经济学人297:应对小行星撞击 近地掠过

 　　Science and technology

　　科学技术

　　Dealing¹ with asteroid² strikes

　　应对小行星撞击

　　A close shave

　　近地掠过

　　After a hit and a near miss minds are focusing on the risks from space rocks

　　在一次撞击和一次近距离擦肩而过后，人们开始关注来自外太空岩石的威胁

　　One close shave with an asteroid is cause for excitement.

　　一次小行星近地掠过是一种刺激，

　　Two on the same day is scary.

　　同一天发生两次就是惊险了。

　　On February 15th planet Earth experienced exactly that, as a hunk of itinerant³ space rock passed by extremely close.

　　在2月15日，行星地球正经历了这样的惊险：一块流动的大块头太空岩石在咫尺的距离掠过地球，

　　While another exploded spectacularly in the skies above Russia.

　　而另一块则十分壮观得在俄国上空爆炸。

　　The first asteroid, called 2012 DA14, had been known to astronomers⁵ for around a year.

　　第一颗小行星名为2012 DA14，天文学家在大约一年前发现。

　　They had calculated that there was no risk of collision. But the 30-metre, 190,000-tonne rock came close: 27,700Km above the surface, inside the orbit of some satellites.

　　他们计算出小行星的轨道，并无撞击危险。但这枚直径30米、重达190000吨的石块离得是那么近：距地表27,700千米，处于一些卫星轨道内。

　　It was the nearest ever recorded for an asteroid that size.

　　对这种大小的小行星，这是有记录以来距离最近的一次。

　　The second came quite literally⁶ out of a clear blue sky, appearing without warning and then disintergrating about 30 seconds later over Chelyabinsk.

　　第二颗在一片晴空万里中毫无警告得出现了，约30秒后在车里雅宾斯克市上空解体了。

　　According to NASA, the 10,000-tonne meteor released about 500 kilotonnes of energy when it broke apart, equivalent to the yield of a largish nuclear bomb.

　　来自NASA的数据显示，这颗10000吨重的陨石在肢解时释放了大约500吨质量的能量，相当于一颗大型核弹的爆炸当量。

　　Only the height of the detonation-dozens of kilometers up–kept the fatality⁷ count at zero, although more than 1,000 people were injured as windows were blown out of buildings.

　　好在爆炸发生在数十公里的高空，未有人员死亡。虽然有超过1000人受伤，但只是被震碎的建筑物玻璃伤到。

　　This double whammy has focused minds on the threat from asteroids⁸, something that astronomers have long known is real but which tends to be treated with giggles¹⁰ whenever it is brought outside the lab.

　　这次双重晦气已引起人们对小行星威胁的关注。长久以来天文学家们就清楚这种实实在在的威胁，但一旦在实验室外提起就会引来哄堂大笑。

　　Some politicians have nevertheless taken action.

　　不过还是有些政客们采取了行动。

　　In 1998 America's Congress ordered NASA to begin cataloguing the very largest, planet killer¹¹ asteroids-defined as those more than a kilometer across.

　　美国国会在1998年下令NASA将那些大型的行星杀手级别的小行星编入目录，直径超过1公里的都归入其中。

　　The agency reckons it has accounted for more than 90% of them.

　　NASA认为超过90%的这类小行星都已记录在案。

　　But as the impact from such a beast would be catastrophic, the few undiscovered rocks still represent a threat.

　　但是由于这种怪兽可能带来灾难性的撞击，少部分未被发现的此类岩石仍然是个威胁。

　　Deep impact

　　深度撞击

　　These days, a mix of national organizations and universities run an alphabet soup of detectors¹².

　　目前，一群来自不同国家组织和大学的研究人员开始了初步的探测。

　　But the field is still a bit of backwater, and budgets are tight.

　　但是该领域仍是一潭死水，预算很紧张。

　　John Tonry, an astronomer⁴ at the University of Hawaii, is building an asteroid-hunting telescope called ATLAS¹³ with $5m from NASA.

　　John Tonry, 一位来自夏威夷大学的天文学家，正在建造一个名为ATLAS的小行星搜索望远镜，NASA提供了500万美元的经费。

　　Dr Tonry cannot afford to hire a proper telescope engineer, and is having to design the device himself.

　　博士Tonry负担不起一个正式的望远镜工程师，必须亲自设计这台望远镜。

　　ATLAS is intended to spot mid-sized city killers¹⁴ like 2012 DA14.

　　ATLAS望远镜的目的是为了辨认出类似2012 DA14这样中等大小的城市杀手。

　　Astronomers reckon the risk from these is at least as great as that from the biggest ones because there are many more of them.

