Do Aliens Exist? Human Technology May Prevent Us from Finding Out

文/梅根·巴特爾斯 譯/陳棟

Every evening in Maui, a telescope perched atop a volcano captures particles of light in the universe with the world’s largest digital camera. Normally it searches for asteroids1asteroind小行星。dancing across the cosmos. But one night last October, it locked its gaze onto something remarkable, an unidenti fi ed fl ying object moving quickly through space,seemingly from another solar system.

[2] Or at least that’s what astronomers at the University of Hawaii concluded when they discovered it. At first, they thought it was a comet, then an asteroid.But within a month, they realized the object was long and thin and unlike any asteroid known to science. They named it “Oumuamua”—a Hawaiian word that means “messenger from the distant past.”

在毛伊島，一架位于火山頂?shù)耐h(yuǎn)鏡每晚都會(huì)通過(guò)世界上最大的數(shù)碼攝像機(jī)來(lái)捕捉宇宙中的光子。通常它會(huì)尋找那些在宇宙中飄蕩的小行星，但去年10月的一個(gè)晚上，它把目光鎖定在了一個(gè)非同尋常的物體上，一個(gè)似乎來(lái)自另一個(gè)太陽(yáng)系的不明飛行物正在太空中快速移動(dòng)。

[2]或者至少這是夏威夷大學(xué)的天文學(xué)家們?cè)诎l(fā)現(xiàn)它時(shí)得出的結(jié)論。起初，他們以為它是顆彗星，后來(lái)又認(rèn)為它是顆小行星。但未出一個(gè)月，他們意識(shí)到這個(gè)物體又長(zhǎng)又薄，根本不像任何科學(xué)界已知的小行星。他們將其命名為Oumuamua——這是一個(gè)夏威夷詞，意為“來(lái)自遙遠(yuǎn)過(guò)去的使者”。

[3] Thousands of miles away, a Harvard astronomer named Avi Loeb learned of the mysterious object as well.Soon, he began pondering an enticing possibility: that Oumuamua was actually an alien spacecraft sending signals back to its creators. This theory may sound a bit out there. But Loeb isn’t some crackpot2crackpot怪人，瘋子。looking for little green men in a spaceship. He and his colleagues are part of a growing number of top-tier scientists who are applying the same rigorous standards they use on other scientific issues to tackle one of the biggest questions facing humanity:Are we alone in the universe?

[4] Americans have long been fascinated by the possibility of alien visitors.A 2001 Gallup Poll (the most recent one available) found that 33 percent of Americans believed aliens have visited the Earth. But scientists—both inside and outside the U.S. government—have been reluctant to take such claims seriously. From the 1947 weather balloon3weather balloon探空氣球，把探空儀器帶到高空進(jìn)行溫度、大氣壓力、濕度、風(fēng)速風(fēng)向等氣象要素測(cè)量的氣球。crash in Roswell, New Mexico, to crop circles in England, they’ve largely joined the debate only to debunk44 debunk揭露，揭穿。some very dubious claims. They’ve also lamented the lack of distinction most people make between alien landings—which haven’t occurred—and the possibility of future alien contacts (which

[3]數(shù)千英里外，一位名叫阿維·羅卜的哈佛天文學(xué)家也得知了關(guān)于這個(gè)神秘物體的消息。很快，他便開始考慮一種十分吸引人的可能性：Oumuamua實(shí)際上是一艘用來(lái)給它的創(chuàng)造者回傳信號(hào)的外星飛船。這一理論乍一聽有點(diǎn)不著邊際，但羅卜并非是一個(gè)要在飛船里尋找小綠人的怪人。他和他的同事們所在的頂尖科學(xué)家隊(duì)伍不斷壯大，這些科學(xué)家們正在用與對(duì)待其他科學(xué)問(wèn)題同等嚴(yán)苛的標(biāo)準(zhǔn)研究人類面臨的最重要問(wèn)題之一：我們是這個(gè)宇宙中孤獨(dú)的存在嗎？

