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SciShow Space is supported by Brilliant.org.
《太空科学秀》由Brilliant.org赞助播出。
If you ever find yourself traveling through the eastern United States, you might discover a spot that seems like it's stuck in the past.
如果大家曾在美国东部溜达过，你们可能会发现一个地方，就像停在过去不动了一样。
In a lot of ways, it looks just like all the land around it, with farms and green, rolling hills.
从很多方面来看，这个地方都像是陆地环绕的地方，到处都是农场和一片嫩绿，还有绵延的青山。
But something is very different. In parts of this region, which stretches for more than 33,000 square kilometers, you're not allowed to use cell phones or Wi-Fi.
但有些地方跟我们想像的不同。该地区的部分区域有3.3万多平方公里，那里禁止使用手机和wifi。
And in some places, you can't even drive a gasoline-powered car.
而且有些地方还不能开汽车。
It's called the National Radio Quiet Zone, or NRQZ, and it's more than just a peaceful getaway.
这个地方就是无线电静默区(NRQZ)，这里可不只是一个适合旅行的地方那么简单。
By sacrificing some of the comforts of modern living, the people living there contribute to some of the most important work in astronomy.
一些人会放弃现代生活的属实来到这里居住，为天文学做出了一些重要的贡献。
The NRQZ was established in 1958 to protect both the National Radio Astronomy Observatory and the U.S. Navy's Sugar Grove radio facilities.
无线电静默区是1958年创立的，初衷是为了保护国立射电天文台和美国海军的糖林无线电设施。
It's huge—larger than the whole state of Maryland—and straddles the Virginia and West Virginia borders, catching an itty bitty part of western Maryland along the way.
无线电静默区面积很大——比马里兰州整个州都要大?——横跨弗吉尼亚州和西弗吉尼亚州边界，沿途也零星涵盖了马里兰州的部分区域。
It's surrounded by the Allegheny mountains, which form a natural shield against outside radio wave interference.
无线电静默区周围围绕的阿勒格尼的群山是外部无线电波干扰的天然屏障。
And from the city of Green Bank, which is basically in the middle of the NRQZ, you can also get a great view of the Milky Way.
从阿勒格尼中央的城市绿色银行也可以一览银河系的壮美。
That makes it an awesome place for radio astronomy—for studying the stars, galaxies, and other objects that emit radio waves.
所以这里是无线电天文学研究的天堂——可以研究恒星、星系等放射无线电波的物体。
That is… unless there are a bunch of other radio sources near your ultra-sensitive telescopes.
除非这些超灵敏的望远镜附近有很多其他的无线电源。
There's where the NRQZ's technology restrictions come in, especially in the region closest to Green Bank.
这时候就需要无线电静默区发挥作用了，尤其是离绿色银行最近的区域。
We're talking no cell phones in this area, no Wi-Fi…
我们现在说的情况可是没有手机和wifi的环境哦。
Even things you wouldn't think could be sources for interference can be a problem, like electric blankets with damaged cords. Which did happen once, by the way.
有些我们意想不到的东西可能也会起到干扰作用，比如线绳受损的电热毯。这种情况有时候确实会发生。
If you're actually at the observatory, you can't even use gasoline-powered vehicles.
如果是在天文台，连车也开不了。
Spark plugs could also cause interference, so it's diesel engines only.
拔电源的瞬间也会产生干扰，所以只能用柴油机。
Of course, people living in the NRQZ still have things like cable, landlines, and broadband Internet.
当然了，生活在无线电静默区的人还是可以用电缆、陆上通信线、宽带网络这种东西的。
“Radio Quiet” doesn't mean “no technology”.
“无线电静默区”指的是“不能用无线电技术”。
But it's probably still a simpler lifestyle than you or I are used to, and these days it mainly exists to protect the Green Bank Observatory.
这种生活方式可能比咱们普通人所适应的生活方式更为简洁。而最近这种方式的出现主要是为了保护绿色银行天文台。
The observatory has had a lot of telescopes over the years, from the world's first fully automated one to a 20-meter telescope currently run by the University of North Carolina.