　　天文学家估测这类小行星的威胁绝不在那些更大的小行星的威胁之下，因为数量实在太多。

　　Exactly how many more, though, is hard to say because, being small, they are hard to see.

　　不过至于准确数量却很难说，因为他们实在太小难以被发现。

　　ATLAS should be able to spot a rock on a collision course a few days before it hits, giving time to organize a hasty evacuation.

　　ATLAS应该可以提前数天发现一块沿着撞击轨道运行的岩石，争取足够的时间组织快速疏散。

　　Of course, rather than evacuating¹⁵ the impact zone, it would be better if there were some way to deal with a threatening asteroid more directly, by nudging it into a different orbit.

　　当然，比起疏散撞击区域，找到一个更直接应对小行星威胁的方法会更好，比如把小行星推入不同轨道。

　　Asteroid deflection suffers from a even greater giggle⁹ factor than asteroid detection, but several ideas have been proposed. One popular method is to use nuclear weapons.

　　让小行星偏向的想法比小行星探测更会招致哄笑，但已经有人提出了一些主意。

　　Detonating a nuke near an asteroid's surface could boil away some of the rock and-by Newton's third law of motion-impart a shove in the other direction.

　　一个通俗的方法是使用核武器。在小行星表面附近引爆一枚核弹可以蒸发掉一些岩石质量。根据牛顿第三运动定律，还会在其他方向产生作用力。

　　Done early enough, this would shift the object's orbit sufficiently¹⁶ to stop it hitting Earth.

　　如果爆炸时间足够提前，这足已改变小行星的轨道，防止与地球的撞击。（当然这毫无意义，只是纯粹在卖弄学问罢了。

　　Alternatively, simply ramming¹⁷ the offending rock might provide enough force to provoke a suitable reaction and change in orbit.

　　作为另一种选择，针对来犯岩石的很普通的撞击，也许能产生足够的作用力引发反作用力，进而改变轨道。

　　The European Space Agency plans to launch, in 2015, a spacecraft called Don Quijote that will test the feasibility of doing this.

　　欧洲航天机构计划在2015年发射名为堂吉诃德的太空船，以测试这种方法的可行性。

　　Other ideas are more elegant: painting the rock white, for instance, will alter the way it interacts with sunlight, nudging it into a new orbit.

　　其他的主意要优雅得多：比如把岩石表面涂成白色，这样将改变太阳光对其的作用力，也就改变了运行轨道。

　　Or rocket motors might be strapped¹⁸ to it, to propel it in a desirable direction. Or a large spacecraft could orbit around it, where its gravity would alter the asteroid's orbit around the sun.

　　或者在岩石上捆绑一个火箭发动机，将其推向一个想要的方向。再或者发射一个大型太空船绕其运行，太空船的引力将会改变小行星绕太阳运转的轨道。

　　The trouble is that many of these ideas rely on having plenty of warning. Even small asteroids are big, as 2012 DA14 shows.

　　问题在于，这里面的很多主意都依赖于充足的预警时间，即使是处理如2012 DA14般的小块头小行星。

　　That means shifting them at short notice is going to be difficult.

　　这就意味着，在很短的预知时间下，将很难改变他们的轨道。

　　When American's National Research Council studied the problem in 2010, it came to the conclusion that even nuclear weapons would require warnings times measured in years or decades.

　　当美国国家研究委员会在2010年研究这个问题时，得出一个结论：即使是使用核武器也需要数年甚至数十年的预警时间。

　　Evacuation, it said, was the only feasible option for dealing with little warning. Others are more optimistic.

　　委员会同时提到，在面对那些很难被辨认出而不期而至的小行星时，疏散是唯一可行的办法。

　　The day before the explosion over Russia researchers at the University of California, Santa Barbara, proposed putting into orbit a solar-powered laser that could use its beam to vaporize the surface of an incoming asteroid and thus knock it off course, even at a few days' notice.

　　其他人要乐观一些。就在俄国上空的爆炸发生前一天，来自圣巴巴拉加利福尼亚大学的研究人员提出一个把太阳能激光器发射到小行星轨道的方案，使用激光蒸发掉小行星表面的物质。这样即使只有数天的预警时间，也能使其偏离轨道。

　　Bet your life?

　　用你的生命做赌注？

　　Hard-nosed economists¹⁹ might wonder whether spending money on asteroid research-either for detection or deflection-is really worth it.

　　精明实务的经济学家也许会怀疑在小行星研究上投资是否物有所值，不管是小行星探测或是轨道偏移。

　　After all, for all their drama asteroid strikes are rare, and there are plenty of other threats to worry about.

　　毕竟，小行星撞击是个非常戏剧性且罕见的，而我们还有众多其他的威胁需要担忧。

　　But the relative lack of information makes the true risk difficult to calculate.