[4]美國(guó)人一直以來(lái)對(duì)外星訪客的存在充滿幻想。2001年的蓋洛普民意調(diào)查（可取得的最近一次調(diào)查）發(fā)現(xiàn)，33%的美國(guó)人相信外星人已經(jīng)到訪過(guò)地球。但是，不管是來(lái)自政府內(nèi)部還是外部的科學(xué)家們，一直都把此類說(shuō)法當(dāng)作兒戲。從1947年新墨西哥城羅斯威爾的探空氣球墜毀事件到英格蘭的麥田怪圈，他們參加了諸多辯論，但只是為了揭穿一些非常可疑的說(shuō)法。他們還感嘆大多數(shù)人缺乏辨別能力，外星could indeed happen).

[5] But while UFO claims are often hoaxes5hoax騙局；惡作劇。or the work of conspiracy theorists, the search for extraterrestrial6extraterrestrial地球外的。intelligence—alien life just as smart and technologically advanced as humans—is a legitimate scienti fi c fi eld.

[6] Experts disagree on how intelligent life might try to contact humans.But the resurrected field, known as SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence), is largely based on the assumption that extraterrestrials—if they are out there and actually trying to chat—might use the same type of tech that we use to communicate with one another—from radio signals to fl ashes of light.人登陸——實(shí)際并未發(fā)生——和未來(lái)可能與外星人聯(lián)絡(luò)（這確實(shí)有可能發(fā)生）完全是兩回事。

[5]但盡管關(guān)于不明飛行物的各種說(shuō)法通常是惡作劇或是陰謀論者的杰作，尋找外星智慧——和人類一樣聰明且擁有先進(jìn)科技的外星生命——卻是正當(dāng)合理的科學(xué)領(lǐng)域。

[6]專家們對(duì)智能生命會(huì)以何種方式聯(lián)系人類各持己見。但這一復(fù)蘇的領(lǐng)域，亦被稱作SETI （搜尋地外文明計(jì)劃），很大程度上基于這一假設(shè)，即外星人（如果他們確實(shí)存在而且實(shí)際上在試圖與我們聊天）可能會(huì)使用和我們用于彼此溝通同類型的技術(shù)——從無(wú)線電信號(hào)到閃光。

Look Who’s Talking

[7] Instruments like radio telescopes7radio telescope射電望遠(yuǎn)鏡。—giant, ultra-sensitive dishes that receive faint signals from very far away—are used to search the cosmos light. Radio waves constitute a portion of the light spectrum—the band8band波段。that

瞧，誰(shuí)在說(shuō)話

[7]各種儀器，譬如射電望遠(yuǎn)鏡（巨大、超靈敏的盤形物，可用來(lái)接收極遠(yuǎn)處傳來(lái)的微弱信號(hào)）被用來(lái)搜索宇宙中的光。無(wú)線電波構(gòu)成了光譜的一部分——許多科學(xué)家認(rèn)為，外星科技最有可能用這一波段與我們聯(lián)系。alien technology would most likely use to reach us, many astronomers believe.

[8] Alien hunters look for radio waves because humans are so fond of using them. Radio waves can travel miles, letting us hear our favorite talk show while we drive. They can also traverse lightyears and be crammed with information, which is why they carry our television broadcasts, our mobile calls and GPS locations. Because radio waves are so versatile, SETI scientists believe our galactic neighbors might use them to reach out and say, “Sup9Sup即What’s up的俚語(yǔ)表達(dá)，表示寒暄打招呼。?”

[9] Scientists classify radio waves by how often they crest10crest達(dá)到波峰，到達(dá)頂點(diǎn)。; that measurement is the wave’s frequency. The tighter the crests, the higher the frequency.When it comes to radio waves from beyond Earth, scientists tune to frequencies between 1 and 10 gigahertz11gigahertz千兆赫。.Going below that window12此處指radio window，射電窗。catches too much noise from the rest of the galaxy,like radiation from planets or even the humming of a distant black hole. The atmosphere blocks frequencies higher than about 10 gigahertz. But nestled in that quiet window are 9 billion possible frequencies, or channels, that aliens could be using.

