Where Did Earth Get Its Oceans? Maybe It Made Them Itself.

Ada Zejun Shen/Quanta Magazine

沉泽君/广达杂志

At this moment, a spacecraft is headed from Earth to Europa , an ice-veiled moon of Jupiter thought to contain an ocean similar in some ways to one of our own.

此刻，一艘宇宙飞船正从地球飞往木卫二，木卫二是木星的一颗被冰覆盖的卫星，人们认为其中有一个在某些方面与我们的海洋相似的海洋。

NASA engraved a metal plate affixed to the spacecraft with a poem, commissioned from Ada Limón during her time as poet laureate of the United States.

美国宇航局在航天器上贴有一块金属板上刻了一首诗，这是艾达·利蒙在担任美国桂冠诗人期间委托她创作的。

It reads, in part:

其部分内容如下：

And it is not darkness that unites us,

团结我们的并不是黑暗，

not the cold distance of space, but

不是寒冷的太空距离，而是

the offering of water, each drop of rain,

水的供奉，每一滴雨，

each rivulet, each pulse, each vein.

每条溪流，每条脉搏，每条静脉。

For decades, NASA’s exploration of the solar system has been dominated by the search for water in places like Europa, because as far as we know, water is essential for life.

几十年来，美国宇航局对太阳系的探索一直以在木卫二等地寻找水为主，因为据我们所知，水对于生命至关重要。

It may come as a surprise, then, that scientists don’t really know how water first arrived here on Earth.

那么，科学家们并不真正知道水是如何首次到达地球的，这可能会让人感到惊讶。

For years, the top theory was that water came to our planet via comets — objects made of frozen matter that orbit the sun, often decorated with sparkling tails.

多年来，最流行的理论是水通过彗星来到我们的星球，彗星是由冰冻物质组成的绕太阳运行的物体，通常装饰着闪闪发光的尾巴。

In all likelihood, these icy relics, which came into being at the dawn of the solar system, did bring water with them when they rained down on a primeval Earth.

这些在太阳系诞生之初形成的冰冷遗迹很可能在雨点般落在原始地球上时确实带来了水。

But in recent years, several spacecraft caught up to comets to examine them.

但近年来，有几艘航天器追上了彗星以对其进行检查。

What they found was that cometary water didn’t match ours; the chemical signatures were different.

他们发现彗星水与我们的水不符；化学特征不同。

After that, “comets sort of fell out of favor,” said Ashley King , a meteoriticist at the Natural History Museum in London.

伦敦自然历史博物馆的陨石学家阿什利·金说，在那之后，“彗星有点失宠了”。

Asteroids — rockier and more metal-rich than comets — then became the most popular choice.

小行星——比彗星岩石更坚硬、金属含量更丰富——随后成为最受欢迎的选择。

Asteroids impact Earth far more frequently than comets do, and their water reserves (while not as voluminous as those of comets) look a lot more like those on our planet.

小行星撞击地球的频率远高于彗星，它们的水储量（虽然不如彗星那么多）看起来更像我们星球上的水。

But asteroids have their own problems, and a radical new idea about planetary water is gaining steam.

但小行星也有自己的问题，关于行星水的全新想法正在兴起。

Through careful observation of worlds orbiting other stars, along with some explosive laboratory experiments involving diamond anvils and lasers, scientists have realized that rocky planets like Earth have a way to make water all by themselves.

通过对绕其他恒星运行的世界的仔细观察，以及一些涉及金刚石砧和激光的爆炸性实验室实验，科学家们意识到像地球这样的岩石行星有办法自己制造水。

All you need is an ocean of magma, a whole lot of hydrogen, and a little bit of geological alchemy.

你所需要的只是一片岩浆海洋、大量的氢气和一点地质炼金术。

Earth formed about 4.54 billion years ago.

地球形成于大约 45.4 亿年前。

Through geologic fire and brimstone , much about its earliest eon has been lost to history, but the basics are agreed upon: It began as a ball of mostly molten rock.

由于地质之火和硫磺的影响，关于它最早的亿年的大部分内容已经消失在历史中，但基本原理是一致的：它开始时是一个主要由熔岩组成的球体。

Then it became a blue marble.

然后它就变成了蓝色的大理石。

How?

如何？

Comets provided a well-motivated answer.

