鱼_鱼

英文原文:

Scientists have found an unusual way to prevent our planet overheating: move it to a cooler spot.

All you have to do is hurtle a few comets at Earth, and its orbit will be altered. Our world will then be sent spinning into a safer, colder part of the solar system.

This startling idea of improving our interplanetary neighbourhood is the brainchild of a group of Nasa engineers and American astronomers who say their plan could add another six billion years to the useful lifetime of our planet – effectively doubling its working life.

‘The technology is not at all far-fetched,’ said Dr Greg Laughlin, of the Nasa Ames Research Center in California. ‘It involves the same techniques that people now suggest could be used to deflect asteroids or comets heading towards Earth. We don’t need raw power to move Earth, we just require delicacy of planning and manoeuvring.’

The plan put forward by Dr Laughlin, and his colleagues Don Korycansky and Fred Adams, involves carefully directing a comet or asteroid so that it sweeps close past our planet and transfers some of its gravitational energy to Earth.

‘Earth’s orbital speed would increase as a result and we would move to a higher orbit away from the Sun,’ Laughlin said.

Engineers would then direct their comet so that it passed close to Jupiter or Saturn, where the reverse process would occur. It would pick up energy from one of these giant planets. Later its orbit would bring it back to Earth, and the process would be repeated.

In the short term, the plan provides an ideal solution to global warming, although the team was actually concerned with a more drastic danger. The sun is destined to heat up in about a billion years and so ’seriously compromise’ our biosphere – by frying us.

Hence the group’s decision to try to save Earth. ‘All you have to do is strap a chemical rocket to an asteroid or comet and fire it at just the right time,’ added Laughlin. ‘It is basic rocket science.’

The plan has one or two worrying aspects, however. For a start, space engineers would have to be very careful about how they directed their asteroid or comet towards Earth. The slightest miscalculation in orbit could fire it straight at Earth – with devastating consequences.

It is a point acknowledged by the group. ‘The collision of a 100-kilometre diameter object with the Earth at cosmic velocity would sterilise the biosphere most effectively, at least to the level of bacteria,’ they state in a paper in Astrophysics and Space Science. ‘The danger cannot be overemphasised.’

There is also the vexed question of the Moon. As the current issue of Scientific American points out, if Earth was pushed out of its current position it is ‘most likely the Moon would be stripped away from Earth,’ it states, radically upsetting out planet’s climate.

These criticisms are accepted by the scientists. ‘Our investigation has shown just how delicately Earth is poised within the solar system,’ Laughlin admitted. ‘Nevertheless, our work has practical implications. Our calculations show that to get Earth to a safer, distant orbit, it would have to pass through unstable zones and would need careful nurturing and nudging. Any alien astronomers observing our solar system would know that something odd had occurred, and would realise an intelligent lifeform was responsible.

‘And the same goes for us. When we look at other solar systems, and detect planets around other suns – which we are now beginning to do – we may see that planet-moving has occurred. It will give us our first evidence of the handiwork of extraterrestrial beings.’

翻译:

科学家们为防止地球变得越来越热，他们想出了一个新招，你绝对想不到的：把地球挪一
下，挪到一个更凉快的地方。（这就好像暑假待在学校宿舍觉得太热，只好去图书馆等有
空调的地方乘凉了。）

其实这做起来也不难，你只要找几个彗星让它们牺牲一下，撞几下地球，地球的轨道就改
变了。然后我们的地球就会被移到太阳系里一个更加安全更加凉快的地方啦。这个惊人的
想法是由一帮Nasa的工程师和美国天文学家共同构思的，他们说这样会使得咱们这个地球
的寿命增加60亿年！

美国Nasa加里福利亚研究中心，格雷·劳克林（Greg Laughlin）博士说：“这样的技术也
不是很难实现，和我们把即将撞入地球的小行星改道时用的技巧差不多。所不同的是，我
们在做法上要更加优雅精确，毕竟这是我们住的地方，不能那么粗暴。”

由Laughlin以及他的同事Don Korycansky和Fred Adams共同提出的具体实施的方案是，引
导一个小行星让它刚刚好与地球擦肩而过，这样就可以利用引力把地球绕太阳的轨道速度
提高，从而地球将移到一个离太阳更远的轨道上。把小行星再引到木星或者土星附近，从
而有足够的能量把小行星再引回到地球附近，再重复之前的过程，这样地球就可以到达一
个更远的轨道了。

所要做的就是发射一个火箭到一个小行星附近，并在适当的时候引爆，其实就是基本的火
箭科学技术。虽然太阳在10亿年后温度变得更高，将严重扰乱我们的生物圈，届时我们可
能将直接被烤焦了，但是这样的计划确实能提供短期内解决全球变暖的一个解决方案。

当然这样的计划也有比较危险的方面，太空工程师们必须把一切都算准咯，不然的话，失
之毫厘谬之千里，一点点的误差可能就会导致毁灭性的灾难。仅仅一次直径100千米的太空
物体对地球的撞击也会导致地球上生命消失的干干净净。

另一个值得关注的问题是，月球怎么办？最新一期的《科学美国人》指出，如果地球被推
出现在的轨道的话，那么我们美丽的月亮很有可能就被甩了出去，将对地球的气候造成很
大影响（不仅仅是没得赏月了）。

Laughlin也承认会有这些危险，他说：“我们的研究也表明地球在太阳系里目前的位置是
最稳定和谐的。当然，我们的工作也有实际的建设性。要把地球弄到一个更稳定更远的轨
道上，要穿过一个不稳定的区域，这需要及其谨慎地推动和操作。如果任何外星智慧生命
在观察我们太阳系的话，那必然会发现太阳系因此所发生的变动，他们就会意识到另一个
智慧生命的存在。这对我们来说也是一样的，而且我们也正在观察，如果其他的星球发生
了移动，很有可能就是外星人弄的。”