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The continents of our planet are drifting.
地球上的大陸正在漂移
Fast forward 75 million years and they
快進七千五百萬年
will be clustered towards the south pole.
它們將朝著南極聚攏
No one knows if the Earth will still be habitable then,
沒人知道地球將來還是否適合居住
but the sad truth is that
但遺憾的是
we may not last long enough to find out.
人類也許活不到見證的一刻的出現
As we gaze into the future,
我們凝視未來時
it turns out that the universe is a pretty dangerous place.
會發現其實宇宙頗為危險
Just look at our neighborhood.
看看地球周邊即可略知一二
It's littered with billions of asteroids,
這里存在著數十億顆小行星
ancient remnants left over from the process that built the solar system.
都是太陽系形成時期存留下來的古老的殘骸
The possibility of one of these wiping us out
它們毀滅我們的可能性
isn't just the stuff of Hollywood disaster movies.
并不只停留在好萊塢虛構的災難片中
The threat from asteroids is real.
小行星的威脅是真實存在的
We've even given some of them names.
我們已經為其中一些命名
This one is called Apophis,
這一顆叫阿波菲斯
after a mythical Egyptian demon,
得名自埃及神話中的一個惡魔
a god of darkness and destruction.
黑暗與毀滅之神
Discovered in 2004,
于2004年被發現的阿波菲斯
Apophis is the size of a 100-story skyscraper.
大小相當于百層摩天大樓
It weighs about 20 billion tons.
重約二百億噸
Speeding through space at 28,000 miles an hour,
以每小時二萬八千英里，子彈的十倍速度
10 times as fast as a bullet,
穿梭于宇宙之中
it carries almost as much energy as
它所具有的能量幾乎是
all the world's nuclear weapons combined.
世界上所有核武器所具能量的總和
And we know roughly where it's headed.
我們目前只知道其大致走向
The precise path is not yet fully known.
其精確路徑還有待研究
But on April 13th, 2029,
但在2029年4月13日
this huge rock is likely to pass
這塊巨石很可能在距地球表面
within 23,000 miles of the planet's surface.
約兩萬三千公里的位置經過
Close enough to pass beneath the satellites in orbit around Earth
近得能在地球軌道衛星下空掠過
and give us all a scare.
從而使我們擔驚受怕
Luckily there is very little chance that Apophis will actually hit us,
幸運的是，阿波菲斯撞上地球的可能微乎其微
but the problem for humanity is
但人類面臨的真正問題是
that in space there is always a bigger rock.
宇宙中總是有更大的石塊
