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It is almost the end of the winter, and you've woken up to a cold house, which is weird, because you left the heater on all night.
冬天快要结束了，你醒来，发现房子里很冷，很奇怪，因为你的暖气是整晚开着的。
You turn on the light. It's not working. Actually, the coffee maker, the TV -- none of them are working.
你去开灯。没反应。你还发现咖啡机、电视统统都打不开了。
Life outside also seems to have stopped.
户外已经完全没有生机。
There are no schools, most of the businesses are shut, and there are no working trains.
学校放假了，大部分商店都关门了，火车也停运了。
This is not the opening scene of a zombie apocalypse movie.
这可不是某部僵尸电影的开场。
This is what happened in March 1989 in the Canadian province of Quebec, when the power grid lost power.
而是1989年3月，在加拿大魁北克省发生的大停电事故。
The culprit? A solar storm.
问题出在哪儿？是太阳风暴。
Solar storms are giant clouds of particles escaping from the Sun from time to time,
太阳风暴是从太阳抛射出来的巨大的粒子云雾，
and a constant reminder that we live in the neighborhood of an active star.
它时刻提醒我们，我们生活在一颗活跃的恒星附近。
And I, as a solar physicist, I have a tremendous chance to study these solar storms.
作为一名太阳物理学家，我有很好的机会来研究这些太阳风暴。
But you see, "solar storm chaser" is not just a cool title.
但“太阳风暴追随者”不光听起来很酷。
My research helps to understand where they come from, how they behave and, in the long run,
我的研究还能帮助我们理解太阳风暴从何而来，有什么特点，而且从长远来看，
aims to mitigate their effects on human societies, which I'll get to in a second.
要缓解其对人类社会的影响，这一点我稍后再讲。
At the beginning of the space exploration age 50 years ago only,
在50年前，太空探索时代刚刚开始时，
the probes we sent in space revealed that the planets in our Solar System
我们送入太空的探测器发现太阳系里的行星
constantly bathe in a stream of particles that are coming from the Sun and that we call the solar wind.
会不断遭遇来自太阳的粒子流，我们称之为太阳风。
And in the same way that global wind patterns here on Earth can be affected by hurricanes,
就像地球上的飓风，会扰乱全球气流分布，
the solar wind is sometimes affected by solar storms that I like to call "space hurricanes."
太阳风有时候也会被太阳风暴影响，我将后者称为“太空飓风”。
When they arrive at planets, they can perturb the space environment,
当它们抵达行星时，会扰乱太空环境，
which in turn creates the northern or southern lights, for example, here on Earth, but also Saturn and also Jupiter.
引起北极光或南极光，比如在地球上看到的，在土星也有，在木星上也是如此。
Luckily, here on Earth, we are protected by our planet's natural shield,
幸运的是，在地球上，我们有一个天然保护盾，
a magnetic bubble that we call the magnetosphere and that you can see here on the right side.
就是这个我们称为“磁层”的磁性泡泡，就是右边的这个。
Nonetheless, solar storms can still be responsible for disrupting satellite telecommunications and operations,
尽管如此，太阳风暴还是会影响卫星通信和运行，
for disrupting navigation systems, such as GPS, as well as electric power transmission.
扰乱导航系统，像GPS，还有电力传输系统。
All of these are technologies on which us humans rely more and more.
所有这些技术都是人类越来越依赖的。
I mean, imagine if you woke up tomorrow without a working cell phone -- no internet on it, which means no social media.
想象一下，如果你明早起来发现手机用不了，没有网络，就意味着用不了社交媒体。
I mean, to me that would be worse than the zombie apocalypse.
对我来说简直比僵尸爆发更糟糕。
By constantly monitoring the Sun, though, we now know where the solar storms come from.
通过持续监控太阳，我们知道了太阳风暴是从何而来的。
They come from regions of the Sun where a tremendous amount of energy is being stored.
它们来自太阳的某些区域，那里存储了大量的能量。
You have an example here, as a complex structure hanging above the solar surface, just on the verge of erupting.
这里有个例子，就像浮在太阳表面的一个复杂结构，就在喷发物的边缘。
Unfortunately, we cannot send probes in the scorching hot atmosphere of the Sun,
遗憾的是，我们无法将探测器送到太阳大气层，
where temperatures can rise up to around 10 million degrees Kelvin.
那里温度太高，能达到摄氏1000万度左右。
So what I do is I use computer simulations in order to analyze
因此我用的是计算机模拟的方法，
but also to predict the behavior of these storms when they're just born at the Sun.
来分析并且预测太阳风暴的行为特征，就在它刚刚从太阳上生成的时候。
This is only one part of the story, though. When these solar storms are moving in space,
但这仅仅是故事的一方面。当太阳风暴进入太空后，
some of them will inevitably encounter space probes that we humans have sent in order to explore other worlds.
其中一些会不可避免的遇上我们发射的探测器，发射它们的目的是探索其他的世界。
What I mean by other worlds is, for example, planets, such as Venus or Mercury, but also objects, such as comets.
所谓其他的世界，我指的是其他行星，比如金星或者水星，或者其他天体，比如彗星。
And while these space probes have been made for different scientific endeavors,
尽管制造这些探测器的目的，是为了不同的科学事业，
they can also act like tiny cosmic meteorological stations and monitor the evolution of these space storms.
但它们也可以充当小型的宇宙气象站，用来监控宇宙风暴的演变。
So I, with a group of researchers, gather and analyze this data coming from different locations of the Solar System.
因此我跟一群研究者一起，收集并分析这些来自太阳系不同位置的数据。
And by doing so, my research shows that, actually, solar storms have a generic shape,
我的研究显示，实际上，太阳风暴都有一个普遍特征，
and that this shape evolves as solar storms move away from the Sun.
这一特征随着太阳风暴远离太阳而演变。
And you know what? This is key for building tools to predict space weather.
你们知道吗？这是建造宇宙天气预测工具的关键。
I would like to leave you with this beautiful image.
我想留给大家这幅美丽的图画。
This is us here on Earth, this pale blue dot.
这是我们所在的地球，这个暗淡的蓝点。
And while I study the Sun and its storms every day,
在我研究太阳的时候，几乎每天都有太阳风暴，
I will always have a deep love for this beautiful planet -- a pale blue dot indeed,
我将永远深爱着这个美丽的星球，它其实就是一个淡蓝色的点，
but a pale blue dot with an invisible magnetic shield that helps to protect us. Thank you.
但就是这个淡蓝色的点，有一个看不见的磁性盾牌，在时刻保护着我们。谢谢大家。