　　但是由于信息的相对匮乏，真正的风险难以评估。

　　An asteroid strike is an event with a low probability, but a high death toll²⁰ when it does happen.

　　小行星撞击是低概率事件，但是一旦发生，就意味着大量的死亡。

　　That, as Dr Tonry points out, does funny things to risk calculations.

　　博士Tonry指出，这让计算风险变得有些奇异。

　　Our best guess is that you can expect maybe 100 people a year to die from asteroid strikes, he says.

　　他说，我们最好的估算是，每年大约会有100人死于小行星撞击，

　　Of course, what that really means is that you might see 100,000 death every thousand years, or 100m every million.

　　当然，实际上这意味着每隔数千年发生一次10万人的死亡，或者每百万年发生一次1亿人的死亡。

　　After dodging²¹ two potential catastrophes²² in one day, the world may decide it is better to be safe than sorry.

　　在一天之内躲过了两次可能的灾难之后，我们的世界也许会决定，安全总比遗憾好。

　　1.focus on 致力于；使聚焦于

　　That's all you want to focus on.

　　你只需将你的注意力集中于此。

　　The project also will focus on key secreted²³ pathogenic proteins.

　　该项目也将集中于主要分泌性致病蛋白质。

　　2.according to 根据，按照

　　They both played the game according to the rules...

　　他们俩都依章行事。

　　They must take their own decision according to their own legal advice.

　　他们必须根据各自律师的意见自行决定。

　　3.tend to 趋向；偏重

　　Smaller laptops also tend to have longer battery life.

　　小巧的电脑也趋向更长的电池持续时间。

　　I tend to prefer light colors.

　　我往往更喜欢淡颜色。

　　4.account for 导致，引起

　　How do you account for the company's alarmingly high staff turnover²⁴?

　　你怎么解释这家公司高得令人忧虑的人员流动率？

　　He said only 200 of the train's 600 passengers had been accounted for.

　　他说火车上的600名乘客中仅有200名乘客的信息得已查明。

1 dealing   

n.经商方法，待人态度

参考例句：

• This store has an excellent reputation for fair dealing.该商店因买卖公道而享有极高的声誉。
• His fair dealing earned our confidence.他的诚实的行为获得我们的信任。

2 asteroid   

n.小行星；海盘车(动物)

参考例句：

• Astronomers have yet to witness an asteroid impact with another planet.天文学家还没有目击过小行星撞击其它行星。
• It's very unlikely that an asteroid will crash into Earth but the danger exists.小行星撞地球的可能性很小，但这样的危险还是存在的。

3 itinerant   

adj.巡回的；流动的

参考例句：

• He is starting itinerant performance all over the world.他正在世界各地巡回演出。
• There is a general debate nowadays about the problem of itinerant workers.目前，针对流动工人的问题展开了普遍的争论。

4 astronomer   

n.天文学家

参考例句：

• A new star attracted the notice of the astronomer.新发现的一颗星引起了那位天文学家的注意。
• He is reputed to have been a good astronomer.他以一个优秀的天文学者闻名于世。

5 astronomers   

n.天文学者，天文学家( astronomer的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Astronomers can accurately foretell the date,time,and length of future eclipses. 天文学家能精确地预告未来日食月食的日期、时刻和时长。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Astronomers used to ask why only Saturn has rings. 天文学家们过去一直感到奇怪，为什么只有土星有光环。 来自《简明英汉词典》

6 literally   

adv.照字面意义，逐字地；确实

参考例句：

• He translated the passage literally.他逐字逐句地翻译这段文字。
• Sometimes she would not sit down till she was literally faint.有时候，她不走到真正要昏厥了，决不肯坐下来。

7 fatality   

n.不幸，灾祸，天命

参考例句：

• She struggle against fatality in vain.她徒然奋斗反抗宿命。
• He began to have a growing sense of fatality.他开始有一种越来越强烈的宿命感。

8 asteroids   

n.小行星( asteroid的名词复数 )；海盘车，海星

参考例句：

• Asteroids,also known as "minor planets",are numerous in the outer space. 小行星，亦称为“小型行星”，在外太空中不计其数。
• Most stars probably have their quota of planets, meteorids, comets, and asteroids. 多数恒星也许还拥有若干行星、流星、彗星和小行星。

9 giggle   

n.痴笑，咯咯地笑；v.咯咯地笑着说

参考例句：

• Both girls began to giggle.两个女孩都咯咯地笑了起来。
• All that giggle and whisper is too much for me.我受不了那些咯咯的笑声和交头接耳的样子。

10 giggles   

n.咯咯的笑( giggle的名词复数 )；傻笑；玩笑；the giggles 止不住的格格笑v.咯咯地笑( giggle的第三人称单数 )

