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尋找外星人 The optimistic gamble 一場樂觀的博弈 A bold new programme financed by a Silicon Valley tycoon will revitalise the hunt for alien civilizations 一項由硅谷大亨資助的嶄新而大膽的項目將重啟對外星文明的搜尋 Jul 25th 2015 | From the print edition · · 譯者：梓軒 · Be seeing you... IN 1959 a young astronomer called Frank Drake was working at the Green Bank radio observatory in West Virginia. Thinking about the capabilities of the 26-metre dish under construction there, he realised that, if it were used to transmit radio waves rather than to receive them, it would produce a signal that a similar telescope on a planet orbiting another star would be able to pick up. For the first time, human beings had a technology for communicating with other solar systems—an idea which led immediately to the speculation that, if there were any aliens out there, they might already be doing something similar. 1959年，一個名叫法蘭克·德雷克的年輕天文學(xué)家在（美國）西弗吉尼亞的綠岸國家射電天文臺工作。他在思考一架口徑為26米的在建射電望遠(yuǎn)鏡的性能時，突然想到，如果用它傳送而不是接收無線電波，就能夠發(fā)出信號，若太陽系以外的星球上也有相似的設(shè)備，這個信號就可以被接收到了。這是人類有史以來第一次，擁有了能與其他“太陽系”取得聯(lián)系的技術(shù)——這個想法一經(jīng)提出便立即引起推測：如果真有外星人，他們或許也做過與此類似的嘗試。 Dr Drake put his idea to three colleagues over burgers at a nearby diner. Two were distinctly unimpressed. The third, a physicist of far-reaching interests called Lloyd Berkner, was enthusiastic. And since Berkner—who had a reputation as an “optimistic gambler” a physicist of far-reaching interests, Dr Drake recalled in his memoirs—was the one who controlled the money, Dr Drake got to carry out his search. In 1960 he spent 150 hours pointing the Green Bank telescope at two nearby stars, Tau Ceti and Epsilon Eridani, and scanning for signals. Thus began the search for extraterrestrial intelligence, or SETI. 德雷克博士在天文臺附近的餐館吃漢堡時，把他的想法告訴了三個同事。其中兩個人明顯不為所動，但另一位名叫Lloyd Berkner（羅伊德·伯克納）的物理學(xué)家卻表示出了滿腔熱情。這位興趣廣泛的物理學(xué)家有著“樂觀冒險家”的名頭—德雷克在他的回憶錄里這樣說。正因為伯克納能夠提供資金，德雷克博士才得以開展他的搜尋工作。1960年，他花了150個小時用綠岸射電天文望遠(yuǎn)鏡對準(zhǔn)兩顆恒星，鯨魚座T星和波江座ε（這兩顆恒星與太陽類似，而且距地球相對較近——譯者注）并掃描信號。從此啟動了“搜尋地外文明計劃”，即SETI。 Five and half decades on, Dr Drake joined Stephen Hawking, a physicist, and Martin Rees, Britain’s Astronomer Royal, to launch Breakthrough Listen, the latest incarnation of the search. It is an undertaking that would have seemed unbelievable back then. As of 2016, an unprecedented 15% of the observing time at Green Bank’s latest dish—which at 100 metres across has 15 times the area of its first—will be devoted to seeking signals from aliens. Rather than looking at just two stars, Breakthrough Listen will observe the nearest 1m, as well as looking more generally in the core and disc of the Milky Way, and 100 other galaxies to boot. Later in 2016 the project will add the 64-metre dish at the Parkes Observatory, in Australia, to its workforce. In time, further observatories will be pressed into service. Back in 1960, Dr Drake could listen in to just one radio channel at a time. The new effort will use cutting-edge electronics to scan some 10 billion simultaneously. 五十五年以后，德雷克博士聯(lián)合物理學(xué)家Stephen Hawking（史蒂芬·霍金），以及英國皇家天文學(xué)家Martin Rees（馬丁·里斯），開啟外星文明探索的新計劃——“突破聆聽”。這個計劃在當(dāng)年是不可想象的。2016年，綠岸射電天文望遠(yuǎn)鏡將前所未有地用15%的觀測時間于尋找地外生命信號。這架望遠(yuǎn)鏡是最新的設(shè)備，擁有100米的口徑，比之前所能觀測到的區(qū)域大15倍。與之前只對兩顆恒星進(jìn)行觀測的SETI相比，“突破聆聽”將觀測離地球最近的一百萬顆恒星，更廣泛地觀測銀河系的中心和整個銀道面，以及銀河系之外的100個星系。