近年来，该天文台囊括了多个望远镜，既有世界上首个全自动望远镜，也有20米长的望远镜（现在由北卡罗来纳大学使用）。
For decades, it also had three telescopes operating in tandem as the Green Bank Interferometer.
过去几十年来，该天文台还有3个望远镜一起起到了绿色银行的干扰仪作用。
Its success led to the creation of the Very Large Array in New Mexico, star of the 1997 film Contact. Fine, co-star.
这个干扰仪助力创造了新墨西哥州的甚大天线阵。甚大天线阵就是1997年电影《超时空接触》中的主角。好吧好吧，准确的说，是配角。
Right now, though, the most important telescope there was constructed at the turn of the century: The Robert C. Byrd Green Bank Telescope, or GBT.
不过，现在，在世纪的转折点上，最重要的望远镜即将破壳出世，它就是：绿岸射电望远镜。
It replaced the observatory's former telescope, called the 300-Foot Telescope, which collapsed due to a structural failure in 1988.
该望远镜替代了天文台的前一个300英尺的望远镜。因为该望远镜于1988年因结构损坏而无法使用。
The GBT is the world's largest fully steerable radio telescope, measuring almost 150 meters tall, with a dish 100 meters wide that's capable of observing 85% of its celestial hemisphere.
绿岸射电望远镜是世界上最大的全操纵射电望远镜，近150米高，100米宽，可以观测85%的天体。
It's so big that the dish had to be made out of over 2000 aluminum panels; they're individually operated to compensate for the dish sagging under its own weight.
该望远镜体型巨大，由2000多块铝板制成。每一块铝板都可以起到让望远镜不会因为自身重量而下垂。
The telescope also has receivers cooled to nearly -270°C to minimize interference from thermal radiation.
该望远镜自带接收器，可以冷却到近零下270摄氏度的温度，从而将热辐射引起的干扰降到最低。
All that gives the GBT a sensitivity equivalent to a billionth of a billionth of a millionth of a Watt.
所以，绿岸射电望远镜的灵敏度可以精确到数万亿分之一。
It can detect energies less than that of a single snowflake falling on Earth!
绿岸射电望远镜还可以观测到比地球上雪花片还小的能量！
Over the years, GBT and Green Bank's other telescopes have contributed a lot to the field of astronomy.
过去这些年来，绿岸射电望远镜和绿色银行的其他望远镜为天文学做出了巨大贡献。
Like, back in 1968, the 300-Foot Telescope discovered that pulsars—those fast-spinning, seemingly flashing points of light—are actually the remnants of supernovas!
比如，1968年的时候，300英尺的望远镜观测到：快速旋转的、看起来闪着光的脉冲星其实是超新星的残留物！
And less than a decade later, the Green Bank Interferometer detected the super powerful, point-like radio source at the center of our galaxy known as Sagittarius A*.
而在那之后不到10年内，绿色银行的干涉仪探测到了超强的无线电源，是像点一样的存在，就在人马座A星系的中央地带。
Yeah. The supermassive black hole. That Sagittarius A*.
没错，就是超大质量的黑洞人马座A。
In 1969, Green Bank's 43-meter telescope even discovered the first complex molecule found in space: formaldehyde.
1969年，绿色银行43米的望远镜甚至发现了太空中的第一个复杂分子：甲醛分子。
Later, it also found a bunch of others, including cyanoacetylene—a possible precursor to nucleic acids, the stuff in DNA.
随后，该望远镜发现了其他一些分子，比如氰基乙炔分子——它可能是DNA中核酸的前身。
I mean, we definitely didn't discover DNA in the center of the galaxy or anything, but finding molecules like these reveals the kinds of conditions these complex molecules need to form.
我想说的是，我们当然没在该星系中央或者太空的其他地方发现过DNA，但发现这种分子表明这些复杂分子要形成所需要的环境条件。
We used to think they were pickier—that chemistry like this couldn't take place in outer space, but we were wrong.
我们以前认为所需的环境会更为苛刻——外太空是不会发生这种化学过程的，但我们以前想错了。
There's also another thing we were wrong about: the amount of stuff out there.