彗星提供了一个动机充分的答案。

They often linger far from Earth in a doughnut-shaped highway of icy objects beyond Neptune called the Kuiper Belt, or in the even more distant and nebulous Oort cloud.

它们经常徘徊在远离地球的海王星之外一条由冰天体组成的甜甜圈形状的高速公路上，称为柯伊伯带，或者在更遥远、更模糊的奥尔特云中。

But when a comet passes close enough to the sun, its ice and frozen gases turn to vapor, creating a tail that can stretch for hundreds of millions of kilometers (in one known case, more than a billion).

但当彗星距离太阳足够近时，它的冰和冷冻气体就会变成蒸气，形成一条可以延伸数亿公里的彗尾（在一个已知的情况下，超过十亿公里）。

Compared to asteroids, comets give you “a lot of bang for your buck,” said James Bryson , a meteoriticist at the University of Oxford.

牛津大学陨石学家詹姆斯·布赖森 (James Bryson) 表示，与小行星相比，彗星“物有所值”。

Scientists thought comets could have crashed to the Earth and provided its water.

科学家认为彗星可能撞击地球并提供水。

But nobody could prove that comets contained Earth-like water — until the 1980s, when the European Space Agency (ESA) decided to check.

但直到 20 世纪 80 年代，欧洲航天局 (ESA) 决定进行验证之前，没有人能够证明彗星中含有类似地球的水。

Giotto , their first deep-space mission, was truly ambitious: It would be the first spacecraft to get an up-close-and-personal look at a comet’s icy heart.

乔托是他们的第一次深空任务，雄心勃勃：这将是第一艘近距离观察彗星冰冷核心的航天器。

In 1986, it caught up to Halley’s comet, famous for appearing in Earth’s sky as our paths intersect roughly every 76 years.

1986 年，它追上了哈雷彗星，这颗彗星因在我们的路径大约每 76 年相交一次而出现在地球的天空中而闻名。

Giotto managed to send home both dramatic images of the comet’s nucleus and measurements of the cloud of material around it.

乔托设法将彗核的戏剧性图像和周围物质云的测量结果发回国内。

What raised scientific eyebrows was Giotto’s measurement of something called the D/H ratio .

引起科学界关注的是乔托对 D/H 比率的测量。

ESA’s Giotto spacecraft (top) took the first close-up images of a cometary nucleus (bottom) as part of its mission to Halley’s comet.

作为哈雷彗星任务的一部分，欧空局的乔托航天器（上）拍摄了第一张彗星核（下）的特写图像。

ESA (top); Courtesy of Dr. H.U.

欧空局（上）；由胡博士提供

Keller

凯勒

ESA’s Giotto spacecraft (left) took the first close-up images of a cometary nucleus (right) as part of its mission to Halley’s comet.

作为哈雷彗星任务的一部分，欧空局的乔托航天器（左）拍摄了第一张彗星核（右）的特写图像。

ESA (left); Courtesy of Dr. H.U.

欧洲航天局（左）；由胡博士提供

Keller

凯勒

Almost all the water on Earth is made up of two hydrogen atoms and one oxygen atom: H 2 O.

地球上几乎所有的水都是由两个氢原子和一个氧原子组成：H 2 O。

But there is another form of water, called heavy water, made up of one oxygen atom and two atoms of a heavier form of hydrogen called deuterium.

但还有另一种形式的水，称为重水，由一个氧原子和两个较重的氢原子（称为氘）组成。

If comets are responsible for our oceans, one might expect Giotto to have found that the water on Halley’s comet had a similar ratio of deuterium to hydrogen as the water on Earth.

如果彗星对我们的海洋负有责任，人们可能会认为乔托发现哈雷彗星上的水的氘与氢的比例与地球上的水相似。

That’s not what it found.

结果并非如此。

“It didn’t match at all,” said Karen Meech , a planetary astronomer at the University of Hawai‘i.

“它根本不匹配，”夏威夷大学的行星天文学家凯伦·米奇说。

In fact, Halley’s D/H ratio was twice that of most of the water on Earth.

事实上，哈雷的 D/H 比是地球上大多数水的两倍。

More cracks appeared in the comet theory during the 1990s and 2000s, when spectroscopic observations of other comets, like Hale-Bopp , also found evidence of heavy water.

