2017考研英语拓展阅读：霍金表示短时间内不会发现外星人
Will humanity find intelligent alien life anytime soon? Probably not, according to theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking.
Hawking made the prediction yesterday (April 12) during the Breakthrough Starshot announcement in New York City. At the news conference, Hawking, along with Russian billionaire investor Yuri Milner and a group of scientists, detailed a new project that aims to send a multitude of tiny, wafer-size spaceships into space to the neighboring star system Alpha Centauri.
If these tiny spaceships travel at 20 percent the speed of light, they’ll be able to reach Alpha Centauri in just 20 years, Milner said. Once there, the spacecraft will be able to do a 1-hour flyby of Alpha Centauri and collect data that’s impossible to gather from Earth, such as taking close-up photos of the star system, probing space dust molecules and measuring magnetic fields, said Avi Loeb, chairman of the Breakthrough Starshot Advisory Committee and a professor of science at Harvard University.
In addition to learning about space technology, the audience wanted to hear about aliens — specifically, when scientists might find them.
Hawking took questions from reporters in advance so that he would have time to prepare his answers.
Hawking said it’s not likely that scientists will find intelligent alien life in the next 20 years. "The probability is low, probably," he said.
But the cosmologist did mention one caveat.
"The discoveries of the [NASA] Kepler mission suggest that there are billions of habitable planets in our galaxy alone," Hawking said. "There are at least a hundred billion galaxies in the visible universe, so it seems likely that there are others out there."
Hawking has famously predicted that intelligent aliens might threaten humankind. Indeed, when asked yesterday about what Earthlings should do if we come across intelligent alien life, he said, "We should hope that they don’t find us."
Other researchers on the panel offered a more optimistic view of extraterrestrial life.
Ann Druyan, an author, TV producer and wife of the late astronomer and astrophysicist Carl Sagan, said that, in her view, "extraterrestrials are beautiful until proven ugly, because of the great feat and demonstration of maturity. That’s required to learn how to be a space-bearing civilization."
In fact, Hawking agreed that humans might not be all that great. When asked what he thought alien life might look like, he joked, "Judging by the election campaign, definitely not like us."
人类会在不久之后发现外星的高级生物吗?据著名理论物理学家史蒂芬·霍金推测，人类短期之内发现外星人的可能性较小。
霍金在4月12日于纽约市进行了一次关于“突破摄星”计划的介绍演讲，并对外星生物进行了预测。在新闻发布会上，霍金和俄罗斯亿万富翁投资人尤里·米尔纳以及许多科学家一起对这个全新的太空项目进行详细讲解。该项目计划建造大批微型星际飞船，并将其发射至临近的半人马座阿尔法星。
米尔纳表示，如果这些微型星际飞船能够以1/5的光速行驶，那么它们就有望在20年之内到达阿尔法星。“突破摄星”计划顾问委员会会长兼哈佛大学科学领域的专家艾维·劳埃伯提到，一旦到达阿尔法星附近，飞船将可以绕其进行一小时的近飞探测，并收集一些地球上无法获得的数据资料。例如：拍摄阿尔法星表面的近照，探索太空中的尘埃颗粒以及测量周围的电磁场等等。
除了想了解太空技术之外，在场的观众们还特别迫切地想听到关于外星人的相关消息，尤其是关于科学家们何时能够发现外星人这一话题。
霍金事先从记者那里获取了相关问题，以便有充足的时间来准备如何回答。
霍金表示在未来二十年内，科学家发现外星生命的可能性微乎其微。“这种可能性非常小。”霍金说道。
但是这位宇宙学家却在此提出了一次警告。
霍金说道：“NASA开普勒计划的相关发现表明：仅在我们的银河系内就存在着数十亿颗可以居住的行星。宇宙中至少存在上百亿个银河系，所以存在外星生命的可能性还是非常大的。”
霍金曾经做过著名的预测，即外星生命很可能对人类生存产生威胁。发布会上，霍金被问到如果地球人真的遇见外星生物了应该如何应对这一问题，他表示：“我们应该祈祷他们不要发现我们。”
其他专家组的成员则对发现外星生物的可能性抱有相对乐观的态度。
安·德鲁彦是已故的天文学家兼天体物理学家卡尔·萨根的遗孀，同时也是作家以及电视制作人。对此她表示：“随着伟大功绩的诞生和演示手法的成熟，外星生命会逐渐褪去其华丽的外表，变得愈发丑陋。这需要我们去学习如何去塑造一种太空文明。”
事实上，霍金也同样认为人类并非无所不能。当霍金被问到他脑海中外星人的长相如何，霍金开玩笑地说道：“从美国最近的总统选举来看，长相肯定不像我们。”
(责任编辑：田学江)
