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Imagine, piece by piece, I could compress our planet
想象将地球分成一片一片地进行压缩
and crush it until gravity took over.
在万有地心引力接手前一直对其挤压
And it became a black hole.
于是它变成黑洞
How small would it have to
它要达到多小才能
be to vanish down its own gravitational well?
陷入自身的重力势阱呢
From 8,000 miles in diameter, I'd have to crush it to the size of a pea.
我需要将它从直径八千英里压至一粒豌豆大小
In my years studying black holes,
我研究黑洞的这些年里
one of my most unexpected discoveries was
一个发现非常出乎意料
that a black hole cannot be perfectly black.
即黑洞不完全是黑色的
For much the same reason as the early universe
如同早期宇宙
could not have been perfectly spread out,
不能完美无缺的分散一样
there is no such thing as perfection.
世间不存在十全十美
Black holes must give off radiation.
黑洞一定会释放辐射
The smaller the black hole, the greater the radiation.
黑洞越小，辐射越强
and even a tinier black hole with only the mass of the mountain range would actually shine.
甚至轻至山体质量大小的微型黑洞也会发光
Out in space, most black holes are much larger.
太空中，多数黑洞都较大
The smaller ones have around four times the mass of our sun.
小黑洞约是太阳质量的四倍
and are 15 miles in diameter.
直径约十五英里
Some are much larger,
有些非常大
containing the mass of thousands of suns.
相当于数千个太阳的质量
And then there are the really big ones:
还有一些相当大的黑洞
supermassive black holes,
特大质量黑洞
that exist at the centers of galaxies like our own.
它们存在于银河系似的星系中心
This black hole is thought to have the mass of four million suns,
这个黑洞质量相当于四百万个太阳
and a diameter of 11 million miles.
直径一千一百万英里
Black holes like these are the heavy hubs around
这样的黑洞是像银河系等
which many galaxies including the Milky Way rotate,
众多星系围绕的巨大中心
a kind of stabilizer that gives them form and shape.
也是维持它们形态和轮廓的稳定器
So eight billion years after the Big Bang,
宇宙大爆炸八十亿年后
after a long and remarkable run of good luck,
携着长时间显著的好运气
we have stars and we have galaxies,
宇宙中出现了在围绕巨大黑洞
slowly rotating around giant black holes.
缓慢旋转的星体和星系
Now the scene is set for something close to our hearts,
我们所熟悉的事物即将依次出现
the formation of our sun, the Earth,
太阳，地球的形成
and ultimately us.
最终，我们人类
