Want a good, solid, rollicking laugh? Contemplate the end of the world—the whole existential shebang: the annihilation of civilization, the extinction of all species, the death of the entire Earthly biomass.
想要一件真正、紮實、爽朗之引人發笑的事？思考世界末日，整個有關存在的事情：文明的毀滅、所有物種的滅絕、整個地球生物量的破滅。
Funny, right? Actually, yes—and arch and ironic and dark and smart, at least in the hands of Adam McKay (The Big Short, Vice), whose new film Don’t Look Up was released in theaters on Dec. 10 and is set to begin streaming on Netflix Dec. 24.
有趣，對吧？事實上，是的，而且淘氣、反諷、隱晦及機敏，至少在Adam McKay (執導大空頭及副)的手中，其新電影《別抬頭》，於2021年12月10 日，在影院上映。且將於12月24日，開始在提供網路視頻點播的Netflix平台上播放。
The premise of the film is equal parts broad, plausible and utterly terrifying. A comet measuring up to 9 km (5.6 mi.) across is discovered by Ph.D candidate Kate Dibiasky (Jennifer Lawrence), while she is conducting routine telescopic surveys searching for supernovae.
這部電影的前提，既廣泛、似合理且十足令人驚嘆。當博士候選人，Kate Dibiasky(Jennifer Lawrence飾演)進行尋找超新星的例行望遠鏡瞭望時，發現了一顆直徑達9公里(5.6英里)的彗星。
Kudos and back-slaps from her colleagues follow—find a comet, after all, and you get to give it your name. But the good times stop when her adviser, Dr. Randall Mindy ((Leonardo DiCaprio), crunches the trajectory numbers and determines that Comet Dibiasky—which is about the same size as the asteroid that wiped out the dinosaurs 65 million years ago—is on course to collide with Earth in a planet-killing crack-up exactly six months and 14 days later.
畢竟，發現了一顆彗星，繼來自其同僚們的讚譽及拍肩背表示贊許之後，亦即能以自己名字命運它。不過，當她的指導教授，Randall Mindy博士(Leonardo DiCaprio飾演)解析軌道數據，並確定Dibiasky彗星(大約與6500萬年前，消滅恐龍的小行星相同大小)是處於，正好六個月零14天後，一個毀滅行星之猛撞中，與地球碰撞的途徑上時，而中止了此能被接受的時間。
Mindy and Dibiasky bring the matter to the attention of the potty-mouthed, chain-smoking, deliciously corrupt President Orlean (Meryl Streep) and her pampered son and chief of staff Jason (Jonah Hill).
Mindy及Dibiasky彗星，使滿口髒話、煙不離口、貪得無厭的腐敗總統Orlean (Meryl Streep飾演)，及其嬌慣之兒子兼幕僚長的Jason (Jonah Hill飾演)，對此事情的注意。
“I hear there’s a comet or an asteroid you don’t like the look of,” says Orlean, who is preoccupied with the upcoming midterms and her most recent Supreme Court nominee, who turns out to have been a former soft-core porn star. “What’s the ask here?”
一心想著即將到來之期中及其最近最高法院被提名人(原來是一名前較隱晦的色情明星)的Orlean宣稱：「她聽說有一顆，人們不喜歡其樣子的彗星或小行星。什麼是這一點上的問題？」
“I’m so booored,” moans Jason, as Dr. Mindy tries to explain the science.
當Mindy博士試圖解釋此科學時，Jason抱怨地說：「我很booored。」
Rebuffed by the White House, the astronomers take their case to a morning cable show, The Daily Rip, but can’t get their message heard through the hosts’ incessant happy talk.
遭到白宮(政府)拒絕，此些天文學家們將他們的事例，帶到了一個晨間有線電視節目─The Daily Rip上。不過，無法透過主持人不斷的愉快談話，使他們的信息被聽到。
The public responds with equal parts denial, conspiracy mongering and instant meme-making, declaring Dibiasky crazy and Dr. Mindy an AILF, with A standing for astronomer and ILF standing for, well.
公眾以既否認、陰謀論及即時迷因(訊息被大量模仿再造的現象)製作的反應，宣稱Dibiasky 瘋了，Mindy博士是AILF(難得的天文學家)，A代表天文學家，ILF代表，難得的。
The president, meantime, is persuaded by Peter Isherwell (Mark Rylance), a head of a technology company named Bash, that there is money to be made mining the comet for precious metals, distracting her from the more pressing business of just blowing the thing up.
