英語聽力文摘 外星人來電

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外星人來電

Suppose one day scientists pick up a transmission they think is generated by aliens. Now what? Do we build a landing strip and break out the welcome wagon?

Well here’s the thing about picking up alien broadcasts. The receivers scientists are currently using to listen to space noise are designed to find constant signals, or signals that are pulsing at regular intervals. But any message carried by these signals would probably be lost because the receivers can’t pick up the modulation, or rapid variations, in the base signal. The SETI institute, which searches for extra terrestrial life, has compared picking up a signal’s modulation to picking up the sound of a flute when it’s masked by the noise of a waterfall.

Luckily, scientists would still have enough data to pinpoint where in the sky the transmission is coming from. And any slow changes in the broadcast frequency would reveal information about the rotation and movement of the aliens’ planets.

Okay, but how will we know if they are friendly? Well, If we ever do detect a transmission, this would be huge news. The government would definitely allocate funds to building larger instruments capable of picking up signal modulations. However, even once scientists are able to measure the modulation, it isn’t certain that we’ll be able to understand the message. I guess everyone’s hoping that if the aliens are anything like us, they’ll send simple pictures and easy-to-decode messages.

假如有一天，科學(xué)家收到到外星人發(fā)來的信號該怎么辦呢?我們有建造飛碟起落跑道來歡迎它們嗎?

關(guān)于接收到外來廣播的事情是這樣的?？茖W(xué)家接者收目前會聽航天噪音，然后找出不變信號或者找出那些常規(guī)跳動(dòng)的信號。但是任何攜帶信息的信號都可能丟失，因?yàn)榻邮照咴谛盘柣夭荒苁占阶冋{(diào)或快速變化的信號。對外星智能的探索研究院，專門尋找外星生物。它他們對接受到信號的變調(diào)和被瀑布聲掩蓋的笛聲做了比較。

幸運(yùn)的是，科學(xué)家們有足夠的數(shù)據(jù)來確定信號廣播的位置。廣播頻率的細(xì)微變化都會揭露外星人星球的旋轉(zhuǎn)和運(yùn)動(dòng)情況。

我們怎樣才知道那些是友好的信號呢?如果我們發(fā)現(xiàn)了外來廣播，那就是很大新聞了。政府一定會撥款建造更大的儀器，能夠接受信號變調(diào)。不管怎樣，即使科學(xué)家能夠測量變調(diào)，也不能確定我們能明白這些信息。我想每個(gè)人都希望外星人與我們多少有點(diǎn)相似之處，會發(fā)簡單的圖畫和容易解碼的信息。

Notes:

SETI : abbr. search for extraterrestrial intelligence 對外星智能的探索