該計劃還將于2016年投入使用澳大利亞帕克斯天文臺直徑為64米的射電望遠(yuǎn)鏡，適時其它天文臺也有可能加入觀測。1960年，德雷克博士只能一次聽一個無線電頻道，而這項新計劃將使用尖端電子設(shè)備來同時掃描100億個無線電頻道。 Many such searches, most privately funded, have been attempted before. But Breakthrough Listen will have 50 times the sensitivity of any previous effort, will cover much more of both the sky and the radio spectrum, and will also use an optical telescope to search systematically for laser transmissions, should they turn out to be E.T.’s preferred mode of discourse. All of the petabytes of resulting data will be freely available for anyone with an internet connection to analyse. The team behind Breakthrough Listen says it will do as much searching every day as any of the previous projects managed in a year. 先前也開展過許多類似的地外文明搜尋項目，它們大多由私人資助。但是“突破聆聽”的靈敏度將比之前的任何一次項目高50倍，并將覆蓋更廣的天空和無線電頻譜，同時使用光學(xué)望遠(yuǎn)鏡來系統(tǒng)地進(jìn)行激光傳輸搜索，以捕捉任何有可能是外星人發(fā)出的對話信號。所有生成的數(shù)據(jù)都將面向公眾開放，任何人都能夠用自己的電腦上網(wǎng)進(jìn)行數(shù)據(jù)分析。“突破聆聽”的工作團隊說，這個項目每天所能完成的搜索任務(wù)，先前的任何一個項目一年才能完成。 Let the dice fly high The optimistic gambler responsible for this new effort is Yuri Milner, a Russian entrepreneur and investor who has made a fortune in Silicon Valley. Mr Milner has a background in physics and a long-standing interest in space. Indeed, his parents named him after Yuri Gagarin—who, in the year of Mr Milner’s birth, became the first human to orbit the Earth. In 2012 Mr Milner helped found the Breakthrough prizes, awarded to researchers who have helped answer big questions in biology, physics and maths. Convinced that the existence of extraterrestrial life is the biggest question of all, he has committed $100m over ten years to Breakthrough Listen. 投資這個新項目里的樂觀冒險家是在硅谷大獲成功的俄國企業(yè)家和投資家Yuri Milner,（尤里·米爾納）。他大學(xué)攻讀物理學(xué)，并一直對太空科學(xué)情有獨鐘。事實上，他的父母正是以Yuri Gagarin（尤里·加加林）的名字為他起名，因為在他出生的那一年，加加林成為第一個進(jìn)入太空的地球人。2012年米爾納贊助成立科學(xué)突破獎，旨在鼓勵那些在生物學(xué)、物理學(xué)和數(shù)學(xué)領(lǐng)域取得重要成就的科學(xué)家。米爾納認(rèn)為尋找外星生命是一切學(xué)科的重中之重，因此十年間他出資1億美元，用以支持“突破聆聽”項目。 Mr Milner reckons there are three reasons why the moment is right to go big on SETI. One is that Kepler, a space telescope run by NASA, has shown that there are a lot of potentially habitable planets out there. Geoff Marcy, an astronomer at the University of California, Berkeley, who will run Breakthrough Listen, says Kepler-based studies suggest that perhaps one star in ten has planets that are “Earth-sized and lukewarm”—not obviously too massive, too hot or too cold for vaguely Earthlike life. 米爾納認(rèn)為現(xiàn)在是推進(jìn)外星文明探索（SETI）的最佳時機，理由有三個。一是美國航空航天局（NASA）發(fā)射的開普勒太空望遠(yuǎn)鏡表明宇宙中可能存在許多可居住行星。加利福尼亞大學(xué)伯克利分校的天文學(xué)家Geoff Marcy（杰夫· 馬爾西）說“基于開普勒太空望遠(yuǎn)鏡的研究表明，也許每十顆恒星中中就有一顆擁有“與地球大小相當(dāng)且溫度適宜”的行星——即體積不是太大，溫度不會讓類地生物感到過熱或過冷。馬爾西將負(fù)責(zé)“突破聆聽”的計劃。 The second reason is the relentless rise of signal-processing power. The ten-billion-channel system Dr Marcy is working on would have been impossible just a few years ago. That all of the resulting data can easily be made available to other scientists and enthusiastic amateurs is another sign of progress. Some 3m people already participate in the SETI@Home project, which lets people use spare computing time to sift through previous SETI data. Since the project has now linked up with Breakthrough Listen, more will surely join it. Free access to data will almost certainly generate false alarms, but Dr Marcy accepts that as part of the price of doing business. 