Visiting the stars (and planets, and telescopes) in VR
Visiting the stars (and planets, and telescopes) in VR
漫游星际（及行星与望远镜）：VR 体验之旅
Having a computer strapped to my face for 40 minutes was one reason to feel a little sweaty. But the tour of the Universe I had just received in virtual reality—including visits to the near vicinity of the Sun, the giant black hole at the center of our galaxy, and a hellscape of an exoplanet 41 light-years distant—provided another excuse for sensing some heat. 在脸上绑着一台电脑 40 分钟，是我感到有些冒汗的原因之一。但我刚刚在虚拟现实中完成的宇宙之旅——包括造访太阳附近、银河系中心的巨大黑洞，以及 41 光年外一颗如地狱般的系外行星——则为我感到燥热提供了另一个理由。
Smithsonian Starstruck: An Immersive Experience is a 40-minute astronomy walk-through. It debuted in Washington, DC, in May with solo adult tickets now ranging from $29 to $35 and group tickets for four or more starting at $18 each (all now discounted by 15 percent); it will also open in Denver, Orlando, Florida, and San Antonio, Texas, later this year. 史密森尼学会的《Starstruck：沉浸式体验》是一场 40 分钟的天文漫步。该项目于 5 月在华盛顿特区首次亮相，目前成人单人票价在 29 至 35 美元之间，四人及以上团体票起价为每人 18 美元（目前均有 15% 的折扣）；今年晚些时候，该项目还将在丹佛、佛罗里达州奥兰多和德克萨斯州圣安东尼奥开放。
I stopped by on a Monday in June to take it in. After some onboarding that included setting such preferences as closed captioning and signing a waiver, I had enough time to sit on a bench next to the exhibit space (which has hosted other VR experiences) to enjoy watching another attendee with a VR headset blurt out, “Oh my God!” 6 月的一个周一，我前往现场体验了一番。在完成包括设置字幕偏好和签署免责声明在内的入场流程后，我有足够的时间坐在展区旁的长椅上（该展区此前也举办过其他 VR 活动），饶有兴致地看着另一位戴着 VR 头显的参与者惊呼：“天哪！”
After putting on an HTC Vive Focus 3 headset and receiving introductory coaching about how to move through the exhibit space, the tour began. My virtual self was standing below a glittering night sky at the Multiple Mirror Telescope at the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory’s Whipple Observatory. 戴上 HTC Vive Focus 3 头显并接受了关于如何在展区内移动的入门指导后，旅程开始了。我的虚拟化身站在史密森尼天体物理天文台惠普尔天文台的多镜面望远镜下，头顶是璀璨的夜空。
The stars in my VR night were big and bright, but they blurred noticeably when I moved my head. I had to wonder how a headset more recent than this 2021-vintage model would have performed; in other cities, Starstruck patrons will don a newer HTC product, the Vive Focus Vision, and the DC exhibit will move to that model at some point. VR 夜空中的星星又大又亮，但当我转动头部时，画面会出现明显的模糊。我不禁好奇，如果使用比这款 2021 年的老机型更新的头显，效果会如何；在其他城市，Starstruck 的参与者将佩戴更新的 HTC 产品 Vive Focus Vision，而华盛顿特区的展区也将在未来更换为该型号。
From there, we walked from one viewing spot to another in Starstruck’s room, occasionally bumping into each other as we followed the lead of a virtual tour guide wearing what looked like an approximation of SpaceX’s spacesuits and voiced by narrator James Seawood. We strolled to watch a re-creation of the Universe’s self-birth via the Big Bang, then ambled over for a close-up look at a stellar nursery that the Hubble Space Telescope made famous as the Pillars of Creation. 此后，我们在 Starstruck 的展厅内从一个观景点走到另一个观景点，偶尔会因为跟随虚拟导游的指引而撞到彼此。这位导游身穿类似 SpaceX 宇航服的服装，由解说员 James Seawood 配音。我们漫步观看了通过大爆炸重现的宇宙诞生过程，随后又踱步近距离观察了哈勃望远镜使其闻名于世的恒星摇篮——“创生之柱”。
Seawood described the scene of star formation floating before our perch as “a cosmic pressure cooker” and “beautiful chaos.” Seawood 将我们面前漂浮的恒星形成场景描述为“宇宙高压锅”和“美丽的混乱”。
VR vistas
VR 视野
As we stood on a virtual set of glowing hexagonal blocks, the VR vistas zoomed as far out as a view of thousands of galaxies and as close as a dangerous proximity to the Sun—with NASA’s Parker Solar Probe keeping us company. Starstruck features three other of NASA’s farthest-seeing observatories: Hubble, the Chandra X-Ray Observatory, and the James Webb Space Telescope. 当我们站在一组发光的虚拟六边形方块上时，VR 视野可以放大到数千个星系的远景，也可以拉近到距离太阳极近的危险位置——NASA 的帕克太阳探测器全程陪伴着我们。Starstruck 还展示了 NASA 其他三台观测能力最强的天文台：哈勃空间望远镜、钱德拉 X 射线天文台和詹姆斯·韦伯空间望远镜。
