万物简史 第49期:埃文斯牧师的宇宙(13)
英语课
The reason we can be reasonably confident that such an event won't happen in our corner of the galaxy 1, Thorstensen said, is that it takes a particular kind of star to make a supernova in the first place.
索尔斯坦森说，有理由相信，这种事情在星系的我们这个角落里不会发生，这是因为，首先，形成一颗超新星要有一种特别的恒星。
A candidate star must be ten to twenty times as massive as our own Sun and "we don't have anything of the requisite 2 size that's that close. The universe is a mercifully big place." The nearest likely candidate he added, is Betelgeuse, whose various sputterings have for years suggested that something interestingly unstable 3 is going on there. But Betelgeuse is fifty thousand light-years away.
恒星非得要有我们的太阳10-20倍那么大小才有资格，而"我们附近没有任何符合这个条件的星球"。非常运气，宇宙是个大地方。他接着说，离我们最近的、很可能有资格的，是猎户座；多年来，它一直在喷出各种东西，表明那里不大稳定，引起了大家的注意。但是，猎户座离我们有5万光年之远。
Only half a dozen times in recorded history have supernovae been close enough to be visible to the naked eye. One was a blast in 1054 that created the Crab 4 Nebula 5. Another, in 1604, made a star bright enough to be seen during the day for over three weeks. The most recent was in 1987, when a supernova flared 6 in a zone of the cosmos 7 known as the Large Magellanic Cloud, but that was only barely visible and only in the southern hemisphere—and it was a comfortably safe 169,000 light-years away.
在有记载的历史上，只有五六次超新星是近到肉眼看得见的。一次是1054年的爆炸，形成了蟹状星云。另一次是在1604年，创造了一颗亮得在3个多星期里连在白天都看得见的恒星。最近一次是在1987年，有一颗超新星在宇宙一个名叫大麦哲伦云的区域闪了一下，然而仅仅勉强看得见，而且仅仅在南半球看得见--它在16.9万光年以外，对我们毫无危险。
n.星系；银河系；一群(杰出或著名的人物)
- The earth is one of the planets in the Galaxy.地球是银河系中的星球之一。
- The company has a galaxy of talent.该公司拥有一批优秀的人才。
adj.需要的，必不可少的；n.必需品
- He hasn't got the requisite qualifications for the job.他不具备这工作所需的资格。
- Food and air are requisite for life.食物和空气是生命的必需品。
adj.不稳定的，易变的
- This bookcase is too unstable to hold so many books.这书橱很不结实，装不了这么多书。
- The patient's condition was unstable.那患者的病情不稳定。
n.螃蟹，偏航，脾气乖戾的人，酸苹果；vi.捕蟹，偏航，发牢骚；vt.使偏航，发脾气
- I can't remember when I last had crab.我不记得上次吃蟹是什么时候了。
- The skin on my face felt as hard as a crab's back.我脸上的皮仿佛僵硬了，就象螃蟹的壳似的。
n.星云，喷雾剂
- A powerful telescope can resolve a nebula into stars.一架高性能的望远镜能从星云中分辨出星球来。
- A nebula is really a discrete mass of innumerous stars.一团星云实际上是无数星体不连续的集合体。
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