第二是處理信號能力的不斷加強。馬爾西博士所操作的擁有100億個頻道的系統(tǒng)哪怕在幾年前也是不可想象的。如今，其它科學(xué)家和其余天文愛好者都能輕易地獲取所有數(shù)據(jù)，這是另一個進(jìn)步的標(biāo)志。三百多萬人已經(jīng)參與了SETI@Home的項目，該項目能夠讓參與者利用電腦閑置計算能力來篩選之前SETI項目獲得的數(shù)據(jù)?，F(xiàn)在這個項目已經(jīng)與“突破聆聽”相連接，定將吸引更多人加入。免費的數(shù)據(jù)訪問不可避免會產(chǎn)生虛假警報，但是達(dá)爾西博士認(rèn)為做事都要付出代價，這也是其中一部分。 A third motive for the push is that an unprecedented amount of time is now available on first-rate radio telescopes. Government-funded research has seen its purse-strings drawn tight recently, and instruments like that at Green Bank need new sources of income. 第三是現(xiàn)在一流的射電望遠(yuǎn)鏡擁有充足的時間投入觀測，這一點可是前所未有的。政府減少了對其出資的研究項目的經(jīng)費投入，而像綠岸射電望遠(yuǎn)鏡這樣的儀器需要新的收入來源。而這便成為“突破聆聽”的契機。 Nevertheless, hunting for aliens will always be a long-odds bet. Breakthrough Listen will surely discover some interesting pulsars, quasars and other, possibly novel, natural phenomena, but it could get through its $100m with no SETI results at all, and no clear sense of whether another $100m would be likely to change the matter. That, and the fear of ridicule from those who question the very notion of alien-hunting, has made governments reluctant to pay for SETI, despite its demonstrable appeal to many taxpayers. 盡管如此，尋找外星人總是一場勝算不大的賭博?！巴黄岂雎牎睙o疑會發(fā)現(xiàn)一些有趣的脈沖星，類星體，或者其它新奇的自然現(xiàn)象，但也可能在外星文明探索上一無所獲，把一億的投入全打水漂，更不知道再花一億是否就能扭轉(zhuǎn)局面。這些渺茫的勝算，加上可能遭到那些從根本上質(zhì)疑尋找外星人這個想法的人的嘲笑，讓各國政府不愿資助SETI，盡管它顯而易見對許多納稅人充滿了吸引力。 Breakthrough Listen is not the only initiative that Mr Milner has in mind. It already has one offshoot, Breakthrough Message—a competition challenging people to create a message by which humans might announce themselves to the outside world. The prize fund for that is $1m, though as yet there is no promise any message will actually be transmitted. Mr Milner thinks there is a debate to be had before deciding on such a course of action. “突破聆聽”不是米爾納心里唯一的倡議。它還有一個名分支項目，名叫“突破信息”。該項目旨在鼓勵人們創(chuàng)造出可以代表人類像太空傳遞的信息。為此設(shè)立的獎金為100萬，但至今還不能確保任何信息實際上能夠被傳達(dá)出去的。米爾納認(rèn)為在決定對外星文明探索的行動之前應(yīng)該進(jìn)行一場與此有關(guān)的討論。 And life in the universe is a question that can be approached in other ways. Mr Milner recently hired Pete Worden, a retired American air force general and an astronomer by training, to run his projects. Both at the Pentagon, where he worked on the “Star Wars” missile-defence programme, and as boss of the research centre that is home to Kepler, Mr Worden has championed small, innovative space missions. It seems likely, then, that future bids to answer Mr Milner’s questions about life in the universe will employ a more Kepler-like approach—looking for promising nearby planets from orbit. As they say in SETI circles, watch this space. 對于宇宙中有無其他生命這個問題，解答的方式不止一個。米爾納最近聘了Pete Worden來運行他的項目。Worden既是一位退休的美國空軍上將，還是以一位受過訓(xùn)練的天文學(xué)家。他曾在就職于美國國防部，從事“星球大戰(zhàn)”導(dǎo)彈防御項目的工作，并且還是開普勒望遠(yuǎn)鏡所在的研究中心的領(lǐng)導(dǎo)。他支持小型，創(chuàng)新型太空任務(wù)。因此，后來人在解答米爾納關(guān)于宇宙中生命的問題時，可能會采用更像開普勒望遠(yuǎn)鏡的探索方式——即在軌道上尋找地球附近可能有生命的行星。即如“搜尋地外文明計劃”圈子里的人所說的，在，探索這個空間。 Note: An earlier version of this story was first published online on July 20th. It has been slightly edited for length for inclusion in the print edition. 編者按：關(guān)于此文的一篇早期版本于7月20日首先在線上發(fā)布，為收錄于紙質(zhì)版中，其長度做了輕微的編輯。 From the print edition: Science and technology |
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