在此同時，該位總統被一家名為Bash之技術公司的負責人，Peter Isherwell(Mark Rylance飾演)說服，開採彗星的貴金屬能賺錢。這分散了其有關，立即炸毀此彗星之更緊迫的事。
For the planet and all life on it, the clock is ticking and there are mortal decisions to be made—decisions a frivolous, fractious, distracted humanity does not appear up to handling. There is an undertow of grimness to the story, one that could have dragged it under entirely if not for a hilariously absurd final scene. But the grim is there all the same—and that is very much the filmmakers’ apparent intent.
對地球及其上的所有生命而言，時間在流逝，有諸多待做的重大決定。這些是一位輕浮、易怒、分心的人，顯然無法處置的決定。
Don’t Look Up is being widely seen as a climate change parable, with the same delay, debate and politicization of a simple, binary, life-or-death issue preventing the world from taking action. A strike from space is death by gunshot while climate change is a slow, global poisoning, but the result—the end of days—is the same.
電影《別抬頭》被廣泛視為氣候變遷，具有簡單、二元、生死攸關之問題，同樣拖延、辯論及政治化，而阻礙世界採取行動的一個寓言。來自太空的撞擊是槍擊死亡，而氣候變遷是一種緩慢、全球性的中毒。不過，結果(日子的盡頭)是相同的。
The key solutions for climate change are well-known by now—switching over from fossil fuels to clean renewables and retrofitting cities and other vulnerable places for the floods, wildfires, hurricanes and more that are increasingly resulting from the warming already baked into the system.
氣候變遷的主要解決方案，目前已經眾所周知。從化石燃料轉向潔淨可再生的能源，並對城市及其他易受洪水、野火、颶風與更多，日益起因於已經融入生態系之暖化原因的地方，進行改造。
It’s long-term planetary therapy as opposed to a fast cure. The solutions to the threat of incoming ordnance from space are less commonly discussed but could be equally and—more important, immediately—effective.
這是長期的地球療法，而不是一種快速的治療。從太空到來之大炮威脅的解決方案，較不常被討論。不過，可能是同樣且(更重要的是，立即)有效。
NASA, as Don’t Look Up reveals, already has a wonderfully named Planetary Defense Coordination Office (PDCO), whose remit is to scan the skies to discover and catalogue potentially menacing space rocks long before they can reach Earth, and help the government coordinate a response, either by deflecting or destroying the object.
如同《別抬頭》電影揭示的，美國航太總署(NASA)已經有一個，職責範圍是掃描蒼穹，來早在具潛在威脅的太空岩石，到達地球之前。發現及編目它們，並幫助政府協調出一種，藉由使偏離或摧毀這種天體的反應，絕妙地被命名為地球防禦協調辦公室(PDCO)。
In the case of comets, there might be only so much time to muster a defense. Agglomerations of ice and rock that come barrelling towards us from beyond the orbit of Pluto, comets whip around the sun and then fly back out—moving at speeds that can top 70 km/sec (156,000 mph).
就彗星而言，可能只有這麼多時間，來集結一種防禦，從冥王星軌道之外，向我們高速奔馳而來的冰及岩石團塊。也就是，在太陽周遭急速移動，之後以能高達70公里/秒(15萬6千英里/小時)之移動速度，往後飛出的彗星。
They are not easily visible until they draw as close as the orbit of Jupiter, where outflowing energy from the sun fires them up and gives them their signature tail. Depending upon the size of the comet, the six months the world has to act in Don’t Look Up is not off the mark.
在接近木星軌道之前，它們不容易被看到。在此，從太陽流出的能量，激發它們而賦予特徵性的尾巴。根據彗星大小，地球在《別抬頭》電影中，必需採取行動的六個月，並不偏離目標。
Asteroids—which have little ice, no tails, and are not much more than space rubble—ply a smaller, less sweeping path around the sun and move more slowly than a comet. A rock that was discovered today might not intersect with the orbit of Earth—and threaten the planet—for a century.
鮮少有冰、無尾巴且只不過是太空瓦礫的小行星，運行於圍繞太陽之較小、較不大幅度彎曲的路徑上，且比彗星更慢地移動。目前，發現的一塊岩石，可能在一個世紀內，都不會與地球軌道相交及威脅到地球。
“Our strategy is to find the population of objects out there of significant size, so we know where they all are,” says NASA’s planetary defense officer Lindley Johnson, who vetted an early draft of the Don’t Look Up screenplay more than two years ago. “Once we do that, it will give us decades of warning and we will then have the time to use whatever technology is available.”
