萬物簡史 第26期:走進太陽系(4)

　　Tombaugh had no formal training as anastronomer, but he was diligent and he wasastute, and after a year's patient searching hesomehow spotted Pluto, a faint point of light in aglittery firmament.

　　湯博沒有受過成為天文學家的專門訓練，但他既勤奮又聰明。經(jīng)過一年的搜索以后，他在明亮的天空里終于看到了一個暗淡的光點：冥王星。

　　It was a miraculous find, and what made it all themore striking was that the observations on whichLowell had predicted the existence of a planetbeyond Neptune proved to be comprehensively erroneous. Tombaugh could see at once thatthe new planet was nothing like the massive gasball Lowell had postulated, but anyreservations he or anyone else had about the character of the new planet were soon sweptaside in the delirium that attended almost any big news story in that easily excited age.

　　這是個奇跡般的發(fā)現(xiàn)。這個發(fā)現(xiàn)更引人注目的是，它證明洛厄爾的觀測結(jié)果是錯誤的。雖然是可以理解的，洛厄爾曾根據(jù)這些觀測結(jié)果來預言海王星以遠的地方存在一顆行星。湯博馬上意識到，這顆新的行星根本不是像洛厄爾所預料的那樣是個巨大的氣球--但是，他或別人有關(guān)這顆新行星的性質(zhì)所持的任何保留，在極其興奮之中很快就一掃而光。在那個容易激動的時代，差不多任何重大的新聞故事都會激起這種情緒。

　　This was the first American-discovered planet, and no one was going to be distracted by thethought that it was really just a distant icy dot. It was named Pluto at least partly because thefirst two letters made a monogram from Lowell's initials. Lowell was posthumously hailedeverywhere as a genius of the first order, and Tombaugh was largely forgotten, except amongplanetary astronomers, who tend to revere him.

　　這是第一顆由美國人發(fā)現(xiàn)的行星。有人認為它其實只不過是遠方的一顆冰粒，但誰也不會被這種看法轉(zhuǎn)移視線。它被命名為冥王星，至少一定程度上是因為它的頭兩個字母是由洛厄爾姓名的首字母組成的交織字母。已經(jīng)不在人世的洛厄爾到處被頌揚為一流的天才人物，而湯博在很大程度上已被人們忘得一干二凈，除了在研究行星的天文學家當中，他們往往對他懷有崇敬之情。

　　A few astronomers continue to think there may be a Planet X out there—a real whopper,perhaps as much as ten times the size of Jupiter, but so far out as to be invisible to us. (Itwould receive so little sunlight that it would have almost none to reflect.) The idea is that itwouldn't be a conventional planet like Jupiter or Saturn—it's much too far away for that;we're talking perhaps 4.5 trillion miles—but more like a sun that never quite made it. Most starsystems in the cosmos are binary (double-starred), which makes our solitary sun a slightoddity.

　　現(xiàn)在，有的天文學家繼續(xù)認為，冥王星之外也許還有行星X--一顆真正的龐然大物，也許有木星的10倍之大，只是它太遙遠，我們看不見。(它被照到的陽光太少，幾乎沒有反射的光。)他們認為，它不會是像木星或土星這樣的普通行星--它太遠，不可能是那個樣子;我們推測也許有7.2萬億公里之遠--而更會像一個沒有形成的太陽。宇宙中的大多數(shù)恒星體系都是成雙的(雙星體)，這就使我們孤零零的太陽顯得有點兒怪。