在 20 世纪 90 年代和 2000 年代，彗星理论出现了更多的裂痕，当时对海尔-波普彗星等其他彗星的光谱观测也发现了重水的证据。

But the hammer blow arrived in 2014 when the spiritual successor to Giotto, ESA’s Rosetta mission , made history by orbiting and sending a lander to the surface of 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, a comet shaped like a giant rubber duck.

但2014年，重击到来了，当时欧空局罗塞塔任务乔托的精神继承者创造了历史，将着陆器送至67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko（一颗形状像巨型橡皮鸭的彗星）表面。

During its orbits of 67P, Rosetta made the most precise measurements of a comet’s composition to date — and found that it contained the highest concentration of deuterium of any comet we’ve measured.

在 67P 的轨道上，罗塞塔对彗星的成分进行了迄今为止最精确的测量，并发现它含有我们测量过的所有彗星中最高浓度的氘。

If Earth’s water didn’t come from comets, perhaps it came from asteroids.

如果地球上的水不是来自彗星，那么它也许来自小行星。

These rocky objects mostly hang out between Mars and Jupiter, and they impact our planet all the time as meteorites, though most of their material burns up in the atmosphere or lands in the ocean.

这些岩石物体大多悬挂在火星和木星之间，它们一直以陨石的形式撞击我们的星球，尽管它们的大部分物质在大气层或海洋中燃烧殆尽。

Scientists have collected tens of thousands of meteorites and found that the water molecules contained in a particular group closely resemble those in our world.

科学家们收集了数以万计的陨石，发现特定群体中含有的水分子与我们世界中的水分子非常相似。

One meteor that plunged into the sleepy British town of Winchcombe in 2021 — leaving a sizable dent in a family’s driveway — was found to have a D/H ratio that almost perfectly matched that of Earth’s oceans.

2021 年，一颗流星坠入英国小镇温什科姆，在一个家庭的车道上留下了相当大的凹痕，人们发现它的 D/H 比几乎与地球海洋的 D/H 比完全匹配。

Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko was photographed in 2014 by ESA’s Rosetta mission, which also sent a lander to the comet’s surface.

67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko 彗星于 2014 年由欧空局罗塞塔任务拍摄到，该任务还向彗星表面发射了一个着陆器。

Meteorites, though, can be contaminated during their fiery dives and crash landings.

然而，陨石在猛烈的俯冲和迫降过程中可能会受到污染。

That’s why scientists have flown spacecraft out to asteroids and collected material in orbit for forensic analysis.

这就是为什么科学家们将航天器发射到小行星并收集轨道上的材料进行法医分析的原因。

In some cases, they have found that asteroids still moving through space also seem to have Earth-like water.

在某些情况下，他们发现仍在太空中移动的小行星似乎也有类似地球的水。

A study published in 2023 revealed that water from the asteroid Ryugu, which Japan’s space agency visited in 2018, had a D/H ratio similar to that of most water on Earth.

2023 年发表的一项研究显示，日本航天局于 2018 年访问的小行星“龙宫”中的水的 D/H 比与地球上大多数水的 D/H 比相似。

When it comes to the provenance of Earth’s water, “the community is probably more favorable of asteroids than comets these days,” King said.

当谈到地球水的来源时，“当今社会可能更支持小行星而不是彗星，”金说。

But the D/H ratios of asteroids did not close the book on the question of Earth’s water.

但小行星的 D/H 比并没有结束关于地球水问题的书。

Asteroids also contain small amounts of noble gases like argon, krypton, and xenon — inert elements that act as tracers of various geologic processes — and scientists have found that those mixtures do not usually correspond to what we find on our planet.

小行星还含有少量的惰性气体，如氩、氪和氙，这些惰性元素可以作为各种地质过程的示踪剂，科学家发现这些混合物通常与我们在地球上发现的物质并不相符。

In addition, theories based on comets and asteroids have the same fundamental problem: The ability of either type of object to give the planet its oceans relies on luck.

此外，基于彗星和小行星的理论有相同的基本问题：任何一种物体为地球提供海洋的能力都依赖于运气。

Multiple asteroids or comets would have had to impact Earth after its superhot magma ocean phase to produce the inundated world we live on today.

在超热岩浆海洋阶段之后，多颗小行星或彗星必须撞击地球，才能产生我们今天生活的被淹没的世界。

This was taken for granted in the past, but the existence of this late-in-the-day bombardment is heavily debated in the scientific community.

