美国国家公共电台 NPR--NASA scientists need your help finding clouds on Mars

NASA scientists need your help finding clouds on Mars

Transcript¹

NPR's A Martínez talks to NASA scientist Armin Kleinboehl about the space agency's Cloudspotting on Mars project, which asks for the public's help identifying Martian clouds.

AMART?NEZ, HOST:

Clouds on Mars are wispy² due to the thin atmosphere. And algorithms have trouble identifying them. That is why NASA is asking for help from people online. The project is called Cloudspotting on Mars. And one of its leaders is NASA's scientist Armin Kleinboehl, who walked me through how to help.

How much base of information should I have on the atmosphere? Do I need to be an expert on the atmosphere to be able to do this?

ARMIN KLEINBOEHL: Anybody can do this. Anybody who has a computer with a web browser³ and they can look at the computer screen can do this. My mother can do this. She works on that tool. And she's not a scientist or an academic.

MART?NEZ: Armin, I hope your mother didn't hear you say that.

KLEINBOEHL: I'm sure she's OK with that.

MART?NEZ: She's OK with it? Good. I don't want to ruin any mother-son relationship here. OK. So I happen to have a computer with a web browser right in front of me. So let's walk through how someone like me can help identify clouds on Mars. I've got the webpage pulled up. And I'll follow along with you. What should I be looking at first here?

KLEINBOEHL: So if you pull up the webpage, Cloudspotting on Mars, you get to the landing site. And it says, help us find exotic clouds high in the Martian atmosphere. Because of the measurement, geometry, these clouds appear as arches in the data set. So that's what we're looking for. We're looking for the peaks of those arches, which correspond then to the actual altitude of the cloud.

MART?NEZ: But when it says to decide if something is an arch, it clearly looks like an arch. Like, imagine the Gateway⁴ Arch in St. Louis. That's exactly what it would look like. And is that what we're all looking for?

KLEINBOEHL: That's what you're looking at.

MART?NEZ: So to mark the arch - say I'm going through the images. And I'm pretty sure I see an arch exactly as you've described it, with the two legs. How do I go about marking the arch?

KLEINBOEHL: Well, there's essentially⁵ just one feature here that you can click. It's called arch peak marker. You click that. And then you can hover⁶ with your mouse over the peak of your arch and click in the actual data image. And that will produce a green circle that marks the position of the arch. I think it's a fairly simple workflow that most people will find fairly easy to do.

MART?NEZ: Armin, I could completely see someone just getting lost in this and just doing this for hours on end. How much time should someone spend on this realistically so that they don't maybe let other responsibilities in their life go?

KLEINBOEHL: Oh, I don't know. I think - I want to leave that up to the user.

MART?NEZ: (Laughter).

KLEINBOEHL: I'm amazed about, you know, how much response we've had to this project. We thought, oh, we put, like, an amount of data on that might be completed in, like, two months or so. And it was completed in little more than two weeks. And we had to scramble⁷ to put more data on because we had such a great response. So I really want to thank the citizen scientists who have worked on this tool over the last month or so because, you know, the response was really better than anything that we had hoped for.

MART?NEZ: All right. And I guess, I mean, for people that would love to imagine a time when maybe we can be on Mars someday, I mean, are these legitimately⁸ some of the first steps toward getting there if we were to ever be able to get there?

KLEINBOEHL: Yeah. I think the information that we provide with these atmospheric⁹ investigations¹⁰ is very valuable for getting people to Mars. You would imagine, you know, if you're an astronaut and you're supposed to go out of your habitat, you would like to know what the weather is, right? So ideally, you would have, like, a few spacecraft in orbit that provide measurements that tell you what the weather is and what you can expect when you leave your habitat.

MART?NEZ: That's Armin Kleinboehl, deputy principal investigator¹¹ of the Mars Climate Sounder at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Armin, thanks a lot.

KLEINBOEHL: Thanks so much for having me.

(SOUNDBITE OF HANS ZIMMER'S "CORNFIELD CHASE")

1 transcript   

n.抄本，誊本，副本，肄业证书

参考例句：

• A transcript of the tapes was presented as evidence in court.一份录音带的文字本作为证据被呈交法庭。
• They wouldn't let me have a transcript of the interview.他们拒绝给我一份采访的文字整理稿。

2 wispy   

adj.模糊的；纤细的

参考例句：

• Grey wispy hair straggled down to her shoulders.稀疏的灰白头发披散在她肩头。
• The half moon is hidden behind some wispy clouds.半轮月亮躲在淡淡的云彩之后。

3 browser   

n.浏览者

参考例句：

• View edits in a web browser.在浏览器中看编辑的效果。
• I think my browser has a list of shareware links.我想在浏览器中会有一系列的共享软件链接。

4 gateway   

n.大门口，出入口，途径，方法

参考例句：

• Hard work is the gateway to success.努力工作是通往成功之路。
• A man collected tolls at the gateway.一个人在大门口收通行费。

5 essentially   

adv.本质上，实质上，基本上

参考例句：

• Really great men are essentially modest.真正的伟人大都很谦虚。
• She is an essentially selfish person.她本质上是个自私自利的人。

6 hover   

vi.翱翔，盘旋；徘徊；彷徨，犹豫

参考例句：

• You don't hover round the table.你不要围着桌子走来走去。
• A plane is hover on our house.有一架飞机在我们的房子上盘旋。

7 scramble   

v.爬行，攀爬，杂乱蔓延，碎片，片段，废料

参考例句：

• He broke his leg in his scramble down the wall.他爬墙摔断了腿。
• It was a long scramble to the top of the hill.到山顶须要爬登一段长路。

8 legitimately   

ad.合法地；正当地，合理地

参考例句：

• The radio is legitimately owned by the company. 该电台为这家公司所合法拥有。
• She looked for nothing save what might come legitimately and without the appearance of special favour. 她要的并不是男人们的额外恩赐，而是合法正当地得到的工作。 来自英汉文学 - 嘉莉妹妹

9 atmospheric   

adj.大气的，空气的；大气层的；大气所引起的

参考例句：

• Sea surface temperatures and atmospheric circulation are strongly coupled.海洋表面温度与大气环流是密切相关的。
• Clouds return radiant energy to the surface primarily via the atmospheric window.云主要通过大气窗区向地表辐射能量。

10 investigations   

（正式的）调查( investigation的名词复数 )； 侦查； 科学研究； 学术研究

参考例句：

• His investigations were intensive and thorough but revealed nothing. 他进行了深入彻底的调查，但没有发现什么。
• He often sent them out to make investigations. 他常常派他们出去作调查。

11 investigator   

n.研究者，调查者，审查者

参考例句：

• He was a special investigator for the FBI.他是联邦调查局的特别调查员。
• The investigator was able to deduce the crime and find the criminal.调查者能够推出犯罪过程并锁定罪犯。