(单词翻译:单击)
Seven years after Elon Musk revealed it to the world, SpaceX's Falcon Heavy rocket finally made its maiden test flight this past Tuesday.
七年前，伊隆·马斯克向世人宣布，太空探索技术公司会发射猎鹰重型火箭。而就在上周二，猎鹰重型终于进行了第一次试射。
And, against all odds, it worked almost perfectly which is definitely not what I was expecting to say.
虽然困难重重，但表现近乎完美，不过我今天当然不是来夸它的。
The original intent of this test launch was just to get a payload into orbit around the Sun and to prove the rocket works.
这次试射的初衷只是将有效载荷送入环绕太阳的轨道，同时证明猎鹰重型火箭确有其效。
In this case, the payload was one of Elon Musk's Tesla Roadsters, instead of something a little less flashy, like a block of concrete with the same mass.
猎鹰重型携带的有效载荷是伊隆•马斯克的特斯拉电动跑车，可以说是相当之炫，可不像同等质量的一块混凝土那么low。
Now, that Roadster is orbiting the Sun as the first private payload to go farther than Earth's orbit, along with a dummy named Starman.
现在，那台环绕太阳轨道的特斯拉跑车是第一个越过地球轨道的私人有效载荷，与特斯拉一同上天的还有假人宇航员Starman。
That's one way to make the history books. SpaceX launched the Falcon Heavy from Pad 39A at Kennedy Space Center in Florida,
此举可谓史书上浓墨重彩的一笔，太空探索技术公司从加州肯尼迪航天中心的39A发射台发射升空，
which is the same pad that Apollo 11 used to get to the moon almost 50 years ago.
这里也是大概50年前阿波罗11号载人飞船升月的地方。
Besides getting Elon's Tesla into orbit, they even managed to recover two parts of the rocket's first stage,
除了将马斯克的特斯拉跑车送入轨道之外，该公司还设法回收了猎鹰重型一级火箭的两个助推器。
or the part that gets the rocket off the ground, which touched down in a picture-perfect landing.
助推器的作用是帮助火箭升空。目前，这两个助推器均已完美着陆。
Unfortunately, the third part didn't land quite so smoothly.
不幸的是，第三个助推器未能如此顺利地着陆。
But at least SpaceX can reuse two of the boosters for future missions, which saves a lot of time and money.
但至少太空探索技术公司可以将这两枚助推器用于未来任务中，这样可以节省很多时间和资金。
Now that we know it works, the Falcon Heavy is officially the most powerful rocket humanity has at its disposal, although it isn't the most powerful ever.
现在我们知道了猎鹰重型确有其效，而且经官方确认，它是人类目前可用的最强大的火箭，虽然此前有比它更强大的火箭。
That honor still belongs to the Saturn V, which sent us to the Moon.
这个更强大的火箭就是土星-5号运载火箭，就是它将人类送上了月球。
But SpaceX hopes to use the Falcon Heavy to go beyond our natural satellite, like to Mars.
但太空探索技术公司希望将猎鹰重型用于地球之外的宇宙间，比如去往火星。
It could also be used for missions to Low Earth Orbit, where it could launch up to 63.8 metric tons.
猎鹰重型也可以用于近地轨道的任务，这时候的有效载荷量高达63.8公吨。
That's equivalent to a fully-loaded 737 aircraft, or just a whole lot of satellites. That power comes from the 27 engines in the rocket's first stage alone.
约等于一架满载的波音737飞机，或者多个卫星的总和，其动力来源是一级火箭的27个引擎。
It has so many engines because, really, the Falcon Heavy is like three of SpaceX's smaller rockets, called Falcon 9s, all lined up.
设置如此多引擎的原因是猎鹰重型相当于是太空探索技术公司的三个并联的小火箭猎鹰9号。
And each Falcon 9, as the name suggests, has nine first stage engines.
猎鹰9号，顾名思义，有9台一级发动机。
Still, making sure that that many engines work together perfectly is a huge challenge.
与以前一样，确保多台发动机可以同时协调运转是一项巨大的挑战。
If they don't things explode which somehow did not happen on Tuesday.
说不定就会，毕竟爆炸还是时有发生的嘛，不过，周二试射的过程中并未发生爆炸。
Now that SpaceX knows their rocket works, the next step is to launch their first commercial payload:
现在，太空探索技术公司已经知道猎鹰重型试射成功，下一步就是发射第一个商用有效载荷，
a satellite for a Saudi Arabian company that will likely launch later this year.
即今年年末某沙特公司很可能发射的一颗卫星。
Since that mission will be carrying something arguably more important than a Tesla, the stakes will be even higher.
由于此次任务携带的载荷很可能比特斯拉跑车要重要的多，所以风险也更高。
So here's hoping it goes just as well, and that next time, they can land everything successfully.
所以，在这里，我们也希望发射一切顺利：下一次，所有部件和载荷能成功着陆。
While SpaceX was getting the Falcon Heavy ready for launch, another group of astronomers was publishing some even more out-of-this-world news.
太空探索技术公司的猎鹰重型第一次试射成功是第一条重磅消息，而另一边，还有一些天文学家做出了更为惊人的事情。
Last week in The Astrophysical Journal Letters, they published the first evidence of planets outside the Milky Way, in a galaxy almost four billion light-years away.
