How Big Are Those Killer Asteroids A Critic Says NASA Doesn’t Know..docx

点评：有些地方英文理解错误或不全面，因此造成误译或漏译。How Big Are Those Killer Asteroids? A Critic Says NASA Doesnt Know.杀伤力小行星到底有多大？NASA不知道More than14,000 known asteroidszip throughEarths neighborhood. They will all miss Earth in the coming decades.目前发现的小行星中，至少有14，ooo颗与地球擦肩而过。在未来几十年里，这些小行星都将会消失在人类视线中。But hundreds of thousands more have not yet been discovered, and whether any of those are on course to slam into our planet, no one knows. So finding and tracking all the asteroids that could cross Earths path would allow officials to issue warnings and potentially provide time to deflect dangerous ones.但是，仍然有不计其数的行星等待人类去探索，没有人能够断言，他们未来是否有可能会撞击地球？所以，这为官员们敲响警钟，给他们争取到时间去研究小行星运行轨迹，发现可能会与地球发生撞击的行星。The community of scientists contemplating such doomsday possibilities is small and usually cordial at least untilNathan P. Myhrvoldbarged in. Once the chief technologist at Microsoft, Dr. Myhrvold moved on to other endeavors like a six-volume,2,438-page compendium of cooking knowledgethat has been celebrated by chefs. (A sequel, about baking, is in the works.)科学家们深思熟虑后，认为世界末日发生的概率极小，但纳森梅尔沃德对此不敢苟同，而在此之前，人们都很相信科学家的判断。后来，纳森梅尔沃德转向其他研究方向，撰写了烹饪纲要，包括6卷，2348页，得到厨师们很高的赞誉。He has also become a statistics scold of scientists.而且，他还利用统计数据抨击科学家的言论。His latest target isNASA, in a squabble over data from theWide-field Infrared Survey Explorerspacecraft. WISE, launched in 2009, snapped images of three-quarters of a billion stars, galaxies and other celestial objects, including the heat emissions of asteroids.最近，他与NASA在宽视场红外巡天探测器（WISE）收集的数据展开驳论。2009年，NASA提出WISE项目，该项目负责捕捉宇宙中大约7.5亿个恒星、星系和其他物体的图片信息，包括小行星的热辐射数据。An offshoot calledNeowiseused the heat data to calculate the size and reflectivity of 158,000 asteroids.WISE项目还包括Neowise子项目，用以计算158,000颗小行星尺寸及反射率。Dr. Myhrvold contends that the Neowise analysis is deeply flawed. “The bad news is its all basically wrong,” he said. “Unfortunately for a lot of it, its never going to be as accurate as they had hoped.”梅儿沃德反驳道，Neowise计算数据存在严重错误，“而且，所有错误都是最基本的不应该出现的错误，由此得出的结果完全达不到预期”。He submittedhis ownanalysis of the Neowiseresultsto the journalIcarus.他对Neowise数据进行了分析，并把分析结果发表在行星科学杂志Icarus中。Dr. Myhrvold isnt arguing that NASA has overlooked dangers from the known asteroids. But he does question whether scientists know as much as they think they do.梅儿沃德并不认为NASA低估了已发现的小行星构成的潜在威胁。但他对NASA科学家的能力提出质疑。He has also zeroed in on a proposed space-based telescope with a price tag of more than half a billion dollars, theNear-Earth Object Camera, or Neocam, a project headed by some of the same scientists whose work he is second-guessing.除此之外，令他质疑的还有一点，NASA科学家提出的近地天体相机或Neocam项目，他还提议使用天基望远镜， 其价格高于5亿。Most of the millions of asteroids are found between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter, but some dip closer to the sun. There is no doubt that some will hit Earth someday.大多数小行星运行在火星与木星之间，还有一些靠近太阳。由此，毫无疑问的是，未来有小行星会与地球发生碰撞。The bigger the asteroid, the greater the potential cataclysm. The reflectivity of the surface what astronomers callalbedo tells how easily it can be detected.小行星越大，地球遭受的灾难就更严重。科学家根据小行星表面的反射率（albedo）可以探测到小行星尺寸。 “From the practical perspective of finding asteroids,” Dr. Myhrvold said, “its really important that we know the distribution of diameters and the distribution of albedos.”梅儿沃德表示：“考虑到可以发现小行星的概率，有必要了解小行星的直径分布与反射率分布。”