萬物簡史 第35期:埃文斯牧師的宇宙(4)

Looking for supernovae is mostly a matter of notfinding them. From 1980 to 1996 he averaged twodiscoveries a year—not a huge payoff for hundreds ofnights of peering and peering. Once he found threein fifteen days, but another time he went three yearswithout finding any at all.

尋找超新星的工作大多一無所獲。從1980年到1996年，他平均每年有兩次發(fā)現(xiàn)--那要花幾百個夜晚來觀測呀觀測呀，真不劃算。有一回他15天里有3次發(fā)現(xiàn)，但另一回3年里也沒有發(fā)現(xiàn)1次。

"There is actually a certain value in not finding anything," he said. "It helps cosmologists towork out the rate at which galaxies are evolving. It's one of those rare areas where the absenceof evidenceis evidence."

"實際上，一無所獲也有一定價值，"他說，"它有利于宇宙學(xué)家計算出星系演變的速度。在那種極少有所發(fā)現(xiàn)的區(qū)域，沒有跡象就是跡象。"

On a table beside the telescope were stacks of photos and papers relevant to his pursuits, andhe showed me some of them now. If you have ever looked through popular astronomicalpublications, and at some time you must have, you will know that they are generally full ofrichly luminous color photos of distant nebulae and the like—fairy-lit clouds of celestial light ofthe most delicate and moving splendor.

在望遠(yuǎn)鏡旁邊的一張桌子上，堆放著跟他的研究有關(guān)的照片和文獻(xiàn)?，F(xiàn)在，他把其中一些拿給我看。要是你翻閱過天文學(xué)的通俗出版物，你就會知道，上面大多是遠(yuǎn)處星云之類的色彩鮮艷的照片--那是由天光形成的彩色云團(tuán)，華美動人，異常壯觀。

Evans's working images are nothing like that. They are just blurry black-and-white photos withlittle points of haloed brightness. One he showed me depicted a swarm of stars with a triflingflare that I had to put close to my face to see. This, Evans told me, was a star in a constellationcalled Fornax from a galaxy known to astronomy as NGC1365. (NGC stands for New GeneralCatalogue, where these things are recorded.

埃文斯拍下的形象根本無法與之相比。它們只是模模糊糊的黑白照片，上面有帶有光環(huán)的小亮點。他讓我看一幅照片，它描述了一大群恒星，上面有一點兒光焰，我不得不湊近了才看得清楚。埃文斯對我說，這是天爐星座的一顆恒星，天文學(xué)上稱之為NGC1365。(NGC代表"新編總目錄"，上面記錄著這些材料。

Once it was a heavy book on someone's desk in Dublin; today, needless to say, it's adatabase.) For sixty million silent years, the light from the star's spectacular demise traveledunceasingly through space until one night in August of 2001 it arrived at Earth in the form of apuff of radiance, the tiniest brightening, in the night sky. It was of course Robert Evans on hiseucalypt-scented hillside who spotted it.

過去是都柏林某人書桌上的一本笨重的書;不用說，如今是一個數(shù)據(jù)庫。)在6000萬年時間里，這顆恒星的壯麗死亡時所發(fā)出的光，不停地越過太空，最后在2001年8月的一天夜里以一點微光的形式抵達(dá)了地球。當(dāng)然是身處桉樹芬芳的山坡上的羅伯特•埃文斯發(fā)現(xiàn)了它。