这在过去被认为是理所当然的，但这种近期轰击的存在在科学界引起了激烈的争论。

There is another possibility, one that relies not on cosmic chance, but on our planet’s own industriousness: Earth made most of its water by itself.

还有另一种可能性，这种可能性不依赖于宇宙机遇，而是依赖于我们星球自身的勤奋：地球自己制造了大部分水。

The asteroid Ryugu, visited by the Hayabusa2 spacecraft in 2018, contained water similar to the most common kind found on Earth.

隼鸟二号航天器于 2018 年造访的小行星“龙宫”含有与地球上最常见的水类似的水。

NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center/University of Arizona

美国宇航局戈达德太空飞行中心/亚利桑那大学

When astronomers look at exoplanets — worlds outside our solar system — they see a diversity of atmospheres.

当天文学家观察系外行星（太阳系之外的世界）时，他们会看到多种多样的大气层。

But when they simulate the ways the planets took shape, scientists find that many of them could have started out brimming with hydrogen.

但当他们模拟行星形成的方式时，科学家们发现，其中许多行星可能一开始就充满了氢。

Could Earth’s formative years have been similar?

地球的形成时期是否也有类似的情况？

Scientists used to think that the early Earth had little hydrogen.

科学家们曾经认为早期地球几乎没有氢。

They reached this conclusion after examining meteorites called enstatite chondrites that have a suspiciously similar chemical makeup to Earth.

他们在检查了顽火辉石球粒陨石的陨石后得出了这一结论，这些陨石的化学成分与地球相似。

Because of this similarity, scientists think the two probably formed from the same material, Bryson said.

布赖森说，由于这种相似性，科学家认为两者可能是由相同的材料形成的。

These meteorites seemed to lack hydrogen, so scientists thought the same went for our planet.

这些陨石似乎缺乏氢，因此科学家认为我们的星球也是如此。

But some studies , including one co-authored by Bryson, found that there was hydrogen in the meteorites all along.

但一些研究，包括布赖森与人合着的一项研究，发现陨石中一直含有氢。

It was just hidden in their organic molecules, silicate glasses, and sulfur compounds.

它只是隐藏在有机分子、硅酸盐玻璃和硫化合物中。

Perhaps, then, Earth was also awash in hydrogen in its early days.

那么，也许地球在早期也充满了氢气。

Earth’s ocean of magma was full of oxygen.

地球的岩浆海洋充满了氧气。

In a paper published in 2023, three scientists wondered what might happen if the hydrogen in a planet’s atmosphere and the oxygen in its magma were to mix — somehow.

在 2023 年发表的一篇论文中，三位科学家想知道如果行星大气中的氢和岩浆中的氧以某种方式混合，会发生什么。

Hydrogen doesn’t just spontaneously bind to oxygen, so they aren’t the most willing chemical partners.

氢不会自发地与氧结合，因此它们不是最愿意的化学伙伴。

Still, the researchers concluded that such a process would let a planet make its own water; they just weren’t sure how much.

尽管如此，研究人员得出的结论是，这样的过程将使行星能够自己制造水。他们只是不确定多少钱。

Two years later, they were thrown a lifeline by an ambitious set of experiments built by the researchers Harrison Horn , a physicist at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory; S.-H.

两年后，劳伦斯利弗莫尔国家实验室的物理学家哈里森·霍恩 (Harrison Horn) 进行的一系列雄心勃勃的实验为他们提供了生命线。 S.-H。

Dan Shim , a geophysicist at Arizona State University; and others.

Dan Shim，亚利桑那州立大学地球物理学家；和其他人。

Harrison Horn and collaborators built experiments to test whether hydrogen and oxygen could combine to form water on a type of exoplanet called a sub-Neptune.

哈里森·霍恩（Harrison Horn）和合作者进行了实验，以测试氢和氧是否可以在一种称为亚海王星的系外行星上结合形成水。

Among other things, they wanted to know how sub-Neptunes, commonplace exoplanets two to four times the diameter of Earth, can have atmospheres rich in water, as telescopic observations suggest, even when they hew close to their scorching-hot host stars.

除其他外，他们想知道亚海王星（直径是地球两到四倍的常见系外行星）如何能够拥有富含水的大气层，正如望远镜观测所表明的那样，即使它们靠近灼热的主恒星。

Could a reaction between a hydrogen atmosphere and a magma ocean be enough?