According to NASAs scientists, the estimates of asteroid diameters made by Neowise are often within 10 percent of the actual size. But Dr. Myhrvold says the uncertainties are much greater, more than 100 percent in many cases.科学家认为，根据Neowise项目估算出的小行星直径与真实值间的误差小于10%，但梅儿沃德却认为还会受到许多不确定因素的影响，在很多情况下，得出结果的误差率多于100%。Space agency officials disagree. “Hes a very smart man,” said Lindley Johnson, who oversees NASAs efforts to protect the planet from space rocks. “But that doesnt make him an expert in everything.”航天局主管林德利约翰逊对此不满，“梅儿沃德确实很有能力，但是并不意味着他精通任何科学”，他看到了NASA尽力在保护地球不受宇宙中小行星的撞击。Dr. Johnson said NASA experts had pointed out errors and that Dr. Myhrvold had not fixed them. “Its overly simplistic, and he makes some assumptions that are not valid,” Dr. Johnson said.约翰逊表示，NASA专家已经指出了错误，同时还解决了梅儿沃德未解决的相关问题，“梅儿沃德没能解决的问题都非常简单，他做出的假设中，很多没有根据”。Other scientists say that Dr. Myhrvolds criticisms have merit.但也有其他科学家认为梅儿沃德的批评言论有可取之处。“I do think hes performed a really very useful service,” saidAlan W. Harris, a senior research scientist at theSpace Science Institute, “to do the error analysis more carefully and alert people that you shouldnt just take some of the data out of the WISE table and just assume theyre gospel.”太空科学研究所成员艾伦w哈里斯说：“梅儿沃尔的言论大有裨益，我们应该更仔细地进行误差分析，同时也要警示人们，不要认为从WISE桌上拿出去的数据都是绝对真实的。But even if Dr. Myhrvold is correct, Dr. Harris said the Neowise data “has good enough validity to be useful for most purposes.”哈里斯还认为，“即使梅儿沃德的言论正确，Neowise数据在其他方面也另有用途“Not Even an Astronomer（甚至都不是天文学家）Dr. Myhrvold is not an astronomer. He had never done research on asteroids.梅儿沃德没有参与任何小行星的探究，并不是天文学家。He is oftenvilified as a “patent troll,”becauseIntellectual Ventures, the company he founded after leaving Microsoft in 1999, acquires patents and extracts licensing fees from other companies1999年，梅儿沃德离开微软，创立高智公司，购买专利，并从其他公司收取授权使用费，因此有人认为他是“专利流氓”。During his paleontological endeavors another hobby he challenged research by a Florida State University professor,Gregory M. Erickson, about the growth rates of dinosaurs. In a 2013 paper, Dr. Myhrvold described the perceived statistical wrongsand stopped just short of accusing Dr. Erickson of manipulating the data.在古生物学方面，他质疑佛罗里达州立大学教授Gregory M. Erickson在恐龙增长率方面的研究。在其2013年的文章中，他指出了教授在统计数据方面出现的错误，差一点就控告教授私自伪造数据。Corrections have been appended to several of Dr. Ericksons papers, includingtwoin Nature. Dr. Erickson and his colleagues maintain that the mistakes did not alter their conclusions. Florida State cleared Dr. Erickson of wrongdoing after an inquiry.随后，该教授的多篇论文得到纠正，包括两篇在自然杂志上发表的论文。Erickson和其同事共同声明，出现的数据错误并未影响结果。佛罗里达州也在调查后，澄清了教授的错误。“Having somebody like Nathan having a different perspective and different background coming in and looking at it with fresh eyes, I think theres nothing wrong with that,” saidKristina Curry Rogers, a vertebrate paleontologist at Macalester College in Minnesota who was an author on Dr. Ericksons Nature papers. “It makes us all think.”克里斯蒂娜A 加里 罗杰斯，Erikon教授自然杂志上发表论文的作者之一，他认为“纳森这样的人，背景特殊，从不同的角度看待问题，用新奇的眼观分析问题，没什么不对，他让我们重新开始思考”。Dr. Myhrvold was drawn into asteroids research when theB612 Foundation, a nonprofit organization that advocatesplanetary defenseefforts, asked him to contribute money for Sentinel, a privately financed $450-million, asteroid-finding spacecraft.B62基金会是一个非盈利组织，倡导行星防御，该组织要求梅儿沃德为哨兵项目投资，这是一个私人投资的发现小行星航天器，自此，梅儿沃德开始参与小行星研究。