还有一件事我们想错了：太空里物质的含量。
Specifically, while tracking blobs of hydrogen found in spiral galaxies, the 300-Foot Telescope found that a galaxy's outer regions spin just about as fast as their middle regions.
在追踪到螺旋星云中氢气团存在的同时，这个300英尺的望远镜也发现：某星系的外部区域，其转速跟中间区域一样快。
That doesn't sound like a big deal, but under our current understanding of physics, that doesn't happen.
这听起来没什么大不了的，但根据我们现在对物理学的了解，这是不可能的。
Just like the more distant planets in our solar system take more time to go around the Sun, the outer blobs should be going a lot slower than observations revealed.
就像太阳系里较远的行星需要更多的时间才能围绕太阳旋转一样，外部的氢气团应该比观测结果里运转的更慢才对。
There had to be extra, invisible—or dark—matter out there!
所以，那里一定有其他看不见的暗物质！
This wasn't the first evidence of dark matter, but it was important follow-up.
这并非暗物质存在的首份证据，但这是很重要的后续发现。
And these are just some of the discoveries made thanks to the NRQZ and the telescopes that live there.
而这只是无线电静默区和那里的望远镜所做的部分发现而已。
We've talked about the major ones, but there are still tons more.
我们已经探讨过主要的一些发现了，但其实还有很多发现来不及讲。
There are links in the description if you're interested.
如果大家感兴趣的话，描述中可以自取链接哦。
One thing is for sure, though: Even though these super detailed observations have required some sacrifice, they've been totally worth it for our understanding of the universe.
不过，有一件事是肯定的：虽然要实现这些超级精细的观察需要做出一些牺牲，但牺牲都是值得的，因为我们可以更加了解宇宙。
And most people seem to like living there, too.
而且大多数人似乎都很喜欢在无线电静默区离生活。
We have a co-worker at SciShow who gets a little weepy at parades because they love to see people working together, and that's how I feel thinking about the citizens of Green Bank.
我们一位《太空科学秀》的同事每次看到检阅就会潸然泪下，因为他们喜欢看到人们众志成城的场面。而我在看到绿色银行市民的时候，也有一样的感受。
It takes an incredible amount of thought and commitment to plan something like the NRQZ.
要计划出无线电静默区这样的区域是需要做很多思考、花费很多精力的。
I am not a civil engineer but I love thinking about how all the things we take for granted in a city come together.
我不是土木工程师，但我喜欢思考城市里我们理所当然看待的一些事情是如何协同运转的。
Brilliant.org has a course on physics of the everyday, with a section on Infrastructure that I wanted to check out.
Brilliant.org有一节课与每天会接触到的物理知识有关，其中有一个章节讲的是基础设施，我对这个很感兴趣。
I took the quiz on Traffic, which I was excited about because of the SciShow episode on traffic jams.
因为《太空科学秀》有关于交通拥堵的集锦，所以我很高兴地做了有关“交通”部分的试题。
I knew the answer to the first question because I helped film that video, but then the quiz continues to dig deeper into the math of traffic flow and the quiz got harder ...
第一道题的答案，我本人是知道的，因为我也参与了那个视频的制作。不过，试题的难度逐步加大，开始深入交通流量的数学计算。
but also more fun because I was applying what I was learning as I went.
不过，趣味性也更强了，因为我能学以致用。
The Brilliant Infrastructure course has quizzes on everything from fluoridated water to skyscrapers, so I learned a lot just playing around on the site.
Brilliant上基础设施的课程非常全面，涵盖了加氟水、摩天大楼，所以我学到了很多。
To learn more about this or any of the other courses Brilliant offers, go to Brilliant.org/SciShowSpace to sign up for free.
要了解更多有关Brilliant的内容，可以免费注册Brilliant.org/SciShowSpace。
And right now, Brilliant is offering the first 200 people to use that link 20% off the annual premium subscription.
现在，Brilliant为前200名注册用户减免20%的年度订阅费。
So, as long as you're not sitting in traffic right now or using Wi-Fi in the National Radio Quiet Zone, check it out!
所以，如果此刻的大家不是堵在路上，也不是在无线电静默区没有wifi的状态下，就赶快行动吧！