氢气氛和岩浆海洋之间的反应就足够了吗？

They suspected it could, but only if a huge amount of hydrogen put the magma under a sufficient amount of pressure.

他们怀疑它可以，但前提是大量的氢气使岩浆承受足够的压力。

“That higher pressure is a big part of what facilitates the water production,” Horn said.

“较高的压力是促进水生产的重要因素，”霍恩说。

“It actually enhances the chemical reactions.”

“它实际上增强了化学反应。”

To test their model, the team wanted to re-create the extreme (and extremely dangerous) conditions present on adolescent sub-Neptunes.

为了测试他们的模型，该团队希望重现青少年亚海王星上存在的极端（且极其危险）的条件。

They needed to put hydrogen, a highly flammable gas, under intense pressure using special tools called diamond anvils, and then combine it with rock samples melted with lasers.

他们需要使用称为金刚石砧的特殊工具将氢气（一种高度易燃气体）置于高压下，然后将其与激光熔化的岩石样本结合起来。

It took them five years to develop the techniques they needed to conduct these experiments safely and effectively.

他们花了五年时间才开发出安全有效地进行这些实验所需的技术。

“We broke a lot of diamonds,” Shim said.

“我们打破了很多钻石，”希姆说。

“It was an exciting journey.”

“这是一次令人兴奋的旅程。”

They had hoped the hydrogen and oxygen would react to make water.

他们原本希望氢和氧能够反应生成水。

And that’s what happened, to the extreme: The reaction of high-pressure hydrogen and laser-melted rock was so efficient that it made up to 1,000 times more water than scientists predicted.

极端情况就是这样：高压氢气和激光熔化岩石的反应非常有效，生成的水量比科学家预测的多 1000 倍。

(A second laboratory study , published around the same time, reported similar results.) “It doesn’t seem unreasonable [that you could] produce a huge amount of water quite quickly,” said Paul Byrne , a planetary scientist at Washington University in St. Louis.

（大约在同一时间发表的第二项实验室研究报告了类似的结果。）“[你可以]很快地产生大量的水，这似乎并不是不合理的，”圣路易斯华盛顿大学的行星科学家保罗·伯恩说。

And “this is all homegrown, indigenous water”— no comets or asteroids required.

而且“这都是本土水”——不需要彗星或小行星。

Does that mean Earth created its own oceans?

这是否意味着地球创造了自己的海洋？

This is where the waters get a little murky.

这是水变得有点浑浊的地方。

“The paper doesn’t make strong claims about Earth,” Horn said.

“这篇论文没有对地球做出强有力的主张，”霍恩说。

But both he and Shim think it’s a valid link to make.

但他和希姆都认为这是一个有效的联系。

“It could happen,” Shim said.

“这可能会发生，”希姆说。

Other scientists agree that some amount of water could have formed on Earth — but perhaps not nearly enough to produce its oceans.

其他科学家一致认为，地球上可能已经形成了一定量的水，但可能不足以形成海洋。

“ I’d say it’s certainly possible that some water could be generated by reaction with hydrogen early on,” said Quentin Williams , an experimental geophysicist at the University of California, Santa Cruz.

加州大学圣克鲁斯分校的实验地球物理学家昆汀·威廉姆斯说：“我想说，早期与氢的反应肯定有可能产生一些水。”

“How much might be generated is, however, pretty enigmatic.”

“然而，可能产生多少却是相当神秘的。”

The issue is that nobody knows if there was enough hydrogen in Earth’s early atmosphere to create the pressure the reaction seems to need.

问题是，没有人知道地球早期大气中是否有足够的氢气来产生反应所需的压力。

Sub-Neptunes are far more massive than Earth, and their intense gravity is better at holding on to hydrogen.

亚海王星的质量比地球大得多，而且它们强大的引力更能保留氢。

“Earth is right on the edge of where that kind of thing can start happening,” Horn said.

“地球正处于这种事情可能开始发生的边缘，”霍恩说。

Some scientists don’t think Earth had the heft to manufacture its own water at scale.

一些科学家认为地球没有能力大规模生产自己的水。

“I’m a little bit doubtful whether you can have this for an Earth-mass planet,” said Anders Johansen , an astrophysicist at the University of Copenhagen in Denmark and at Lund University in Sweden.