What they didnt know is that I had been interested in killer asteroids for a long time,” Dr. Myhrvold said. After all, an asteroid slamming into Earth is believed to have brought the age of dinosaurs to an end 66 million years ago.梅儿沃德说道：“人们不知道的是，在很久之前，我就想研究杀伤力小行星了”，毕竟，6600万年前，小行星碰撞地球导致恐龙灭绝。But Dr. Myhrvold learned of several other efforts, including NASAs Neocam, which would cost about $500 million (plus the rocket to launch it), and theLarge Synoptic Survey Telescope, a ground-based observatory already under construction in Chile.而且，梅儿沃德还做了其他方面的功课，包括了解NASA的Neocam项目及大型综合巡天望远镜，他为研究Neacam花费大约5亿美元（包括发射火箭），而且，智利已经开始建立地面观察望远镜。Each group offered computer simulations of how many unseen asteroids would be spotted, making different assumptions.各界研究人员提出不同翻计算机仿真方法，模拟可能发现的小行星，并做出各种假设。Ina paper published in Marchin The Publications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific, Dr. Myhrvold took a simpler approach to provide an apples-to-apples comparison. He looked at the volume of space that each telescope could observe, then calculated what fraction of unseen asteroids would pass through that space.3月太平洋天文学会上发表的一篇文章中提到，梅儿沃尔采用了一种更简单的方法，同类比较法。他观察每台望远镜能看到的空间，然后计算通过该空间的小行星比例。“I thought it all looked quite reasonable,” saidSteven R. Chesley, a senior research scientist at NASAsJet Propulsion Laboratoryin Pasadena, Calif. “Nathan definitely brings a fresh approach.”史蒂芬r切斯利认为“这一方法看似可行”，他是位于加利福尼亚帕萨迪纳市的喷气推进实验室的资深研究人员，他还表示“这种方法无意是一种全新的方法”Dr. Myhrvold concluded that the ground-based telescope in Chile, a $665 million collaboration of the United StatesDepartment of Energy, theNational Science Foundationand other organizations, could find up to 90 percent of near-Earth asteroids if it spent more time looking low in the sky, closer to the Earths horizon.梅儿沃德总结道，“智利的基地望远镜项目由美国能源部、国家自然科学基金和其他组织共同发起，如果用时更久来认真研究地表周围，90%的行星都能被发现”Zeljko Ivezic, the telescopes project scientist, said the trade-off would be a two-year postponement in completing its survey of the rest of the cosmos and an additional cost of $100 million, and telescope officials have asked NASA whether it would help pay for that.Zeljko Ivezic是该望远镜项目中的科学家，他表示，还需2年才能完成对宇宙其余部分的探索，还会产生1亿美元额外费用，该项目负责人询问NASA这部分费用是否可以由NASA代为支付。Ultimately, Dr. Myhrvold, who became wealthy from his Microsoft days, decided not to donate money to B612.所以，梅儿沃德虽然在微软公司得到财富，最终决定不投资B612基金。He has also not given any money to the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope, which has received some private financing from Bill Gates, his former Microsoft boss.此外，他同样没有投资大型综合巡天望远镜项目。此前，该项目得到微软公司前主席比尔盖茨资助。In writing the paper published in March, Dr. Myhrvold talked with people working on the different projects, includingAmy Mainzer, the principal investigator for Neocam and Neowise.梅儿沃德与不同项目组的研究人员谈论3月份发表的论文，包括Neocam 及Neowise项目中的主要调查人员Amy Mainzer。Dr. Myhrvold said that Dr. Mainzer argued that a ground-based telescope could not detect asteroids within Earths orbit because they would be too close to the horizon.梅儿沃德说道：“Mainzer认为地基望远镜无法观察到地球轨道内的小行星，因为望远镜距离地球地平圈太近。That seemed strange to Dr. Myhrvold, because even amateurs can easily spot celestial objects far inside Earths orbit like Venus, 26 million miles closer to the sun than Earth.梅儿沃德对此感动惊奇，虽然人类距离地球运行轨道很远，但还是有人能观察到金星，其比地球距离太阳近2600万英里。Dr. Myhrvold said Dr. Mainzer responded that large telescopes were not designed to point that close