Humanity will encounter alien civilisations with the next two decades, a top Russian astronomer predicted yesterday. 昨天，有一位权威的俄罗斯天文学家做出了大胆的预测，称人类将在未来的二十年中与外星文明相遇。
Professor Andrei Finkelstein said that ten percent of the known planets circling suns in the galaxy resemble Earth, and if water can be found on them, then so can life.
这位名叫Andrei Finkelstein的教授说，在人类已知的银河系中围绕太阳旋转行星中，有近只分之一的行星的构造与表面情况都与地球非常相似，如果能在这些星球上发现有水的存在，那么发现生命便是可能的事。
He was speaking in Moscow at an international forum dedicated to the search for extraterrestrial life.
他是在莫斯科所举行的一次专门关于搜寻外星生命的论坛上所发表这一言论的。
'The genesis of life is as inevitable as the formation of atoms... Life exists on other planets and we will find it within 20 years,' said Professor Finkelstein, director of the Russian Academy of Sciences' Applied Astronomy Institute.
“生命的起源是必然的，这道理就如同原子必然会形成一样。宇宙中的其他星球上一定也有生命的存在，并且我们将在未来的20年内与之相遇。”身为俄罗斯应用天文学研究所的主任的Finkelstein教授如是说。
As to the all-important question of how aliens will look, he added they would most likely resemble humans with two arms, two legs and a head.
在回答大家所最为关心的问题，也就是外星人到底长什么样的疑问时，这位学者称，外星人外形和人类相似，有双臂双腿和头颅。
He said: 'They may have different colour skin, but even we have that.'
他说：“外星人可能会有不同的肤色，不过我们人类也是如此。”
Professor Finkelstein's institute runs a programme launched in the 1960s at the height of the Cold War space race to watch for and beam out radio signals to outer space.
Finkelstein教授的研究所所进行的一个项目开始于上世纪60年代冷战期间美苏太空竞赛时期，两个国家就接收探测外太空所发出的电磁波讯号而你争我夺。
'The whole time we have been searching for extraterrestrial civilisations, we have mainly been waiting for messages from space and not the other way,' he said.
“长久以来我们一直都在寻找外太空文明的存在，我们只能通过等待来自太空的信息以外，别无他法”他说。
Professor Finkelstein's comments came on the same day a video emerged purporting to show 'a mothership and its fleet' zipping around in the clouds above a BBC building in central London.
Finkelstein发表这一言论的同一天，在英国有人拍下了这样一段视频画面，在伦敦市中心的英国广播公司BBC的大楼上空，在云层之上出现了疑似外太空飞船和其舰队的踪迹。
