You'll travel 1 trillion kilometers through space - Fabio Pacucci and Lindsay DeMarchi

翻译人员: Bruce Wang 校对人员: Yanyan Hong

Happy 100th birthday!

100 岁生日快乐！

Your favorite granddaughter (shh, don’t tell the others)

你最喜欢的孙女 （嘘，别告诉其他人）

created a surprise:

创造了一个惊喜：

a holographic map displaying everywhere you’ve traveled—

一张全息地图显示了 你旅行过的所有地方——

not just on Earth, but through the universe!

不仅在地球上，而且在宇宙中！

While you haven’t literally been to space,

虽然你还没有真正去过太空，

you've lived on a spinning rock hurtling around a sun, whizzing through a galaxy,

但你生活在一块绕太阳旋转的陨石上， 在星系中呼啸而过，

and the journey only gets wilder from there.

从那以后，旅程只会变得更加疯狂。

You’ve made some real progress in the grand scheme of things.

你已经在宏伟的旅程中走了不少路。

But... how much, exactly?

但是…… 到底旅行了多久？

Your atlas starts on the planet’s surface.

你的足迹始于地球表面。

Over the course of your life you’ve walked about 120,000 kilometers—

在你的一生中， 你走了大约 12 万公里，

the equivalent of three trips around the globe.

相当于环球旅行了三次。

Daily commutes and international travel add a few more.

日常通勤和国际旅行 又让你的足迹增加了一些。

This may seem remarkable until you factor in your pirouette around the planet

这可能看起来很了不起， 除非你将地球自转

each day due to its rotation.

也纳入你环球旅行的考量。

The distance traveled this way differs from person to person—

这种方式行进的距离因人而异——

those close to the poles trace a smaller circle than those at the equator.

靠近两极的人所走的圆圈 要比赤道处的圆圈小。

Living halfway between them you’ve picked up 30,000 kilometers every day

生活在两之间的你在躺平的情况下，

without shifting a muscle.

每天移动 3 万公里。

Except, your motion isn’t perfectly circular.

但是，你移动的轨迹 并非完全是圆形的，

It's a curlicue.

而是花式旋转。

As the Earth elliptically orbits the Sun, there you go,

当地球绕太阳椭圆公转时， 你走着瞧，

adding roughly another 940 million kilometers every year.

每年你能再多走大约 9.4 亿公里，

But it doesn’t end there.

但这还不止于此。

Our entire solar system is contained within the heliosphere,

我们的整个太阳系都包含 在日光层中，

a bubble of charged particles emitted by the Sun.

日光层是由太阳 发射的带电粒子组成的气泡。

That bubble orbits the Milky Way’s center, which harbors a supermassive black hole,

这个气泡以大约每秒 200 公里的 速度绕银河系中心运行，

at a speed of about 200 kilometers per second.

银河系的中心有一个 超大质量的黑洞。

One full orbit takes 230 million years—

绕一圈需要 2.3 亿年——

meaning we've aged little more than one galactic year since the first dinosaurs.

这意味着自恐龙出现以来， 我们刚刚活过了一个银河年。

In your 100 years, you’ve witnessed four ten millionths of one rotation.

在你的 100 年里， 你见证了一千万分之四的轮换。

That’s still 600 billion kilometers,

这仍然有 6000 亿公里，

or 2,200 round trips between the Earth and Sun.

相当于你在地球和太阳之间 往返 2,200 次。

Our galaxy and over 100 neighbors together constitute “The Local Group.”

我们的星系和 100 多个毗邻星系 共同构成了“局部星群”。

The Milky Way and Andromeda are hurtling towards each other

银河系和仙女座以每秒 125 公里的

at 125 kilometers per second,

速度相互冲击，

and will collide in about 4.5 billion years.

并将在大约 45 亿年后发生碰撞。

The Local Group is a speck within the Virgo Supercluster,

局部星群只是处女座 超级星团中的一个点，

which is itself just one of many lobes of the Laniakea Supercluster

处女座超级星团本身 只是包含超过 10 万个星系的

that contains over 100,000 galaxies.

拉尼亚凯亚超星系团的 众多分支中的一个。

This supercluster has a mysterious gravitational center

这个超级星团有一个神秘的引力中心，

called the Great Attractor.

叫做“巨引源”。

Because these enormous masses all gravitationally tug on each other,

由于这些巨大的质量 都在引力作用下相互拉动，

our galaxy’s motion is much more helter-skelter

所以我们银河系的运动比干净的

than a clean, circular orbit.

圆形轨道更具隐蔽性。

In your lifetime, you’ve traveled 2 trillion kilometers

在你的一生中， 你已经以 每秒大约 600 公里的速度

at about 600 kilometers per second relative to the Great Attractor.

行驶了 2 万亿公里， 与“巨引源”相比。

The Laniakea Supercluster is, you guessed it,

你猜对了，拉尼亚凯亚超星系团

moving with respect to everything else in the universe.

与相对宇宙中剩余的一切移动。

At every step thus far, your granddaughter has used central reference points

到目前为止，你的孙女在每一步 都使用中心参考点

to describe your relative motion.

来描述你的相对运动。

But the universe has no center.

但是宇宙没有中心。

Instead, astronomers use the Cosmic Microwave Background, or CMB,

取而代之的是，天文学家使用宇宙 微波背景（CMB），

an echo of the early universe, which involves low-energy photons

这是早期宇宙的回声， 它涉及低能量光子

bouncing around everywhere in all directions, all the time.

一直在四面八方反弹。

Imagine standing somewhere where the wind blows toward you

想象一下，站在某个地方，

at the same speed from every direction.

风从各个方向以相同的速度吹向你。

If you started running any which way,

如果你开始向任何方向奔跑，

the wind in your face would have a higher speed,

吹在你脸上的风的速度会更快，

while the wind at your back would be gentler.

而背部的风会更温和。

The CMB is like that—

CMB 就是这样——

any direction we travel, the CMB appears more energetic or blue-shifted,

无论我们走向哪个方向，CMB 都会显得更有活力或“蓝移”（blue-shifted），

while behind us it appears red-shifted.

而在我们身后它会显得红移。

By measuring the degree and direction of that shift,

通过测量这种转变的程度和方向，

we can determine where we’re going and how fast, relative to the CMB.

我们可以确定我们相对于 CMB 的运动方向和速度。

And the answer is:

答案是：

630 kilometers per second towards the Great Attractor.

每秒 630 公里驶向 “巨引源”。

To recap: you’re spiraling around a sun circling a supermassive black hole,

回顾一下：你正绕太阳旋转， 而太阳绕着更大质量的黑洞盘旋，

hurtling towards another galaxy,

冲向另一个星系，

chaotically weaving around a supercluster, and barreling out into the great expanse.

漫无目的地绕超级星团飞舞， 然后冲向更广阔的天空。

Yet you’ve felt none of that;

然而你却没有任何感觉；

tucked as you are into your planetary spaceship by gravity’s embrace.

就好似你被重力拥抱着， 安然于你的行星飞船中。

If you drew a straight line from the point where you were born

如果从你出生画一条

to where you are today,

到今天的直线，

it would measure about one fifth of a light year!

它的长度大约是光年的五分之一！

That may not sound like much,

这听起来可能不多，

but neither does hiking through a park or sitting through a sunset.

但在公园里徒步 或坐看夕阳也是如此转瞬即逝。

There’s wonder to be found at every point of our all too brief journeys.

在我们如此短暂的旅程中， 处处都能发现奇迹。