Chapter 5

CHAPTER 5

第五章

THE END OF THE UNIVERSE WITH PROFESSOR DIABOLICA DOOMFIZZLE

宇宙的终结和恶魔教授的末日

THIS IS IT. IT'S TIME TO TALK ABOUT THE BIGGEST AND BEST TOPIC OF ALL. We've covered the death of planets and the death of stars (NOT TO MENTION BEING SPAGHETTIFIED BY A BLACK HOLE). IT'S TIME TO TALK ABOUT THE DEATH OF THE ENTIRE UNIVERSE. But before we do, we need to clear something up...

就是这里。是时候谈谈最大也是最好的话题了。 我们已经报道了行星的死亡和恒星的死亡（更不用说被黑洞变成意大利面条了）。 是时候谈谈整个宇宙的灭亡了。 但在此之前，我们需要澄清一些事情……

WHAT DOES "UNIVERSE" MEAN ANYWAY? "UNIVERSE" IS A VERY BIG WORD. It means, more or less, "EVERYTHING THAT EXISTS EVERYWHERE." Which is a lot to deal with. Let's start close to home and zoom out until we get a feel for what the whole Universe looks like. THIS IS GOING TO BE A LONG JOURNEY—BRING SOME SNACKS. The Solar System is our home in space. There is a yellow star in the middle (which we call the SUN), and some little rocks floating around it.

“宇宙”到底是什么意思？ “宇宙”是一个非常大的词。 它的意思或多或少是“存在于任何地方的一切”。 这是一个很棘手的问题。 让我们从离家近的地方开始，然后缩小距离，直到我们对整个宇宙的样子有一个感觉。 这将是一个漫长的旅程——带些零食。 太阳系是我们在太空中的家。 中间有一颗黄色的恒星（我们称之为太阳），它周围漂浮着一些小岩石。

LET'S ZOOM OUT A LOT. Special effects are hard to do in books. If you like, you can imagine seeing this in the cinema with lots of DRAMATIC MUSIC. AS WE ZOOM OUT, THE SUN SHRINKS. It starts to look like any old star (which is exactly what it is). The planets get smaller and smaller until they are too small to see. THE WHOLE SOLAR SYSTEM SHRINKS INTO A TINY DOT.

我们把它放大一点。在书中很难有特效。 如果你喜欢，你可以想象在电影院里看到很多戏剧性的音乐。 当我们把镜头拉近时，太阳变小了。 它开始看起来像任何一颗古老的恒星（它确实是）。 行星变得越来越小，直到它们小到看不见。 整个太阳系缩小成一个小点。

Some other stars rush into view. These are the stars close to the Sun, a few light years away. Even though they would take millions of years to travel to, they are still in our COSMIC BACK GARDEN. As we zoom out further and further, we see all the millions of stars around the Solar System are part of one long swoosh—this is one arm of the MILKY WAY spiral galaxy. Our Milky Way is REALLY, REALLY BIG. It's a swirly spiral cloud made up of around 200 billion stars. (THAT'S ABOUT 25 STARS PER PERSON ON EARTH. THOUGH I'M NOT SURE I HAVE ANYWHERE TO STORE MINE.) THE MILKY WAY IS SO BIG THAT IT WOULD TAKE 100,000 YEARS TO FLY ACROSS IT AT THE SPEED OF LIGHT! COMPARED TO THAT, OUR WHOLE SOLAR SYSTEM IS A TEENY-TINY DOT FAR TOO SMALL TO SEE. As big as it is, our galaxy is only the beginning. Let's keep zooming out. More dramatic music, please!

其他一些星星冲进了视野。 这些恒星离太阳很近，几光年远。 尽管它们需要数百万年才能到达，但它们仍然在我们宇宙的后花园中。 当我们把镜头拉得越来越远，我们看到太阳系周围的数百万颗恒星都是一个长长的漩涡的一部分——这是银河系螺旋星系的一条臂。 我们的银河系真的非常非常大。 它是一个由大约2000亿颗恒星组成的漩涡状云。 (地球上每人大约有25颗星星。 虽然我不确定我有地方可以存放我的。)银河系是如此之大，以至于以光速飞越它需要10万年的时间！与之相比，我们整个太阳系就像一个极小的点，小得看不见。 尽管我们的银河系如此之大，但它只是一个开始。 让我们继续缩小。请放些戏剧性的音乐！