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英国著名物理学家史蒂芬•霍金日前在接受美国著名网站BigThink访谈时，再曝惊人言论，称地球将在200年内毁灭，而人类只有移民外星球才能继续存活。他表示，在未来200年内，人类将面临巨大的危险，而且危机次数可能超过以往任何时候；人类必须离开地球移居到外太空，否则会从地球上消失。对此，密歇根大学天文物理学家表示，距离地球最近的星体在4.2光年之外，用现在的飞行速度大概需要5万年才能到达，如果用光速飞行的话则需要4.2年。看来，移居另外一个星球将是人类面临的一项重大挑战。
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Dr. Stephen Hawking delivering a speech called "Why we should go into space." (Agencies) |
Humans: It’s time to abandon Earth or face extinction.
It could be the plot of a summer blockbuster, but this prediction isn’t science fiction. It’s a glimpse of the future, according to famed British scientist Stephen Hawking.
"I see great dangers for the human race," he said in an interview with global forum Big Think. "There have been a number of times in the past when its survival has been a question of touch and go."
Hawking, an award-winning physicist, says humans must evacuate our home planet within the next two centuries and expand into space to survive.
"I believe that the long-term future of the human race must be in space," he said. "It will be difficult enough to avoid disaster on planet Earth in the next hundred years, let alone the next thousand, or million."
Hawking, who was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom last year, has recently voiced many concerns about the future of life on Earth.
In April, he spoke pragmatically about his fear of aliens in an interview for the Discovery Channel.
"If aliens visit us, the outcome would be much as when Columbus landed in America, which didn't turn out well for the Native Americans," he said. "Such advanced aliens would perhaps become nomads, looking to conquer and colonize whatever planets they can reach."
But Hawking says he is still hopeful for the future of humanity.
"I'm an optimist," he told Big Think. "We have made remarkable progress in the last hundred years. But if we want to continue beyond the next hundred years, our future is in space."
Getting to another planet will prove a challenge, not to mention colonizing it for humanity. University of Michigan astrophysicist Katherine Freese told Big Think that "the nearest star [to Earth] is Proxima Centauri which is 4.2 light years away. That means, if you were traveling at the speed of light the whole time, it would take 4.2 years to get there" -- or about 50,000 years using current rocket science.
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(Agencies)
（中国日报网英语点津 Helen 编辑）
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