参考例句：

• Her nervous giggles annoyed me. 她神经质的傻笑把我惹火了。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• I had to rush to the loo to avoid an attack of hysterical giggles. 我不得不冲向卫生间，以免遭到别人的疯狂嘲笑。 来自辞典例句

11 killer   

n.杀人者，杀人犯，杀手，屠杀者

参考例句：

• Heart attacks have become Britain's No.1 killer disease.心脏病已成为英国的头号致命疾病。
• The bulk of the evidence points to him as her killer.大量证据证明是他杀死她的。

12 detectors   

探测器( detector的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• The report advocated that all buildings be fitted with smoke detectors. 报告主张所有的建筑物都应安装烟火探测器。
• This is heady wine for experimenters using these neutrino detectors. 对于使用中微子探测器的实验工作者，这是令人兴奋的美酒。 来自英汉非文学 - 科技

13 atlas   

n.地图册，图表集

参考例句：

• He reached down the atlas from the top shelf.他从书架顶层取下地图集。
• The atlas contains forty maps,including three of Great Britain.这本地图集有40幅地图，其中包括3幅英国地图。

14 killers   

凶手( killer的名词复数 )； 消灭…者； 致命物； 极难的事

参考例句：

• He remained steadfast in his determination to bring the killers to justice. 他要将杀人凶手绳之以法的决心一直没有动摇。
• They were professional killers who did in John. 杀死约翰的这些人是职业杀手。

15 evacuating   

撤离，疏散( evacuate的现在分词 )； 排空（胃肠），排泄（粪便）； （从危险的地方）撤出，搬出，撤空

参考例句：

• The solution is degassed by alternately freezing, evacuating and thawing. 通过交替的冻结、抽空和溶化来使溶液除气。
• Are we evacuating these potential targets? 能够在这些目标地域内进行疏散吗？

16 sufficiently   

adv.足够地，充分地

参考例句：

• It turned out he had not insured the house sufficiently.原来他没有给房屋投足保险。
• The new policy was sufficiently elastic to accommodate both views.新政策充分灵活地适用两种观点。

17 ramming   

n.打结炉底v.夯实（土等）( ram的现在分词 )；猛撞；猛压；反复灌输

参考例句：

• They are ramming earth down. 他们在夯实泥土。 来自辞典例句
• Father keeps ramming it down my throat that I should become a doctor. 父亲一直逼我当医生。 来自辞典例句

18 strapped   

adj.用皮带捆住的，用皮带装饰的；身无分文的；缺钱；手头紧v.用皮带捆扎(strap的过去式和过去分词)；用皮带抽打；包扎；给…打绷带

参考例句：

• Make sure that the child is strapped tightly into the buggy. 一定要把孩子牢牢地拴在婴儿车上。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The soldiers' great coats were strapped on their packs. 战士们的厚大衣扎捆在背包上。 来自《简明英汉词典》

19 economists   

n.经济学家，经济专家( economist的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• The sudden rise in share prices has confounded economists. 股价的突然上涨使经济学家大惑不解。
• Foreign bankers and economists cautiously welcomed the minister's initiative. 外国银行家和经济学家对部长的倡议反应谨慎。 来自《简明英汉词典》

20 toll   

n.过路(桥)费；损失，伤亡人数；v.敲(钟)

参考例句：

• The hailstone took a heavy toll of the crops in our village last night.昨晚那场冰雹损坏了我们村的庄稼。
• The war took a heavy toll of human life.这次战争夺去了许多人的生命。

21 dodging   

n.避开，闪过，音调改变v.闪躲( dodge的现在分词 )；回避

参考例句：

• He ran across the road, dodging the traffic. 他躲开来往的车辆跑过马路。
• I crossed the highway, dodging the traffic. 我避开车流穿过了公路。 来自辞典例句

22 catastrophes   

n.灾祸( catastrophe的名词复数 )；灾难；不幸事件；困难

参考例句：

• Two of history's worst natural catastrophes occurred in 1970. 1970年发生了历史上最严重两次自然灾害。 来自辞典例句
• The Swiss deposits contain evidence of such catastrophes. 瑞士的遗址里还有这种灾难的证据。 来自辞典例句

23 secreted   

v.（尤指动物或植物器官）分泌( secrete的过去式和过去分词 )；隐匿，隐藏

参考例句：

• Insulin is secreted by the pancreas. 胰岛素是胰腺分泌的。
• He secreted his winnings in a drawer. 他把赢来的钱藏在抽届里。 来自《简明英汉词典》

24 turnover   

n.人员流动率，人事变动率；营业额，成交量

参考例句：

• The store greatly reduced the prices to make a quick turnover.这家商店实行大减价以迅速周转资金。
• Our turnover actually increased last year.去年我们的营业额竟然增加了。