Chapter 2

CHAPTER 2

第二章

SEARCHING FOR OTHER EARTHS WITH PROFESSOR MORGANA MAYHEM

和茉嘉娜·梅赫姆教授一起寻找其他星球

QUICK QUIZ TIME: WHAT'S THE CLOSEST STAR TO YOU RIGHT NOW? If you said the North Star- you're wrong. ZERO POINTS. The correct answer, as all supervillains should know, is the SUN. Our Sun is actually A TOTALLY NORMAL AND BORING STAR. (OKAY, IT'S NOT ACTUALLY BORING. IT'S BASICALLY A BILLION BILLION BILLION TON NUCLEAR BOMB, WHICH IS ABOUT AS FAR FROM BORING AS YOU CAN GET.) But the Sun IS pretty average, as stars go. And if our totally average star is surrounded by planets, shouldn't that mean that all the other stars in the Universe also have planets? BRACE YOURSELF.

快速测试时间：现在离你最近的恒星是什么？ 如果你说北极星，那你就错了。 零分。所有超级反派都应该知道，正确的答案是太阳。 我们的太阳实际上是一颗完全正常和无聊的恒星。 (好吧，其实并不无聊。 它基本上是一个十亿亿吨的核弹，这是你能得到的最无聊的东西。)但就恒星而言，太阳是相当普通的。 如果我们的普通恒星周围都有行星，那不就意味着宇宙中的其他恒星也都有行星吗？ 振作起来。

THIS ONE'S A BIGGIE. THE ANSWER IS... YES! As special as we think our Solar System is, IT TURNS OUT THAT MOST STARS IN THE UNIVERSE HAVE PLANETS GOING AROUND THEM. Think of how much time we spend learning about our own Solar System- and now think that THERE ARE AROUND 100 BILLION SOLAR SYSTEMS IN OUR GALAXY! THIS BLOWS MY MIND. TOLD YOU IT WAS A BIGGIE.

这是一个大问题。答案是…… 是的!尽管我们认为我们的太阳系很特别，但事实证明，宇宙中的大多数恒星都有行星围绕着它们运行。 想想我们花了多少时间来了解我们自己的太阳系——现在想想我们的银河系中大约有1000亿个太阳系！这让我大吃一惊。 告诉过你这是件大事。

Okay, so we shouldn't STRICTLY be calling these other stars and planets "Solar Systems." Our Solar System is called "THE SOLAR SYSTEM" because it's named after the Sun (and the word for Sun in Latin is "Sol"). SOLAR SYSTEM. GET IT? So, being strict, if the star YZ CETI has planets, we should probably call it the YZ Ceti-ar System. But that is annoying and hard to pronounce, so I'm going to call them all Solar Systems. AND NOBODY CAN STOP ME.

好吧，所以我们不应该严格地称这些其他的恒星和行星为“太阳系”。 我们的太阳系被称为“太阳系”，因为它是以太阳的名字命名的（太阳在拉丁语中是“Sol”）。 太阳系。明白了吗?所以，严格来说，如果恒星YZ CETI有行星，我们可能应该称之为YZ CETI -ar系统。 但是这个名字很烦人，而且很难发音，所以我把它们都叫做太阳系。 没有人能阻止我。

HOW TO FIND A PLANET IN A DISTANT SOLAR SYSTEM I know what you're thinking- you know exactly how to find distant planets. Just get the BIGGEST TELESCOPE you can find and look really hard. Staring at stuff through big telescopes is basically what astronomy is all about. YOU GET HALF A POINT FOR THIS BEING A GOOD IDEA. But MINUS A MILLION POINTS because it's totally wrong. PLANETS. are ALMOST IMPOSSIBLE TO SEE next to their stars because they are so TINY-BITTY (COMPARED TO THEIR STARS, THAT IS... PLANETS ARE OBVIOUSLY PRETTY BIG COMPARED TO, FOR EXAMPLE, A HAMSTER).

我知道你在想什么——你完全知道如何找到遥远的行星。 只要用你能找到的最大的望远镜仔细观察就行了。 通过大望远镜观察物体基本上就是天文学的全部内容。 这是个好主意，你得半分。 但是减一百万分，因为这是完全错误的。 行星。几乎不可能在它们的恒星旁边看到，因为它们太小了（与它们的恒星相比，那就是……） 行星显然比仓鼠要大得多)。