考研英語(yǔ)閱讀:來(lái)自外星人的信號(hào)

Signals from aliens

來(lái)自外星人的信號(hào)

The Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence Institute （SETI）, listening to the cosmos for signs of signals from alien civilizations, may be monitoring the wrong “channels,” a U.S. astrophysicist says.

一位美國(guó)天體物理學(xué)家表示，地外智能生命搜尋研究所（SETI）一直以來(lái)探索宇宙外星文明信號(hào)的方法可能是“走了彎路”。

Gregory Benford of the University of California, Irvine,

美國(guó)加州大學(xué)歐文分校的科學(xué)家格雷戈里·本福德近日稱(chēng)，

says such a civilization wanting to announce its presence would transmit “cost-optimized” narrowly focused signals,

試圖跟人類(lèi)建立聯(lián)系的外星人很可能從“成本最優(yōu)”方面考慮只發(fā)送較短的定向信息，

not the continuous omni-directional signals the SETI program has been scanning for, a university release said recently.

而不是漫無(wú)方向地持續(xù)發(fā)送信息。而SETI 一直以來(lái)搜索的信息正是后者。

“This approach is more like Twitter and less like War and Peace, ”James Benford, Gregory Benford`s twin and fellow physicist, says.

“這種發(fā)送消息的方法更像是推特（Twitter），而不是場(chǎng)面宏大的《戰(zhàn)爭(zhēng)與和平》，”格雷戈里·本福德的孿生兄弟，物理學(xué)家詹姆斯·本福德說(shuō)。

“Whatever the life form, evolution selects for economy of resources. Transmitting signals across light years would require considerable resources.”

“不論是何種生命形式，進(jìn)化的方向都是節(jié)約資源。穿越光年發(fā)送信息，要花費(fèi)相當(dāng)巨大的資源。”

They says alien signals would not be blasted out in all directions

他們還說(shuō)，外星人不會(huì)向外漫無(wú)目的地全方位傳送信號(hào)，

but narrowly directed in the one-to-ten gigahertz broadband signal range and SETI’s broad sweeping search could leave many days when brief Twitter-like flashes of “ here we are” from alien civilizations go undetected.

而只會(huì)在1-10千兆赫的波段內(nèi)定向發(fā)送。但SETI 采取的是大范圍的信號(hào)掃描方式，這樣一來(lái)，在外星文明發(fā)出“我們?cè)谶@兒！”的信號(hào)時(shí)，可能就已經(jīng)錯(cuò)過(guò)SETI 的掃描了。

Such short, targeted blips, dubbed Benford beacons, should be the targets of SETI efforts, a growing number of scientists say.

越來(lái)越多的科學(xué)家支持他們的觀點(diǎn)，認(rèn)為這種簡(jiǎn)短、定向的信息（被稱(chēng)為本福德信號(hào)）才應(yīng)該是SETI 搜索的目標(biāo)。

And the Benfords also suggest concentrating the search on our own Milky Way galaxy, especially its center where 90 percent of its stars are located.“

本福德兄弟還建議將搜索地點(diǎn)鎖定在我們自身所處的銀河系，特別是90％恒星所在的中心地區(qū)。

The stars there are a billion years older than our sun,” Gregory Benford says,

“那里的恒星壽命比太陽(yáng)還早10 億年，”格雷戈里·本福德說(shuō)，

“which suggests a greater possibility of contact with an advanced civilization than does pointing SETI receivers outward to the newer and less crowded edge of our galaxy. ”

“這意味著那里更有可能存在高等智慧生命。這比將SETI 的天線對(duì)準(zhǔn)銀河系邊緣更年輕恒星、也更稀疏的區(qū)域要好得多了。”

 

 

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