上周，《天文物理期刊》上发表了银河系外存在星球的证据，那些星球所在的星系离地球有40亿光年之远。
That doesn't seem possible, well, to find them, they had to use one of the many quirks of General Relativity.
找到这些星球看似不可能，他们必须动用科学奇谈广义相对论。
Astronomers from the University of Oklahoma analyzed the data of a quasar about six billion light-years away named RXJ 1131-1231.
这些来自奥克拉荷马大学的天文学家分析了一颗类星体的数据，这颗类星体距离地球有60亿光年之远，编号为RXJ 1131-1231。
Which is so memorable. Quasars are extremely bright objects powered by the supermassive black holes at the centers of galaxies.
这个编号太让人难忘了，类星体由星系中心超大质量的黑洞所驱动，亮度极大。
And this one helped us track down those new planets in another galaxy closer to home.
而这些天文学家发现的这颗类星体帮助人类追踪到离银河系更近的另一个星系里的新行星。
See, from Earth's vantage point, 1131's quasar actually sits behind another galaxy that's much closer to us, about 3.8 billion light-years away.
从地球有利据点观测，1131号类星体位于另一个星系的后面，而这个星系离银河系更近，大概只有38亿光年。
But we're able to see it thanks to a consequence of General Relativity known as gravitational lensing.
但我们之所以能看到这个类星体，是根据广义相对论中的引力透镜效应。
This is where objects with a lot of mass, like galaxies, bend, distort, and magnify the light from objects behind them.
在这里，像星系一样大质量的物体会发生弯曲、失真，会放大其背后物体发出的光。
In this case, that means the intermediate galaxy bent the quasar's light like a lens.
而对这颗新发现的类星体来说，其与银河系之间的星系像透镜一样会使这颗类星体的光发生弯曲。
These lenses help astronomers see things that would otherwise be too dim.
这种透镜效应帮助天文学家看到了一些本来没有那么亮的物体。
But the technique isn't helpful for studying things as small and as dim as planets.
但引力透镜效应无助于研究像行星一样又小又暗的物体。
To find those objects, astronomers use another, less powerful, version of gravitational lensing called microlensing.
为了发现那些又小又暗的物体，天文学家利用了引力透镜效应另一个没那么强力的版本，微引力透镜。
For this method, astronomers have to observe the lensed object, in this case, the quasar, a bunch of different times,
用这种方法的时候，天文学家必须多次观测经透射的物体，也就是这颗类星体，
tracking how its brightness changes as the lens's position changes.
记录这颗类星体的亮度是如何随着透镜位置的变化而变化的。
If they see any spikes in that brightness, it means the object's light was distorted by planets hiding in the intermediate galaxy.
如果出现瞬间增量的现象，就表明该物体的光线经过中间星系里行星的作用而失真。
Microlensing has been used to find exoplanets in the Milky Way,
天文学家一直用微引力透镜的方法来寻找银河系中的外星行星，
but this is the first time that it's been used to infer the presence of planets anywhere outside our galaxy.
但这是第一次用这种方法来推断银河系外其他地方是否存在行星。
Now, to be clear, we don't have images of these planets. They're so far away that, I'm going to go out on a limb and say we never will.
先说清楚哦，我们没有这些行星的图片，真的太远了，我以性命担保人类永远也不会获得它们的照片。
We only believe they're there because the quasar's light signature indicates there has to be a lot of extra microlenses,
我们只是相信那里有这些行星，因为这颗类星体的光影表明那里一定发生了其他的微透镜效应，
and therefore, a lot of planets, within the intermediate galaxy. And I mean a lot of planets.
并据此推断类星体与银河系之间的星系里有许多行星存在，是很多行星哦！
According to a computer program, you would need about 2000 planets, ranging in mass from Earth's Moon to Jupiter,
根据计算机程序的计算，每个像太阳一样的主序星大概得有2000颗行星，
for every main sequence star, one that's kinda like the Sun, which is so many, but it's consistent with theoretical estimates. And there could be many more.
质量从地球的卫星月球到木星不一而足，2000颗不是小数目，但这确实是根据理论估测得出的结果，甚至有可能比2000还多。
For one, the data can only reveal rogue planets, because ones orbiting a star wouldn't cause enough of a microlensing effect on their own.
这一方面是因为数据计算得出的只是星际行星，因为环绕某颗恒星运转的行星自己不足以引起足够的微透镜效应。
Also, the team was only looking at a small part of the galaxy. So there's plenty of hope for discoveries.
另一方便是因为该天文学家小组此次只专注于银河系中的一小部分而已，所以还有很大的希望去发现其他的行星。
Overall, this isn't surprising news, because astronomers totally expect planets to exist in galaxies other than our own.
总体来说，这条新闻也不会很让人惊讶，毕竟天文学家一直都认为，除了地球之外，其他星系里还有很多行星的存在。
But the fact that we can finally say they are almost certainly there is a huge milestone,
但这已经是重要的里程碑了，
and this opens the door for astronomers to learn more about these especially alien worlds. Thanks for watching this episode of SciShow Space!
这为天文学家打开了了解外星世界的大门，感谢收看本期的《太空科学秀》！
If you'd like to keep learning about the universe with us, you can go to youtube.com/scishowspace and subscribe.
如果你想和我们一起继续了解有关宇宙的知识的话，可以访问并订阅youtube.com/scishowspace。