兩年多前，審查了《別抬頭》電影劇本初稿的美國航太總署行星防禦官，Lindley Johnson宣稱：「我們的策略是在那裡找尋屬於相當大之天體群，那麼就知道它們全在哪裡。一旦那樣做，這將給予幾十年的警告，然後我們將有時間，來利用任何可資使用的技術。」
When it comes to asteroids, just what constitutes “significant size” is something of a judgment call. In 2013, a 20 m. (66 ft.) asteroid exploded in the skies over Chelyabinsk, Russia as the drag of the atmosphere essentially ripped the rock apart before it could reach the ground. The blast damaged 7,200 buildings and injured about 1,500 people—though claimed no lives.
當提及小行星時，到底什麼構成“相當大”，是一種判斷依據的事情。在2013年，一顆20米(66英尺)的小行星，在俄羅斯車里雅賓斯克上空爆炸，因為大氣的牽絆，在它到達地面之前，實質上撕碎了此岩石。雖然被宣稱無人死亡，不過此爆炸毀損了7200座建築物及使大約1500人受傷。
That was scary but survivable. The asteroids that concern the PDCO most—and get the majority of their attention—are those measuring 140 meters or more.
那是可怕的，不過是可存活的。地球防禦協調辦公室最關心(且獲得他們大部分注意)的是，那些尺寸在140米或以上的小行星。
“You work out the numbers from a sort of actuarial point of view,” says Amy Mainzer, professor of planetary science at the University of Arizona and a consultant on the film. “And 140 meters was the threshold that can cause a lot of damage.”
該部電影顧問，美國亞利桑那大學行星科學教授，Amy Mainzer宣稱：「人們從某種精算的觀點，計算出這些數字。結果，140米是會造成大量損傷的門檻。」
It’s not just size that makes a space rock a menace. It’s location, too. For a sufficiently large projectile to go from what NASA straightforwardly calls a near-Earth object (NEO) to a potentially hazardous asteroid (PHA) it must also intersect Earth’s orbit no further than 7.5 million km (4.65 million mi.) from the planet.
使太空岩石成為一種威脅，不非只是大小，位置也是。就從NASA直截了當稱為近地天體(NEO)，到具有潛在危險之小行星(PHA)的夠大拋射體而言，也必須貫穿地球，不超過750萬公里(465萬英里)的軌道。
That’s a whole lot of acreage by any common measure, but on the cosmic scale it’s a relatively near miss. Since 1998, when Congress began allocating funds to look for NEOs, NASA and astronomers from around the world have found 90% to 95% of the 1,000 or so one-kilometer or larger objects that are thought to be out there, but just 30% to 40% of the estimated 25,000 asteroids zipping about that are 140 meters or larger.
藉由任何常見的測量，那是一大片的面積。不過，在宇宙尺度上，相對上這近乎是一個擊不中的區域。打從1998年，美國國會開始撥款，以尋找近地天體以來。NASA及來自世界各地的天文學家們已經發現，被認為在那裡1千顆左右，一公里或更大天體中的90%到95%。不過，據估有2萬5千顆小行星，在那周遭快速運行，僅30%到40%是140米或更大。
“It’s a really hard problem because the objects are small,” says Mainzer. “I mean, well, in astronomy terms they’re small. If one hits the Earth, it’s big.”
Mainzer宣稱：「這是一個非常困難的問題，因為此些天體很小。嗯，我的意思是，從天文學的角度來看，它們是很小。倘若有顆撞擊地球，這是大事。」
What to do with an asteroid or comet of sufficient size that is on a death plunge toward our planet is another matter entirely. Nobody is really going to break up and mine the object—that plot turn was a cinematic confection for Don’t Look Up—especially a comet that gives Earth not years or decades to prepare, but months.
一顆足夠尺寸的小行星或彗星，正向咱們星球急遽墜落，該怎麼辦完全是另一回事。沒有人真的會解體及採掘此種天體(那情節轉折是《別抬頭》一種電影花俏不實際的情節)，特別是一顆給予地球，不是數年或數十年，而是數個月進行準備的彗星。
Destroying it with explosives—and yes, even nuclear ones—is not off of the menu of options if time was short and the object was huge. But that would present problems of its own, since the giant rock would not be vaporized, but rather, shattered into a lot of smaller rocks.
