
we can't see them.
我们却看不见它们
Black holes are, by definition, completely black.
根据定义 黑洞是完全黑的
Nothing can escape it, even light,
没有东西能逃脱 包括光
and that's why it's called a black hole,
所以它才叫做黑洞
because light can't come out of it.
因为没有光能从黑洞中出来
Black holes,
黑洞
totally mysterious,billions of kilometres away
离我们几十亿千米远的谜团
and practically impossible to see.
并且绝对不可见
Not that that's stopped astronomers trying.
但那并没有阻止天文学家不断尝试
Doug Leonard even thinks
道格·莱纳德甚至认为
he's seen one,
他已经看到了一个
or at least seen one form.
或者说至少是一个黑洞的形成
It took two years and the Hubble space telescope.
这花了两年时间 还用到了哈勃太空望远镜
It was only possible at all because we think black holes
前提是 我们认为黑洞的雏形
begin their lives as something we've all seen in space
是我们都能在太空中看见的物质
stars.
恒星
Stars, like our sun,
恒星 比如我们的太阳
are essentially big, hot balls of gas
实质上是巨大炙热的气体球
that have nuclear generators in their core,
核心处有聚变反应堆
that create all the heat and light that we see shining.
产生出所有的热和耀眼的光
Stars are enormous.
恒星是庞大的
You could fit a million Earths inside the sun,
太阳内部能容纳一百万个地球
and the sun is not even an abnormally large star.
而太阳甚至算不上一颗大号♥的恒星
But the most fascinating thing to me about stars
恒星最吸引我的一点是
is that they die.
恒星会死去
The theory is, black holes are born
根据理论 大自然最巨大的一些恒星
when nature's most massive stars
燃尽所有燃料之后猛烈地坍缩
burn off all their fuel and violently collapse.
之后就产生了黑洞
The cores of these massive stars implode in less than a second.
这些巨大恒星的内核在一秒内发生内爆
They go from something about the size of the Earth,
从地球那么大
down to something about the size of a small city.
坍缩成一个小城市那么大
And they don't stop there,
并继续坍缩
they continue imploding all the way down to a point.
恒星不断内爆 直到坍缩成一个点
That point is what we believe becomes a black hole.
我们相信 这个点就会变成一个黑洞
And it's this process
道格·莱纳德认为
that Doug Leonard believes he's spotted
他已经观测到了这一过程
when a massive explosion, supernova, signalled the death of a star
在距离地球数十亿千米远的一个星系中
in a remote galaxy billions and billions of kilometres from Earth.
发生了规模庞大的爆♥炸♥ 超新星
This is a picture of a galaxy 215 million light years away
这是距离地球2.15亿光年远的星系
and, indicated by the arrow, this is the supernova,
箭头指着的就是那个超新星
a single star that exploded that for a short period of time
一颗恒星在短时间内爆♥炸♥所产生的光
is as bright as the entire galaxy that it's in.
和它所在的整个星系一样亮
And that big blob there is the galaxy?
那个大圆点就是那个星系吗
This big blob here is the combined light
这个大圆点是
of tens of billions of ordinary stars.
几百亿普通恒星发出的光汇集而成
This is a close-up,an extreme close-up, of the supernova
这是在超新星依旧很明亮时
while it was still very, very bright.
所拍摄的一张特写 大特写
Once the supernova was discovered,
这颗超新星一经发现
we trawled the Hubble space telescope archives
我们就去搜索哈勃太空望远镜的数据库
and found a picture of this exact spot taken eight years earlier,
发现了同一位置八年前的一张照片
and what we found at the location of the supernova
我们发现在超新星的所在位置
was this object, which is actually an extremely bright star.
实际上是一颗极亮的恒星
So what we did next was wait.
所以我们做的下一步就是等待
For two years, we waited for all the fire arcs of this
我们等了两年 等这颗超新星爆♥炸♥的
supernova explosion to disappear and go out,
所有火焰光弧消失熄灭
and we went back and took another picture
然后我们又在同一位置
of that exact spot in the sky,
拍了一张照片
and what we found was nothing.
什么也没有
The star was gone.
那颗恒星不见了
It exploded as a supernova and had now disappeared.
超新星爆♥炸♥ 然后消失不见了
And we think right there is a black hole.
我们想那儿就是一个黑洞
Right there.
就在那儿
But I can't ever be 100% sure about that.
但我不能百分之百肯定
Is that because you can't see it?
是因为你不能看见它吗
Seeing nothing in black hole science is a great thing.
在研究黑洞时 什么也看不见是好事
You don't expect to see anything
当你在观察黑洞时
when you're looking at a black hole.
你也不指望能看到什么
As images of black holes go,
随着黑洞图像的不断放大
these few dark pixels are about as good as it gets.
这几个黑色的像素代表着希望
Without the death of a star,
没有一颗恒星的陨落
there'd be no reason to suspect there was a black hole there at all.
就根本没有理由去怀疑那儿有黑洞
In fact, black holes are so hard to see,
事实上 想观测到黑洞实在太难