Each spacecraft’s close-up in the tour comes with a chance to press a “Take a picture” button that didn’t seem to do anything, plus an opportunity to play with a small model of it. I could not resist a chance to inspect JWST’s intimidatingly complex design, so I picked up a gossamer version of the observatory 1.5 million kilometers away from my real-world spot and gently turned it in my virtual hand. 在旅程中，每台航天器的近景展示都提供了一个“拍照”按钮（虽然似乎没什么用），以及一个把玩其小型模型的功能。我无法抗拒检查韦伯望远镜那复杂得令人望而生畏的设计的机会，于是我拿起了一个距离我现实位置 150 万公里远的望远镜的轻盈模型，在虚拟手中轻轻转动。
Much of Starstruck focuses on the life cycles of stars and their planets, and a particularly evocative segment transported us to the hellish surface of Janssen, an exoplanet also known as 55 Cancri Ae that’s in an orbit so close to its star Copernicus that its year lasts about 17 hours. Starstruck 的大部分内容聚焦于恒星及其行星的生命周期，其中一个特别引人入胜的片段将我们带到了 Janssen 的地狱表面。这颗系外行星也被称为 55 Cancri Ae，它绕其母星哥白尼运行的轨道极近，以至于其一年仅持续约 17 小时。
The experience’s depiction of that planet’s surface as rugged rock outcrops with lava flowing around them (and stashes of diamonds crushed into being by the intense heat) may understate Janssen’s brutal environment—some analyses suggest that its entire surface is molten rock. Many exoplanets are stuck in inhospitable orbits that make life or just the presence of liquid water impossible, and this stop on the tour brings home Earth’s good fortune. As Seawood put it: “We hit the stellar jackpot.” 体验中将该行星表面描绘为崎岖的岩石露头，周围流淌着熔岩（以及因高温挤压而形成的钻石矿藏），这可能还低估了 Janssen 环境的残酷——一些分析认为其整个表面都是熔融岩石。许多系外行星处于不适宜居住的轨道上，使得生命或液态水的存在成为不可能，而这一站的旅程让我们深刻体会到地球的幸运。正如 Seawood 所言：“我们中了恒星大奖。”
Two other stops provided an up-close look at the death throes of stars. A visit to Betelgeuse showed that the late-stage red supergiant in the constellation Orion was looking distinctly lumpy as it had begun to fuse higher elements. The visit then took us into the future with the star going supernova, putting on a show that no one on Earth has seen for centuries. 另外两站让我们近距离观察了恒星的垂死挣扎。在参宿四（Betelgeuse），我们看到这颗位于猎户座的晚期红超巨星因为开始聚变更重的元素，外表看起来明显变得凹凸不平。随后，旅程将我们带向未来，目睹了该恒星发生超新星爆发，上演了一场地球上几个世纪以来无人见过的奇观。
The last stop in space took us to just outside the event horizon of Sagittarius A*, the unimaginably enormous black hole at the center of the Milky Way. Starstruck made its most effective use of VR’s potential here; I raised my virtual hand to direct a beam of light toward the black hole, then saw it bend into that inescapable gravity well and shift into the red. 太空之旅的最后一站将我们带到了人马座 A* 的事件视界外，这是银河系中心那个大得难以想象的黑洞。Starstruck 在这里最有效地发挥了 VR 的潜力；我举起虚拟手掌，将一束光射向黑洞，然后看着它弯曲进入那个无法逃脱的引力井，并向红端偏移。
The tour ended by taking us back to a particularly remote corner of Earth and another sky full of stars: Chile’s Atacama Desert, the future site of the Giant Magellan Telescope (SAO is among its founding partners). It depicts that still-under-construction observatory as finished, with its enclosure open and its seven primary mirrors angled up to see a little farther into the Universe. 旅程的终点将我们带回了地球上一个极其偏远的角落，那里有着另一片繁星点点的天空：智利的阿塔卡马沙漠，这里是巨型麦哲伦望远镜的未来选址（史密森尼天体物理天文台是其创始合作伙伴之一）。它将这座仍在建设中的天文台描绘为已完工状态，圆顶开启，七面主镜向上倾斜，以便更深入地观测宇宙。
For a VR connoisseur with an Apple Vision Pro at home, the experience here might not deliver enough technical wow. But if you’re a space nerd or astronomy enthusiast—especially if you can assemble three like-minded friends as an away team to qualify for the group discount and make it less awkward when you walk into each other mid-tour—it provides an engaging escape. 对于家里拥有 Apple Vision Pro 的 VR 行家来说，这里的体验可能在技术上不够惊艳。但如果你是一个太空迷或天文爱好者——尤其是如果你能召集三位志同道合的朋友组成“远征队”以获得团体折扣，并减少在旅途中撞到彼此的尴尬——它确实提供了一次引人入胜的逃离现实之旅。