倘若時間很短且這種天體是大的，使用炸藥摧毀它(是的，甚至是核炸藥)會是選項單之一。不過，那會帶來自身的諸多問題。因為，巨石不會被氣化，而是會破碎成許多較小岩石。
“It’s hard to predict where all of those pieces are going,” says Johnson, “and it’s difficult to make sure that you’ve broken it into pieces small enough that Earth’s atmosphere can deal with it.” Still, if it’s duck a lot of small objects or go the way of life on Earth after the great collision 65 million years ago, there’s little doubt what humanity would do. “The dinosaurs,” says Johnson, “didn’t have a space program.”
Johnson宣稱：「很難預測所有此些碎石的去向，且難以確保已經解體成的碎石，小到足以地球大氣能處置掉。」儘管如此，倘若它是很多小天體，或是6500萬年前大碰撞後，帶走地球上之生命的主天體。毫無疑問，上述是人類會做的事。他宣稱：「恐龍並無，能擺脫外在干擾之解決問題的程序。」
Asteroids, which give us much more time to act, could be dealt with not by destruction, but deflection—slowing them down or altering their path just enough that they fly wide of Earth. On November 24, 2021, NASA launched the Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) spacecraft that will attempt to prove that this concept works.
給予咱們更多時間採取行動的小行星，能不是藉由摧毀而是偏離(也就是，使它們緩慢下來，或改變僅足以讓它們偏離地球的路徑)，而被處置掉。於2021年11月24日，NASA發射了，將嘗試證明此概念起作用之雙小行星改變方向試驗(DART)的太空飛行器。
Its target is the asteroid Didymos (which poses no threat to Earth), a 780-meter rock that circles the sun in a path that takes it from just outside Earth’s orbit to just outside Mars’s.
其目標是(對地球沒有威脅的)Didymos小行星。這是一顆，以從正好是在地球軌道外，到正好是在火星軌道外的途徑，圍繞太陽運行之780米的岩石。
Didymos is itself orbited by a 160-meter moonlet named Dimorphos. When DART arrives at the Didymos system, it will deliberately crash into Dimorphos and scientists will then determine how much the speed and direction of its orbit have changed around its parent body.
Didymos本身被一顆，名為Dimorphos之160米的小衛星所環繞。當DART 到達Didymos系時，它會故意撞上Dimorphos，然後科學家們將確定，其環繞母體的軌道速度及方向，發生了多少變化。
It’s a small test on a small rock and does not mean the Earth is anywhere near having a robust planetary defense system in place, but as a proof-of-concept experiment showing that deflection can work, it’s an important first step.
這是針對小岩石的小試驗。因此，並不意味著，地球幾乎擁有一種健全的行星防禦系統。不過，作為一種證實，偏離可行之概念驗證的實驗。這是重要的第一步。
To help find asteroids that, unlike Didymos, might in fact pose a risk to us, NASA also plans to launch the Near Earth Object Surveyor spacecraft, which will go aloft in 2026, scanning the skies in our planetary neighborhood looking for anything suspicious.
為了協助找尋，實際上可能對我們構成風險之不像Didymos的小行星。NASA也計劃發射，將於2026年升空，來掃描咱們行星附近之蒼穹，以尋找任何可疑天體的近地天體勘測者號太空飛行器。
None of these solutions is perfect; all of them, however, can be of help.
Unlike climate change, which is the handiwork of humans, planetary bombardment is simply a risk of living in a busy, buzzing solar system.
不過，所有此些解決方案，無一是完美的。不像氣候變遷(人類造成的後果)，行星的撞擊只是生存於，繁忙、鬧哄哄之太陽系中的一種風險。
But like climate change, it is a problem we can mitigate—and even solve, provided we decide to take the necessary steps. In Hollywood’s latest yarn of the apocalypse, humanity plays dice with its very existence. In the world off the screen, we can choose differently.
不過，如同氣候變遷，這是一種倘若我們決定採取必要措施，就能減輕甚至解決的問題。在好萊塢最新的啟示錄故事中，人類以其實際的存續，進行賭注。在離開銀幕的世界中，我們能進行不同的選擇。
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翻譯：許東榮
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