Then Jupiter’s right there at 5-point something, and then Saturn is about 10 astronomical units from the Sun.
然后这边的木星到太阳有5 个天文单位左右的距离，之后土星到太阳的距离大概有10 个天文单位。
Um, well, this pattern is known as Bode’s Law.
嗯，这个规律就是众所周知的波德定律。
Um, it isn’t really a scientific law, not in the sense of predicting gravitation mathematically or something,
嗯，这不是一个真正意义上的科学定律，并不在预测重力数值之类的层面，
but it’s attempting a pattern in the spacing of the planets, and it was noticed by Bode hundreds of years ago.
但它在尝试测量星球之间的距离，于几百年前被波德发现。
Well, you can imagine that there was some interest in why the 2.8 spot in the pattern was skipped,
你们可以设想一下，这里有点意思：为什么跳过了2.8 这个点？
and um...but there wasn’t anything obvious there, in the early telescopes.
嗯……但这在早期的望远镜中并不明显。
Then what happened in the late 1700s? The discovery of...?
那么在18 世纪末发生了什么？发现了……？
Another planet?
学生：又一个行星？
The next planet out, Uranus—after Saturn.
下一个行星显现，天王星——在土星之后。
And look, Uranus fits in the next spot in the pattern pretty nicely, um, not perfectly, but close.
天王星放在下面这个空档里倒是很合适，嗯，尽管谈不上十分精准，但已经非常接近。
And so then people got really excited about the validity of this thing and finding the missing object between Mars and Jupiter.
后来，人们对这个数值的准确性变得很感兴趣，同时寻找火星和木星之间缺失的天体。
And telescopes, remember, were getting better.
而且要知道望远镜也变得越来越好了。
So people went to work on finding objects that would be at that missing distance from the Sun,
所以人们开始寻找那个空档到太阳间缺失的天体，
and then in 1801, the object Ceres was discovered.
后来到1801 年，谷神星被发现。
And Ceres was in the right place—the missing spot. Uh, but it was way too faint to be a planet.
谷神星正好在那个空档里。嗯，但作为一颗行星它又太微弱。
It looked like a little star. Uh, and because of its starlike appearance, um, it was called an “asteroid.” OK?
它看起来像一颗星星，因为它星状的外表，它被称为“小行星”。懂了吗？
“Aster” is Greek for “star,” as in “astronomy.”
“Aster”是希腊文，指“星星”，“天文学”这个词也有。
Um, and so, Ceres was the first and is the largest of what became many objects discovered at that same distance.
嗯，那么，谷神星是第一个也是在同一距离发现的天体里面最大的行星。
Not just one thing, but all the objects found at that distance form the asteroid belt.
不只是这一件，在那段距离里发现的所有物体组成了小行星带。
So the asteroid belt is the most famous success of this Bode’s Law. That’s how the asteroid belt was discovered.
小行星带是波德定律里最成功的（假设）。小行星带是这样被发现的。