日本企業將爲富人打造人工流星雨
To glimpse a meteor shower, sometimes you've got to wake up in the middle of the night, bundle up against frigid cold, and wait many minutes or hours. All to see a streak of light, a piece of space that crosses briefly into our world.
爲了看一場流星雨，有時候你得在深更半夜起牀，忍受着刺骨的寒冷，等待數十分鐘甚至數小時。這一切都只是爲了看一道光，看一塊和地球不期而遇的太空碎片。Soon, though, all you may need is enough cash.
不過，在不久的以後，看流星所需的可能只是足夠的錢。A Japanese "space entertainment firm" called Astro Live Experiences (ALE) says it will launch its first satellite in 2019 to create artificial meteor showers on demand, for large events or at the whim of the wealthiest among us.
日本一家名爲天文直播體驗（縮寫爲ALE）的“太空娛樂公司”稱，它將在2019年發射首顆能夠按需製造人工流星雨的人造衛星。這些流星雨可能是爲大型活動製造，也可能爲了某個富豪的一個念頭。
Though ALE hasn't named a specific price per event, BuzzFeed News suggests each ALE meteor shower will likely cost several million dollars.
儘管ALE公司還沒有給人造流星雨定價，但BuzzFeed新聞網站指出，ALE製造的每一場流星雨可能將耗資數百萬美元。According to CNN, ALE "meteors" will be small metallic pellets made of a proprietary composition that glows orange, blue, or green as they burn up in the atmosphere.
據CNN報道，ALE公司的“流星”將會是用獨家成分製造的小金屬球，在大氣中燃燒時會發出橙色、藍色或綠色的光。Yet unlike ordinary meteors, which are usually around the size of a sand grain, ALE's fake shooting stars will be substantially bigger - around two centimeters in diameter (smaller than a ping-pong ball, but slightly larger than a marble) - and released in a cloud.
不過，不同的是，普通流星一般是沙粒那麼大，而ALE的人造流星將會大得多——直徑約爲2釐米（比乒乓球小，但比彈珠略大些），而且是在雲層中釋放。Experts have raised concerns that this could threaten low-orbiting spacecraft.
專家指出，這可能會威脅低軌道航天器的安全。這一論述引發了人們的擔憂。"I salute them for cleverness and for their technical expertise, but from an orbital debris standpoint, it's not a great idea," University of Michigan astronomer Patrick Seitzer told BuzzFeed.
密歇根大學的天文學家帕特里克·賽策爾告訴BuzzFeed網站說：“我欣賞他們的機智和專業技術，但從軌道碎片的角度看，這不是個好主意。”Moving at high speeds brought on by Earth's gravity, a 2 centimeter-wide object is more than enough to shoot right through a metal spacecraft - and leave devastation in its wake.
當一個2釐米寬的物體在地球引力作用下高速運轉時，產生的力量足以射穿一個金屬太空飛船，並留下破壞性後果。
ALE seems to be taking steps to ensure this would be an unlikely event.
ALE公司似乎正在採取行動預防這種情況的發生。ALE's satellite would likely orbit just below the International Space Station to avoid collisions; any pellet that ALE's satellite releases will go from an altitude of 220 miles (354 km) to about 37 miles (59.5 km) above the surface before burning up.
ALE的人造衛星會在國際空間站下方繞軌道運行以避免相撞；ALE的人造衛星所釋放的任何金屬球都會從地表以上220英里（354千米）的高度下降到37英里（59.5千米）的高度纔會開始燃燒。Rodenbaugh told BuzzFeed that only 40 other satellites orbit below 220 miles, and that the company would call off any event that would put their artificial meteors close to a tracked satellite.
羅登堡告訴BuzzFeed網站，只有40顆其他人造衛星在220英里以下的高度繞軌道運行，如果人造流星雨的位置離可追蹤衛星太近，公司會取消流星雨計劃。Yet fake meteor showers could still impact spy satellites, which are not tracked and can dip as low as 158 miles.
儘管如此，人造流星雨仍然會對間諜衛星產生影響，因爲這些衛星無法追蹤，而且會在低至158英里（254千米）的高度運行。Low-earth orbit (that is, anything under 2,000 km from the Earth's surface) is also slated to become a lot busier in the coming years, Seitzer told Buzzfeed.
賽策爾告訴BuzzFeed網站說，近地軌道（距離地表2000千米以內）在未來也將變得更加繁忙。Indeed, there are plans in the works that suggest low-earth orbit is about to become a lot more crowded. SpaceX and other companies plan to send up a number of satellites to establish satellite-based internet services; SpaceX alone plans to put over 4,000 of them between 700 and 900 miles (1,100 and 1,400 kilometers).
目前正在實施的計劃顯示，近地軌道確實將變得更擁擠。SpaceX和其他公司計劃發送多顆人造衛星來建立基於衛星的網絡服務；SpaceX公司還計劃將4000多顆衛星放在700至900英里間的高度（1100到1400千米之間）。There are also the high-speed rockets and space planes that companies plan to fill with tourists, and low-altitude spacecraft that the military wants to use to deliver yet more satellites.
多個公司還計劃讓遊客乘坐高速火箭和航天飛機上天，軍方則希望通過低空飛行器運送更多衛星。Add thousands of falling metal pellets to the 500,000 pieces of man-made debris we already know circle our planet, and the risk for any of these spacecraft becomes significantly higher.
在已知環繞地球的50萬個人造碎片之外，再添加數千個墜落的金屬球，將會大大增加所有這些航天器所面臨的風險。Call us purists, but artificially creating shooting stars also overlooks what makes meteor showers so incredible in the first place: that you never know exactly when you're going to see them.
叫我們純粹主義者也罷，但是人造流星的創造者們忽視了流星雨如此可貴的最初原因：那就是你永遠不能確切地知道你什麼時候能看見它們。Paying for a manufactured one doesn't exactly have the same thrill. (May we humbly suggest you instead use your considerable wealth to address the problem of light pollution, so that more people could see natural shooting stars?)
付錢讓人制造一場流星雨並不能引發同樣的震撼。（容我們建議，你還不如用你的鉅額財產來解決光污染問題，好讓更多人能看到自然的流星。）Creating a space hazard simply to provide a cheap imitation of a natural wonder seems to be missing the point.
給太空製造安全隱患，只爲了蹩腳地模仿自然奇觀，似乎完全抓錯了重點。
