中國建大型望遠鏡尋找外星人 重置近萬居民
BEIJING — More than 9,000 Chinese villagers are leaving their homes to make way for aliens.
北京——逾9000名中國村民離開家鄉，爲外星人讓路。
It is not a colonization plan from outer space. The Chinese government is relocating thousands of villagers to complete construction by September of the world’s biggest radio telescope, whose intended purpose is to detect signs of extraterrestrial life.
這不是外太空的殖民計劃。中國政府計劃在9月前重新安置數千名村民，以建成世界最大的射電望遠鏡，探測地外生命的跡象。
The telescope would be 500 meters, or 1,640 feet, in diameter, by far the largest of its kind in the world. It is called FAST, for Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical Telescope, and costs an estimated 1.2 billion renminbi, or $184 million.
該望遠鏡口徑將達到500米，是全世界此類望遠鏡中最大的。它被稱爲五百米口徑球面射電望遠鏡(FAST)，造價約爲12億元人民幣。
The mass relocation was announced on Tuesday in a report by Xinhua, the state news agency. The report said officials were relocating 2,029 families, a total of 9,110 people, living within a three-mile radius of the telescope in the area of Pingtang and Luodian Counties in the southwestern province of Guizhou.
官方媒體新華社於週二公佈了這個大規模搬遷計劃。報道稱，官員們將重新安置項目周邊5公里內核心區——中國西南部貴州省平塘縣和羅甸縣——共2029戶、9110人。
Officials plan to give each person the equivalent of $1,800 for housing compensation, the report said. Guizhou is one of China’s poorest provinces.
報道稱，官員們計劃按照每人1.2萬元標準進行補助。貴州是中國最貧窮的省份之一。
Forced relocations for infrastructure projects are common across China, and the people being moved by officials often complain both of the eviction from their homes and inadequate compensation. The Three Gorges Dam displaced more than one million people along the Yangtze River, and the middle route of the gargantuan South-North Water Diversion Project has resulted in the relocation of 350,000 people to make way for a series of canals.
爲基礎設施項目而強迫遷移的做法在中國各地很普遍，被迫搬遷的人經常抱怨稱自己被趕出家園，同時沒有獲得足夠多的補助。三峽大壩項目致使長江沿岸100多萬人遷移，龐大的南水北調中線工程導致35萬人搬遷，爲一系列水道讓路。
The Chinese government has announced ambitious plans for its space program, at a time when the American one is in retreat. China aims to put an astronaut on the moon and a space station in orbit. The FAST project is another important element in the larger plan.
中國政府宣佈了龐大的太空計劃，而此時美國的太空計劃正在收縮。中國計劃將宇航員送上月球，並打造在軌運行的空間站。FAST項目是這個大規模計劃的重要組成部分。
The telescope is being built in a wide depression among karst hills. The depression is far from cities and ideal for picking up radio transmissions, the Xinhua report said. Scientists began looking for a site in 1994 and finally settled on the Dawodang depression.
該望遠鏡選址於岩溶山區的一片寬闊的窪地。新華社報道稱，這片窪地遠離城市，有利於無線電信號的接收。科學家從1994年開始選址，最終選定大窩凼窪地。
If the truth is out there, then some Chinese scientists are confident that the giant telescope will find it. The current largest operational radio telescope is the 300-meter-diameter Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico, but FAST in Guizhou will far surpass that.
如果真的存在地外生命，一些中國科學家相信這座大型望遠鏡將會找到它。目前運行的最大射電望遠鏡在波多黎各阿雷西博天文臺(Arecibo Observatory)，直徑爲300米，貴州的FAST將遠遠超過它。
Li Di, a chief scientist with the National Astronomical Observatories under the Chinese Academy of Sciences, told China Daily last year that “with a larger signal receiving area and more flexibility, FAST will be able to scan two times more sky area than Arecibo, with three to five times higher sensitivity.”
中國科學院國家天文臺首席科學家李菂去年接受《中國日報》採訪時表示，“FAST擁有較大的信號接收區，更具靈活性，探查的天空面積是阿雷西博的兩倍多，精確度是它的三到五倍”。
Last November, scientists successfully tested the telescope’s “retina,” which weighs 33 tons and is suspended 460 to 525 feet above the reflector dish, which was half-finished at the time, China Daily reported.
《中國日報》報道稱，去年11月，科學家們成功測試了該望遠鏡的“視網膜”，這一部分重達33噸，懸浮在反射器上方140米至160米處，當時還是半成品。
The telescope has 4,500 panels that are mostly triangular and whose sides measure 36 feet, the report said. Those create a parabolic shape. The panels move and, by doing so, alter the shape of the antenna, which is supposed to pick up radio signals from distant corners of the universe. Those signals would then be reflected to a focal point.
報道稱該望遠鏡共有4500塊面板，其中大部分是三角形，其邊長約爲11米。它們會形成一個拋物面。這些面板通過移動改變天線的形狀，天線會接受來自宇宙偏遠角落的無線電信號。然後信號會反射到一個焦點。
Mr. Li told China Daily that engineers were aiming to install all the panels by this June and complete debugging by September.
李菂告訴《中國日報》，工程師計劃在今年6月前裝完所有反射面板，9月底前完成所有調試工作。
“Ultimately, exploring the unknown is the nature of mankind,” he said, adding that it was “as visceral as feeding and clothing ourselves.”
“歸根結底，探索未知是人類的本性，”他說，“就像吃飯穿衣一樣自然”。
“It drives us to a greater future,” he said.
他說，“它將帶領我們進入更廣闊的未來。”
