評論
打印
The death of a star.
一顆恒星的滅亡
And the birth of something new.
伴隨著新事物的誕生
In these brief microseconds,
在這短暫的數微秒中
a massive shock wave passes through the star.
一個巨大的沖擊波掠過恒星
The blast is so powerful that it forces some of the iron
威力強大的沖擊波迫使一些鐵元素
to fuse into even heavier elements.
聚合成更重的元素
And that's how heavy elements
這就是重元素
such as gold or platinum or lead are made,
諸如金，鉑，鉛等產生的過程
forged in the heart of an exploding star.
它們產生于爆炸中的恒星內核
So if you have a gold ring,
如果你有一枚金戒指
make sure you appreciate it.
一定要珍惜它
The metal was made in a
這種金屬誕生于
blinding flash of light billions of years ago.
數十億年前的一道刺眼強光
The finale of the process
這一過程的結果是
that produced the elements all around us today.
產生了今天我們周圍的所有元素
It never ceases to amaze me
我一直感到驚嘆
that our bodies are constructed of the stuff of stars,
我們的身體是由恒星里的物質構成
that our hearts beat
我們的心跳
because of the energy given off as those materials are made.
則歸功于這些物質生成時所產生的能量
But as magical as a star is,
然而，除了恒星的神奇
there are the more fascinating and powerful things in our enormous cosmos.
浩渺的宇宙蘊藏著更加迷人，強大的東西
Around 300 million years after the Big Bang,
大約宇宙大爆炸的三億年后
the early stars began to form galaxies
早期星體開始逐步形成
which slowly took on a bewildering variety of shapes and sizes.
令人炫目的形狀和大小多樣的星系
Our galaxy, the Milky Way,
我們的星系，銀河系
is thought to be one of the oldest,
被認為是最古老的星系之一
having started to assemble itself some 13 billion years ago.
早在約130億年前就開始聚集
It's roughly 6,000 billion miles in diameter
其直徑約為六萬億英里
and contains something like 200 billion individual stars.
包含約2千億顆獨立恒星
Nobody is quite sure exactly how many
沒有人知道確切數目
since they can't all be seen from Earth and anyway,
因為從地球上無法盡收眼底
it would take a long time to count them.
再說去數它們要花很長時間
Because all these stars were built by gravity,
由于所有的恒星都因萬有引力而產生
you could say that gravity is the hero of the universe.
可以說，萬有引力是宇宙的英雄
After all, it turned a meaningless soup of gas
畢竟，它將一縷縷無意義的氣體
into something of beauty and power.
化作集美麗和力量于一體的恒星
But like all interesting heroes,
就像所有鮮活的英雄形象
gravity has its dark side.
萬有引力也有它黑暗的一面
Right in the center of our galaxy lies an example of
在我們星系的正中心有個例子
what happens when gravity rules unchallenged.
證明萬有引力占據統治地位時，會發生什么
A black hole.
黑洞
