Chapter One: The Shores of the Cosmic Ocean

The Cosmos is all that is or ever was or ever will be. Our feeblest contemplations of the Cosmos stir us—there is a tingling in the spine, a catch in the voice, a faint sensation, as if a distant memory, of falling from a height. We know we are approaching the greatest of mysteries.

宇宙是一切存在，过去如此，将来也如此。对宇宙不够有力的思考唤醒我们队周围的感觉—记住传来的一阵刺痛，捕捉到的一个声音，好似来自遥远的记忆，我们常常有一种从高空坠落的微弱的感觉。我们知道我们正接近那个最终的秘密。

The size and age of the Cosmos are beyond ordinary human understanding. Lost somewhere between immensity and eternity is our tiny planetary home. In a cosmic perspective, most human concerns seem insignificant, even petty. And yet our specie is young and curious and brave and shows much promise. In the last few millennia we have made the most astonishing and unexpected discoveries about the Cosmos and our place within it, explorations that are exhilarating to consider. They remind us that humans have evolved to wonder, that understanding is a joy, that knowledge is prerequisite to survival. I believe our future depends on how well we know this Cosmos in which we float like a mote of dust in the morning sky. 

宇宙的尺度和年龄远远超出普通人的理解范围。我们小小的星星家园迷失在无尽与永恒中。从宇宙的角度看，大多数人关注的事情都好不重要甚至是琐屑的。然而人类这个物种是新生的，充满求知欲、勇敢、对未来充满信心。在过去几千年里，我们对宇宙以及自身所在之处取得了最惊人、最不可预料的发现，探索成果令人兴奋的难以置信。这让我们意识到，人类已演化至把探索和理解作为一种愉悦，把认知作为优先于个体存在的物种。我们相信未来取决于我们对宇宙的理解。我们徜徉在这个浩瀚的宇宙中，好似晨曦苍穹中的一粒尘埃。

Those explorations required skepticism and imagination both. Imagination will often carry us to worlds that never were. But without it, we go nowhere. Skepticism enables us to distinguish fancy from fact, to test our speculations. The Cosmos is rich beyond measure—in elegant facts, in exquisite interrelationships, in the subtle machinery of awe. 

对宇宙的探索既需要怀疑主义有需要想象力。想象经常会把我们带到不曾存在的世界里，如果没有想象， 我们将寸步难行。怀疑主义让我们可以区分幻想和事实，检验推测是否正确。宇宙充满简洁的真相，精妙的相互关系，不可思议令人畏惧的机制，这一切都超出人类的揣度。

The surface of the Earth is the shore of the cosmic ocean. From it we have learned most of what we know. Recently, we have waded a little out to sea, enough to dampen our toes or, at most, wet our ankles. The water seems inviting. The ocean calls. Some part of our being know this is from where we came. We long to return. These aspirations are not, I think, irreverent, although they may trouble whatever gods may be.

地球表面就像是宇宙海洋中的堤岸，我们知晓的大多数信息都是从这里获得的。进来我们艰难地迈出了向着宇宙之洋跋涉的一小步，刚刚打湿我们的脚趾，至多弄湿我们的脚踝。海洋看起来十分诱人，宇宙之洋在召唤。有些人知道者呼唤来自我们的诞生之地。我们渴望回归。在我们心中，这些渴望并非不敬，尽管它们会让可能存在各路神仙有点烦恼。

The Last Paragraph of the book: Who Speaks for Earth?

Some 3.6 million years ago, in what is now northern Tanzania, a volcano erupted, the resulting cloud of ash covering the surrounding savannahs. In 1979, the paleoanthropologist Mary Leakey found in that ash footprints—the footprints, she believes, of an early hominid, perhaps an ancestor of all the people on the Earth today. And 380,000 kilometers away, in a flat dry plain that humans have in a moment of optimism called the Sea of Tranquility, there is another footprint, left by the first human to walk another world. We have come far in 3.6 million years, and in 4.6 billion and in 15 billion.

360万年前，在今天的坦桑尼亚北部，一座火山喷发了，火山灰覆盖在周围的大草原上。1979年，古人类学家玛丽·利基在灰烬中发现了脚印—她认为是早期原始人类的足迹，也许是今天全球人类共同的祖先的足迹。据此地38万千米之遥，有一片平坦干燥的平原，人类曾乐观地称其为静海，那里有另一个脚印，是第一个在另一个世界行走的人类留下的。我们已走过了360万年，走过了46亿年，走过了138亿年。

For we are the local embodiment of a Cosmos grown to self-awareness. We have begun to contemplate our origins: starstuff pondering the stars; organized assemblages of ten billion billion billion atoms considering the evolution of atoms; tracing the long journey by which, here at least, consciousness arose. Our loyalties are to the species and the planet. We speak for Earth. Our obligation to survive is owed not just to ourselves but also to that Cosmos, ancient and vast, from which we spring.

因为我们是产生了自我意识的宇宙局部的体现。我们已经开始对自己的起源冥思苦想：星辰的产物在思索繁星；千亿亿亿个原子构成的有机体正在思考着宇宙的演化；沿着漫长的旅程，至少在这里，意识觉醒了。我们的忠诚是对全人类和整个地球的。我们为地球代言。我们的生存义务不只属于我们自己，而且属于整个宇宙，古老广袤的宇宙，我们的生长之地。