为什么外星文明会花时间探访地球?

为什么外星文明会花时间探访地球?

Our Milky Way galaxy could be filled with alien civilizations, a new study claims, but we don’t know because they haven’t stopped by Earth for a visit in millions of years.

一项新的研究声称，我们的银河系可能充满了外星文明，但我们不知道，因为它们数百万年来都没有被地球阻止过。

According to a study published last month in The Astronomical Journal, extraterrestrial life might be taking its time to fully explore the galaxy, even using the movement of star systems to make this type of journey easier.

根据上个月发表在《天文杂志》上的一项研究，外星生命可能会花时间来全面探索银河系，甚至利用恒星系统的运动来简化这类旅行。

The scientists’ work is the latest response to what’s known as the Fermi paradox, which wonders why we have yet to detect signs of alien life.

科学家们的工作是对“费米悖论”的最新回应。“费米悖论”想知道为什么我们还没有发现外星生命的迹象。

The new study claims the aliens may just be taking their time and being strategic.

这项新研究称，外星人可能只是在从容不迫地进行战略部署。

“If you don’t account for motion of stars when you try to solve this problem, you’re basically left with one of two solutions,” Jonathan Carroll-Nellenback, a computational scientist and the study’s lead author, told Business Insider. “Either nobody leaves their planet, or we are in fact the only technological civilization in the galaxy.”

计算科学家、该研究的主要作者乔纳森·卡罗尔·内伦巴克(Jonathan Carroll Nellenback)在接受《商业内幕》(Business Insider)采访时说：“如果你在试图解决这个问题时不考虑恒星的运动，基本上就只剩下两个解决方案中的一个了。”“要么没有外星人离开他们的星球，要么我们实际上是银河系中唯一的文明。”

Stars, along with the planets around them, orbit the center of the Milky Way on unique paths at varying speeds, and they sometimes zip past one another as they do, Business Insider reports.

据《商业内幕》报道，恒星及其周围的行星以不同的速度沿着独特的轨道绕银河系中心运行，它们有时也会像这样彼此擦肩而过。

Carroll-Nellenback’s study points out that the aliens could simply be waiting for their next destination to come closer to them.

卡罗尔·内伦巴克的研究指出，外星人可能只是在等待下一个靠近他们的目的地。