[10] When the modern search for extraterrestrial intelligence began in the 1960s, scientists could listen to just one

[8]外星人搜尋者們尋找無(wú)線電波是因?yàn)槿祟惙浅Ｏ矚g使用它們。無(wú)線電波可以傳播到很遠(yuǎn)的距離，使我們?cè)陂_車時(shí)也能收聽到最愛的脫口秀。他們還可以穿越光年并且滿載信息，這也是為何它們可以傳送我們的電視廣播、移動(dòng)電話和GPS位置。由于無(wú)線電波如此萬(wàn)能，SETI 科學(xué)家們認(rèn)為我們的銀河系鄰居可能也會(huì)用它們和我們打招呼說(shuō)：“最近怎樣？”

[9]科學(xué)家們通過(guò)達(dá)到波峰的頻率對(duì)無(wú)線電波進(jìn)行分類；該測(cè)量結(jié)果便是此電磁波的頻率。波峰之間靠得越近，頻率就越高。當(dāng)無(wú)線電波來(lái)自地球以外時(shí)，科學(xué)家們會(huì)把頻道調(diào)到1到10千兆赫之間。低于這個(gè)射電窗會(huì)捕捉到太多來(lái)自銀河系其余部分的噪音，譬如行星的輻射甚至是遠(yuǎn)處某個(gè)黑洞的嗡嗡聲。大氣層會(huì)阻隔高于10千兆赫的頻率。而在這個(gè)安靜的射電窗內(nèi)，有90億個(gè)頻率或頻道可供外星人使用。

[10] 20世紀(jì)60年代外星智慧現(xiàn)代化搜索剛開始時(shí)，科學(xué)家們每次只能收聽到一個(gè)頻channel at a time. Today, they can tune in to tens or even hundreds of millions of channels at once, listening for a single note from faraway millions of times over. This vast capacity increases the odds of us catching an alien message when it arrives.道。如今，他們可以一次收聽數(shù)以千萬(wàn)乃至億計(jì)的頻道，重復(fù)百萬(wàn)次地聆聽某個(gè)遠(yuǎn)方傳來(lái)的音符。這種巨大的容量增加了我們捕捉到外星人信息的機(jī)率。

Alien Emojis

[11] Though SETI scientists believe,that assumption aliens would likely use similar technology as we do on Earth poses a fundamental, possibly insurmountable13insurmountable無(wú)法克服的，無(wú)法超越的。, challenge to their search: Our own chatter makes it immensely difficult. Cellphones, Wi-Fi and GPS all rely on radio waves. Those waves occupy the same channels researchers use to listen to for E.T. And because our devices are so much closer to the telescopes, the signals are much stronger. Every time we text an emoji, we potentially make SETI research more difficult. Sorting the alien wheat from the human chaff is the hardest part of the search for extraterrestrial intelligence, says Andrew Siemion, director of the University of California, Berkeley’s SETI Research Center. ■

外星人表情符號(hào)

[11]然而SETI科學(xué)家們認(rèn)為，“外星人可能會(huì)使用和我們?cè)诘厍蚴褂玫念愃瓶萍肌边@一假設(shè)會(huì)給他們的搜尋構(gòu)成一個(gè)根本的、可能無(wú)法克服的挑戰(zhàn)：我們?nèi)祟惖拿芗ㄐ艜?huì)使搜尋變得無(wú)比困難。手機(jī)、Wi-Fi和GPS都依賴無(wú)線電波。這些電磁波占據(jù)了研究人員用以收聽外星人信號(hào)的相同頻道。而且因?yàn)槲覀兊脑O(shè)備與射電望遠(yuǎn)鏡距離近得多，所以信號(hào)也要強(qiáng)很多。我們每發(fā)一次表情符號(hào)，都可能使SETI研究變得更加困難。加州大學(xué)伯克利分校SETI研究中心主任安德魯·西米昂表示，從糠皮樣繁亂的人類信號(hào)中分揀出小麥般有用的外星人信號(hào)是尋找外星智慧中最難的部分。 □