丹麦哥本哈根大学和瑞典隆德大学的天体物理学家安德斯·约翰森说：“我有点怀疑是否可以将其用于地球质量的行星。”

But, Byrne said, the sub-Neptune experiments suggest that the reaction wouldn’t need to last long to create an enormous quantity of water.

但是，伯恩说，海王星下的实验表明，反应不需要持续很长时间就能产生大量的水。

Earth might have been a water factory for only a moment, but that moment may have been enough to forge oceans.

地球可能只是一个水工厂，但那一刻可能足以形成海洋。

If that’s the case, then the implications stretch far beyond our own solar system.

如果真是这样，那么其影响将远远超出我们自己的太阳系。

Perhaps countless planets meet what may be a necessary condition for hosting life because, as Byrne said, they “are born water-rich.”

也许无数行星都满足了孕育生命的必要条件，因为正如伯恩所说，它们“生来就富含水”。

It’s possible that at least some of Earth’s water came from processes on the planet.

地球上的水可能至少有一部分来自地球上的过程。

But that’s not the end of the story: Comets are making a comeback.

但这并不是故事的结局：彗星正在卷土重来。

By the time Rosetta met the duck-shaped comet 67P in 2014, scientists had studied the water of 11 other comets.

当罗塞塔号于 2014 年遇到鸭形彗星 67P 时，科学家们已经研究了其他 11 颗彗星的水。

All had D/H ratios unlike Earth’s — except one.

所有行星的 D/H 比率都与地球不同——只有一个例外。

In 2011, ESA’s Herschel Space Observatory found that the water in the comet Hartley 2 had a much more Earth-like signature.

2011 年，欧空局赫歇尔太空天文台发现哈特利 2 号彗星中的水具有更像地球的特征。

Comet Hartley 2, studied by the Herschel Space Observatory, has an Earth-like ratio of heavy to normal water.

赫歇尔太空天文台研究的哈特利 2 号彗星的重水与普通水的比例与地球相似。

The observation seemed anomalous.

这次观察似乎有些反常。

But in a paper published in 2024, scientists reinvestigated Rosetta’s analysis of comet 67P — and found that space may have tampered with the data.

但在 2024 年发表的一篇论文中，科学家重新研究了罗塞塔对 67P 彗星的分析，发现太空可能篡改了数据。

At the time of the sample collection, Rosetta had been flying through dust that contained heavy water .

在采集样本时，罗塞塔正在飞过含有重水的尘埃。

The icy comet body itself, surrounded by this dust, may have been fairly Earth-like after all.

毕竟，被尘埃包围的冰冷彗星体本身可能与地球相当相似。

Then, in a paper published in 2025, observations of comet 12P/Pons-Brooks detected a D/H ratio much like that of Earth’s oceans .

然后，在 2025 年发表的一篇论文中，对 12P/Pons-Brooks 彗星的观测发现了 D/H 比，与地球海洋的 D/H 比非常相似。

So, was it comets all along?

那么，它一直都是彗星吗？

Or asteroids?

还是小行星？

Or did Earth turn on the taps independently?

或者地球是独立打开水龙头的吗？

“I suspect it was a combination of all of them,” Meech said.

“我怀疑这是所有这些因素的结合，”米奇说。

Perhaps it’s hard to find a perfect extraterrestrial match for our planet’s watery chemistry because it’s such a diverse cocktail — one that’s also been tweaked and filtered over time by Earth’s geologic, atmospheric, and biologic processes.

也许很难找到一种与我们星球的水化学物质完美匹配的外星物质，因为它是一种如此多样化的鸡尾酒——随着时间的推移，它也被地球的地质、大气和生物过程调整和过滤。

“We may never know,” Meech said.

“我们可能永远不会知道，”米奇说。

But that doesn’t mean scientists will stop trying to answer one of the most fundamental questions about Earth and, ultimately, our own existence.

但这并不意味着科学家将停止尝试回答有关地球以及最终我们自身存在的最基本问题之一。

“It’s like asking, what’s the origin of life?” Meech said.

“这就像在问，生命的起源是什么？”米奇说道。

“The more you learn, the less you know — but the story becomes richer and more exciting.”

“你学得越多，知道的就越少——但故事会变得更丰富、更令人兴奋。”

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