WEBVTT

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But NASA has a big launch planned for Saturday. 
NASA 美國國家航空暨太空總署週六安排了一場重大的發射計畫。

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The space agency is sending up a new Mars rover named Curiosity. It will take some eight months to reach the Red Planet. 
這個太空機構將發射一具名為好奇號的新型火星探測器，將費時八個月抵達紅色行星。

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And once it's there, Curiosity will search for signs of Martian life.
好奇號一到那裡，就會搜尋火星生命的跡象。

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Well, all of this week, we will be taking a closer look at efforts to find life in outer space.
這一整週，我們將進一步瞧瞧在外太空尋找生命所做的努力。

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And John Zarrella joins us from CNN Miami. John, we had the editorial meeting earlier. We were talking about you. 
約翰‧札瑞拉從CNN 邁阿密分部跟我們連線。約翰，我們稍早開了編輯會議，我們談到你，

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We said it would be great to have breaking news this week that John Zarrella has discovered life out there in space. 
說這週要是有約翰‧札瑞拉發現外太空生命的即時新聞就太棒了。

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But tell us what they're up to this week.
告訴我們 NASA這週在忙什麼吧。

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Haven't discovered life quite yet, but you know you mentioned that Mars rover and its ability to actually search for signs of life. 
倒還沒發現生命，但你提到了火星探測船和它尋找生命跡象的能力，

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It's the first time ever that a NASA spacecraft, a rover, has gone to Mars with that capability. 
這是頭一遭擁有這種能力的 NASA 太空船登上火星，應該說是一具探測器。

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So there's some high expectations that if life ever existed there it... they may be able to pick up on it.
因此，大家有很高的期待，如果那裡存在任何生命的話，它……也許他們能夠注意到。

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So, given that as a backdrop, we decided... you know what? 
所以，以此為背景，我們決定……你知道嗎？

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Let's take a look at how the search for life in the universe overall is going. And what we've found is pretty fascinating.
我們來看看搜尋宇宙生命的整體狀況進行得如何。我們得到的成果十分引人入勝。

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Probes to Mars, telescopes searching for other Earths, listening for life out there.
探測器前往火星，望遠鏡尋找其他地球，傾聽尋找外太空的生命。

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There's no proof yet, but the body of evidence is growing -- we are not alone.
雖然還無法證明，但證據持續增加——我們並不孤單。

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But one thing that strikes you is that every time we learn something new about the universe, what we learn is that our situation doesn't seem to be all that special. 
讓人驚訝的是，每次我們又多了解宇宙一點的時候，就會發現我們的狀況似乎沒有那麼特殊，

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And that suggests that life is not all that special, either.
而那表示生命也並沒有那麼特殊。

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But it is still just that: a guess, based in part on astronomy in overload, findings from telescopes like Hubble, Spitzer, Chandra --
但也只有這樣了：只是猜測，部分以天文學的大量收穫為基礎，例如哈伯、史匹哲、錢德拉望遠鏡的發現——

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new discoveries at a breathtaking rate, revealing the sheer mind-blowing grandeur of the universe. Consider these heavenly numbers just for a minute. 
以驚人速度得到的新發現中，揭露了宇宙震懾人心的浩瀚偉大。用一點時間想一下這些天文數字。

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Perhaps one trillion -- with a T, that's right, trillion -- galaxies in the universe. 
宇宙裡可能有一兆個銀河系吧——單位開頭是 T，沒錯，兆。

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Stars, you ask? OK, how about 300 sextillion? That's three followed by 23 zeroes.
星星，你問恆星嗎？好，大約三千垓顆怎麼樣？那是三後面跟了二十三個零。

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So where does that leave us with planets, more specifically, planets like our own?
那麼，那其中我們找到多少行星，更確切地說，像我們這個星球的行星？

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We're learning something that's of fundamental importance to mankind: how frequent are Earths around other stars?
我們正在理解對於人類極為重要的事情：像這樣的地球環繞著其他恆星的狀況有多常見？

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Bill Borucki is the principal investigator for NASA's Kepler telescope. Its mission: find planets similar in size to the Earth, 
威廉‧博魯奇是NASA克卜勒望遠鏡的主任觀察員。這個望遠鏡的任務是尋找與地球大小相似、

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orbiting their suns. So far, it has been successful beyond expectations.
環繞著它們自己的恆星的行星。目前，這個計畫比預期還要成功。

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Of the 1,200 planet candidates Kepler has found, nearly 70 are Earth sized.
在一千兩百個候選行星中，克卜勒望遠鏡已經找到了七十個大小與地球相近的行星。

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The indication from data that we have in hand is that small planets are common, that the galaxy makes them efficiently. So they're going to be abundant.
我們手邊的資料指出，小行星很普遍，銀河很有效率地製造它們，因此數量很龐大。

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The number is large enough so there must be, you know, many billions of such planets in our galaxy. So, that's been a very happy surprise.
由於數量夠大，所以說我們的銀河中一定有數十億個這樣的行星，這個驚喜非常令人高興。

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How many are orbiting at just the right distance from the sun to support life? 
有多少星球保持著恰當的距離繞著恆星週轉而足以維繫生命呢？

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More than 50 candidates found so far where life might be possible.
目前發現超過五十個可能有生命的候選星球。

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What Kepler can't do is detect life. So, for now that will remain just a guess.
克卜勒望遠鏡做不到的是探測生命，所以目前那還只是猜測而已。