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火星探测器“好奇者”号探寻火星生命迹象。 Mars Rover Landing a Miracle火星探测器寻找奇迹。 Beer was flowing and scientists were celebrating all over Pasadena (帕萨迪纳,美国城市) as NASA’s (美国国家航空航天局) rover Curiosity (“好奇者”号) landed successfully on the surface of Mars on August 6. NASA scientists hailed the landing as a “miracle of engineering” as they scanned early images of an ancient crater (环形山) that may hold clues about whether life took hold on the red [w]planet[/w]. The one-ton, six-wheeled [w]laboratory[/w] landed to the relief and joy of scientists and engineers, who are eager to conduct NASA’s first astrobiology (天体生物学) mission since the 1970s Viking probes (“维京号”探测). NASA engineers said the feat stands as the most challenging and [w]elaborate[/w] achievement in the history of robotic [w]spaceflight[/w], and opens the door to a new era in planetary exploration. President Barack Obama hailed the accomplishment as an historic “point of national pride.” The first destination of the rover was an area near its landing site, where three kinds of [w]terrain[/w] come together in a striking and unusual way. The rover’s primary mission is to reach the base of Mount Sharp (夏普山)—a three-mile high mound (土墩) with layers of exposed rock—as it searches for the building blocks of possible Martian microbial (微生物的) life. It will also fire its powerful laser to smash a bit of bedrock, while a small telescope analyzes the [w]vaporized[/w] material to determine what minerals it contains. Travel to Glenelg (格雷尔勘测点), about 500 meters from Curiosity’s landing site, should take a month or longer, depending on how many stops scientists decide to make along the way. “Probably we’ll do a month worth of science there, maybe a little bit more,” said lead mission scientist John Grotzinger. The combined system, known as Chemistry & Camera, or ChemCam, is the first of its kind to be used on Mars. It is designed to make about 14,000 measurements throughout Curiosity’s mission. |
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