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The death of a star.
一颗恒星的灭亡
And the birth of something new.
伴随着新事物的诞生
In these brief microseconds,
在这短暂的数微秒中
a massive shock wave passes through the star.
一个巨大的冲击波掠过恒星
The blast is so powerful that it forces some of the iron
威力强大的冲击波迫使一些铁元素
to fuse into even heavier elements.
聚合成更重的元素
And that's how heavy elements
这就是重元素
such as gold or platinum or lead are made,
诸如金，铂，铅等产生的过程
forged in the heart of an exploding star.
它们产生于爆炸中的恒星内核
So if you have a gold ring,
如果你有一枚金戒指
make sure you appreciate it.
一定要珍惜它
The metal was made in a
这种金属诞生于
blinding flash of light billions of years ago.
数十亿年前的一道刺眼强光
The finale of the process
这一过程的结果是
that produced the elements all around us today.
产生了今天我们周围的所有元素
It never ceases to amaze me
我一直感到惊叹
that our bodies are constructed of the stuff of stars,
我们的身体是由恒星里的物质构成
that our hearts beat
我们的心跳
because of the energy given off as those materials are made.
则归功于这些物质生成时所产生的能量
But as magical as a star is,
然而，除了恒星的神奇
there are the more fascinating and powerful things in our enormous cosmos.
浩渺的宇宙蕴藏着更加迷人，强大的东西
Around 300 million years after the Big Bang,
大约宇宙大爆炸的三亿年后
the early stars began to form galaxies
早期星体开始逐步形成
which slowly took on a bewildering variety of shapes and sizes.
令人炫目的形状和大小多样的星系
Our galaxy, the Milky Way,
我们的星系，银河系
is thought to be one of the oldest,
被认为是最古老的星系之一
having started to assemble itself some 13 billion years ago.
早在约130亿年前就开始聚集
It's roughly 6,000 billion miles in diameter
其直径约为六万亿英里
and contains something like 200 billion individual stars.
包含约2千亿颗独立恒星
Nobody is quite sure exactly how many
没有人知道确切数目
since they can't all be seen from Earth and anyway,
因为从地球上无法尽收眼底
it would take a long time to count them.
再说去数它们要花很长时间
Because all these stars were built by gravity,
由于所有的恒星都因万有引力而产生
you could say that gravity is the hero of the universe.
可以说，万有引力是宇宙的英雄
After all, it turned a meaningless soup of gas
毕竟，它将一缕缕无意义的气体
into something of beauty and power.
化作集美丽和力量于一体的恒星
But like all interesting heroes,
就像所有鲜活的英雄形象
gravity has its dark side.
万有引力也有它黑暗的一面
Right in the center of our galaxy lies an example of
在我们星系的正中心有个例子
what happens when gravity rules unchallenged.
证明万有引力占据统治地位时，会发生什么
A black hole.
黑洞
