第1818期:Hawking's search for alien life

Scientists have been listening out for signals from intelligent civilisations on other worlds for decades, so far with no success. This new initiative is the most ambitious yet. It will survey ten times more of the sky than previous programmes. And over the next ten years, radio telescopes will listen out for broadcasts from a million of the stars closest to the Earth.几十年来，科学家们一直在倾听来自其他世界智慧文明的信号，但迄今为止没有成功。这项新举措是迄今为止最雄心勃勃的。它将比以前的计划多调查十倍的天空。在接下来的十年里，射电望远镜将收听来自离地球最近的一百万颗恒星的广播。The scheme has the support of some of the world's leading space researchers, including Professor Stephen Hawking, who says it's now time to answer one of the biggest questions in science:该计划得到了一些世界领先的太空研究人员的支持，其中包括斯蒂芬霍金教授，他说现在是时候回答科学中最大的问题之一了："Somewhere in the cosmos, perhaps, intelligent life may be watching these lights of ours, aware of what they mean. Or do our lights wander a lifeless cosmos - unseen beacons announcing that here, on one rock, the Universe discovered its existence? There is no bigger question. It's time to commit to finding the answer - to search for life beyond Earth."“也许在宇宙的某个地方，智慧生命可能正在注视着我们的这些光，知道它们的含义。或者我们的光是否在没有生命的宇宙中徘徊——看不见的灯塔宣布宇宙在这里，在一块岩石上发现了它的存在？那里这不是一个更大的问题。现在是致力于寻找答案的时候了——寻找地球以外的生命。”Many scientists believe that there's only a small chance of receiving a signal from aliens from outer space. But if we do, we'll know that humanity is not alone in the universe.许多科学家认为，从外太空接收到外星人信号的可能性很小。但如果我们这样做了，我们就会知道人类在宇宙中并不孤单。词汇表initiative 倡议cosmos 宇宙lifeless 无生命的，死气沉沉的unseen 未被看到的，看不见的beacons （复数）灯塔humanity 人类