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Science and technology
科學技術
Astronomy
天文學
The cosmic boogie-box
宇宙中的搖滾樂
The sky, it seems, is filled with unexpected radio signals
看上去，太空中充滿了我們意想不到的無線電訊號
WHISPER it not, but doing science can sometimes be a bit tedious.
可能你會在背后小聲議論，但是科學本來就有些單調乏味。
Traditionally, a researcher postulates an idea, devises an experiment to test it and then reports the results.
一般說來，一名研究人員會做出一個假設，設計出一個實驗來驗證其正確性，然后再報告實驗結果。
Sometimes those results confirm the postulate; sometimes they confound it.
有的時候這些結果和假設相符，有的時候與其相悖。
Occasionally, though, something unexpected happens, and that is when the tedious gets exciting.
但是，在極少數的情況下，會發生一些意想不到的事情；這時，單調乏味的科學就變得振奮轟動了。
One such shock was the discovery in 1964 of the cosmic microwave background, by Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson,
一個轟動的例子就是1964年宇宙微波背景的發現。當時射電天文學家阿諾.彭齊亞斯和羅伯特.威爾遜正在對接收器進行測驗，
a pair of radio astronomers who were testing a receiver they planned to use to search the sky for localised sources of microwaves.
他們計劃用這部接收器來探尋局部的微波源。
The hiss they found at one particular frequency turned out to be evidence for the then-controversial idea that the universe had been born in a Big Bang.
這過程中，兩位天文學家發現了某一特定頻率的嘶音，恰好證明了當時爭議不斷的大爆炸理論。
A similarly strange result was reported this week by stargazers gathered at a meeting of the American Astronomical Society in Long Beach, California.
本周在加州長灘舉行的美國天文學會上，我們聽到了一個有些類似的奇怪結果。
Some of them reckon that, besides microwaves, the sky reverberates with the din of radio waves as well.
其中一些天文學家認為，除了微波之外，宇宙還同輻射波的雜音一起發生反射。
If they are right, something very odd indeed is going on in the universe.
如果這種觀點正確，那么宇宙中就存在一些非常不可思議的事情了。
The astronomers in question work for NASA, America’s space agency.
這些天文學家都在美國國家航天航空局工作：
Michael Seiffert is based at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, and Alan Kogut at the Goddard Space Flight Centre in Maryland.
邁克爾.賽佛來自加州帕薩迪納市的噴氣動力實驗室，艾倫.科格特來自馬里蘭州的哥達德太空飛行中心。
The postulate they had planned to test was that the first stars to form after the Big Bang would have left some signs of themselves in the form of radio waves.
原本，他們是為了驗證大爆炸之后形成的第一批星球以輻射波的形式保留下了一些跡象；
Their experiment was designed to find these signs.
其設計的實驗也是為了尋找這些跡象。
Their search used radio telescopes launched to the edge of the atmosphere on special balloons from a site in Palestine, Texas.
研究在德克薩斯的帕勒斯坦地區展開，他們把射電望遠鏡置于一些特殊的氣球上，發射到大氣層邊緣。
The result they got was not, however, what they were looking for.
然而，所得的結果卻并非他們的初衷。
The microwave background is the earliest snapshot of the universe, taken a mere 300,000 years after the Big Bang and almost 700,000 years before the first stars are thought to have coalesced.
微波背景是宇宙最早的形態，它發生在大爆炸之后僅僅300,000年；一般觀點認為，其700,000年后第一批星球就已經結合。
It reveals the newborn universe to have been a remarkably uniform fireball.
這就說明，新生的宇宙是一個非常均勻的火球。
Dr Seiffert and Dr Kogut wanted to identify the point at which things stopped being so smooth and the universe started to develop the structures—galaxies, stars, planets and dust—that fill it today.
賽佛教授和科格特教授希望能夠找出是從何時開始，宇宙開始從均勻的狀態轉變，發展成今天的多樣結構——銀河，星球，還有塵埃。
It was for this reason that they were searching for signs of stars.
因此，他們一直在尋找星球的跡象。
What they found, however, was a background hiss of radio noise, reminiscent of the hiss noticed by Dr Penzias and Dr Wilson.
但是，他們卻發現了射電噪聲的一種背景雜音，這讓人聯想到彭齊亞斯博士和威爾遜博士當時注意到的嘶聲。
After ruling out nearby sources of radio waves, they concluded that their own hiss also comes from beyond the Milky Way and thus constitutes a cosmic radio background.
賽佛教授和科格特教授排除了附近輻射波的干擾，認為這種雜音同樣來自銀河之外，構成了一個輻射背景。
Four papers describing the telescopes, the observations and their possible interpretation have been submitted to the Astrophysical Journal.
他們寫了四篇論文，對望遠鏡、觀測結果以及有可能的解釋進行描述，遞交了《天體物理學雜志》。
Why a cosmic radio background should be there remains a mystery.
為什么那里會存在一個宇宙輻射背景呢？這還是一個謎。
It does not appear to be coming from the primordial stars sought by the astronomers—indeed, it completely drowns out any signs of the early stars that were the object of the original quest.
但是這看起來不像是天文學家所探尋的原始星球；實際上，這一背景的聲音淹沒了科學家意圖探尋之星球的一切跡象。
Nor are there enough radio galaxies around to account for it.
周圍也沒有任何射電星系能夠達到這一效果。
It looks, therefore, like the sign of a previously unknown phenomenon.
因此看起來，這是一個從前不為人所知現象的表現。
Of course, some as-yet unidentified error could have been made. In that case, it will be back to the tedium.
當然了，在這過程中也可能出現了一些迄今未被識別的錯誤。倘若如此，科學又回到了單調乏味。
But Dr Seiffert, Dr Kogut and their colleagues are hoping that will not be the case, and that their discovery really will turn out to be worth making a noise about.
但是賽佛教授、科格特教授以及他們的同事們不希望真的會有什么錯誤；他們希望，這一發現最終能夠名聲大“噪”。
