新概念雙語(yǔ)：地質(zhì)學(xué)家機(jī)器被送往火星進(jìn)行深度挖掘

The InSight Mission will look at Mars’s seismic activity and latent heat to find out more about how planets get made--and how humans might live there.

InSight任務(wù)目的在于研究火星的地震活動(dòng)和潛熱，以了解更多關(guān)于火星的形成過(guò)程以及在未來(lái)人類如何能在那里生活。

“Absolutely spectacular mission…and it’s not a rover, it’s a lander. It’s designed to land and deploy several instruments.”

“這是一項(xiàng)絕對(duì)壯觀的任務(wù)，并且這次任務(wù)并不是在火星上空的漫游，而是實(shí)實(shí)在在的著陸，并部署相關(guān)儀器。”

Jim Green, NASA’s new chief scientist, talking about the InSight Mission to Mars. InSight [Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport] launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California the morning of May 5th. He spoke with Scientific American space editor Lee Billings, who recorded their conversation.

NASA的新首席科學(xué)家Jim Green談到火星InSight任務(wù)時(shí)說(shuō)。5月5日上午，Insight在加州范登堡空軍基地發(fā)射，以期能夠通過(guò)對(duì)地震探測(cè)、測(cè)地學(xué)和熱傳導(dǎo)對(duì)火星進(jìn)行深入的內(nèi)部探索。事后科學(xué)美國(guó)空間編輯李比林斯采訪了Jim Green，并記錄了相關(guān)內(nèi)容。

“One instrument…will be set on the surface and will measure Marsquakes. Now why are Marsquakes important? Well, Marsquakes, because we can get the acoustic signals and see how they are displayed in time, we can tease out the size of the core, even if it’s liquid or not, the size of the mantle and the crust, and compare those with the big terrestrial planet, Earth, that we know a lot about its interior. And this will really help us understand how terrestrial planets are made.”

“我們會(huì)在火星表面設(shè)置一種儀器，并對(duì)火星進(jìn)行測(cè)量。”為什么火星震動(dòng)測(cè)量很重要?因?yàn)槲覀兛梢酝ㄟ^(guò)火星震動(dòng)測(cè)量相應(yīng)的聲信號(hào)，并觀察這些聲信號(hào)是如何隨著時(shí)間的推移而排布，進(jìn)而估算出火星內(nèi)核的大小，甚至推測(cè)出其內(nèi)核是液體還是其他什么，同時(shí)大致估算出地幔和地殼的大小，這樣我們就可以知道更多關(guān)于它的內(nèi)部結(jié)構(gòu)，從而真正的幫助我們理解類地行星是如何形成的。”

Green was NASA’s Planetary Science Division director since 2006 before taking on his current assignment just last week. Back to the InSight Mission.

從2006年開(kāi)始Green一致?lián)蜰ASA的行星科學(xué)部主任，直到在上周承擔(dān)目前Insight任務(wù)。

“But in general, it also has a human exploration part to it. For instance, we know Mars is quaking, we have seen with Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, from orbit, avalanches. And so, something is going on and it’s shaking the planet. And this is really exciting, because if humans go to Mars in our lifetime, which I anticipate they will, they’re gonna need to build structures. Those structures have got to be able to understand the environment and be safe. And so they’re gonna have to withstand whatever Marsquake environment is actually there. We will know what that is, we will know if it’s difficult or whether it’s relatively easy, but we’ll be able to accommodate it no matter what.

“但總的來(lái)說(shuō)，它也有人類探索的部分。例如，我們知道火星在顫動(dòng)，我們一直通過(guò)軌道、雪崩等觀測(cè)火星偵察軌道器。所以，火星上正在發(fā)生的事在一直影響著這個(gè)星球。這真的很令人興奮，因?yàn)槿绻幸惶烊祟惽巴鹦?我猜測(cè)是早晚的事)，他們將需要構(gòu)建相應(yīng)的結(jié)構(gòu)，這些結(jié)構(gòu)必須能夠適應(yīng)環(huán)境并保持安全。所以他們必須承受住在那里的任何環(huán)境。通過(guò)觀測(cè)我們可以直到要選用什么結(jié)構(gòu)，工程建造是否困難或相對(duì)容易，但無(wú)論怎樣我們都要適應(yīng)這些環(huán)境。

“Now another experiment is a heat probe. This also sits on the surface and it pounds into the ground about five meters a set of thermistors that will measure the heat…and that will tell us how Mars is cooling off. You know, all our planets were built 4.5 billion years ago, they’re still cooling off from their initial accretion. So we’re going to see, well, gee, is like Earth’s geothermal ability, does Mars have an ability to, as it cools off, heat habitats for human exploration, or is it primarily very cool in the core, and we’ll know if it’s partially liquid or not, is that completely solid now. And all that will be put together in our models of the interior of Mars and as I said, it will also have some profound effects on what we do with human explorations next.”

“現(xiàn)在另一個(gè)實(shí)驗(yàn)是熱探測(cè)器。它坐落在火星表面，并向地面5米深的位置布置熱敏電阻進(jìn)行熱量測(cè)量熱…這將告訴我們火星如何冷卻。我們所有的行星是建于45億年前，它們?nèi)匀皇腔谒麄冏畛蹙鄯e冷卻。所以我們將會(huì)直到火星是否有類似地球的地?zé)崮芰?lái)冷卻從而成為人類的棲息地，或者火星球核內(nèi)部是否非常寒冷，以及內(nèi)部是否是部分液體還是固態(tài)。所有這些都將被整合到我事先提到的火星內(nèi)部模型中，它也會(huì)對(duì)我們下一步的人類探索產(chǎn)生深遠(yuǎn)的影響。”

If all goes well, InSight will land on Mars on November 26th.

如果一切順利，InSight將于11月26日登陸火星。