国外媒体:美科学家称月球正在缩小

Moon is shrinking, say astronomers¹

The Man in the Moon has become the latest victim of contraction² in the housing market.

Astronomers reporting on Thursday in the US journal Science said they had found previous undetected landforms which indicate that Earth's satellite has been shrinking... albeit³ by only a tiny amount.

The intriguing⁴ features, called lobate scarps, arefaultscreated when the Moon's once-molten interior began to cool, causing the lunar surface to contract and then crinkle, they said.

Relative to the Moon's age, estimated at around 4.5 billion years, the contraction is recent, occurring less than a billion years ago, and is measured at about 100 meters (325 feet).

Lobate scarps were first spotted⁵ near the lunar equator in the 1970s bypanoramiccameras aboard the Apollo 15, 16 and 17 missions.

Fourteen new faults have been been spotted inhigh-resolutionimages taken by NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter.

The new discoveries show that the scarps are globally distributed and not clustered in equatorial regions, and this provides powerful evidence for the contraction scenario⁶.

The investigation⁷ was headed by Thomas Watters of the Center for Earth and Planetary Studies at the Smithsonian Museum's National Air and Space Museum, Washington.

“月球人”成为月球“房地产市场”紧缩的最新受害者。

天文学家于上周四在美国《科学》杂志发表的报告中称，他们发现了月球上出现了一些之前未被勘测到的地貌，这些地貌表明地球的这颗卫星正在缩小——尽管幅度很小。

这些被称为“叶状陡坡”的有趣的地貌特征是在月球一度熔化的内核开始冷却的过程中形成的断层，这一过程使得月球表面发生收缩，并出现褶皱。

这一收缩过程是在“近期”发生的，相对于月球45亿年的高龄，这个“近期”指的是不到10亿年前。但据测算这一收缩的幅度仅为约100米（325英尺）。

“叶状陡坡”于上世纪70年代在月球赤道附近首次被发现，是阿波罗15号、16号、17号飞船上的全景照相机拍到的。

之后又有14处新的断层被发现，美国宇航局的月球勘测轨道飞行器拍摄了这些断层的高清照片。

这些新发现表明，叶状陡坡分布在月球各地，并非只是集中在月球的赤道地区，这也为月球正在缩小这一假设提供了有力证据。

这项研究由华盛顿史密森国家航空航天博物馆地球与行星研究中心的托马斯沃特斯负责开展。

1 astronomers   

n.天文学者，天文学家( astronomer的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Astronomers can accurately foretell the date,time,and length of future eclipses. 天文学家能精确地预告未来日食月食的日期、时刻和时长。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Astronomers used to ask why only Saturn has rings. 天文学家们过去一直感到奇怪，为什么只有土星有光环。 来自《简明英汉词典》

2 contraction   

n.缩略词，缩写式，害病

参考例句：

• The contraction of this muscle raises the lower arm.肌肉的收缩使前臂抬起。
• The forces of expansion are balanced by forces of contraction.扩张力和收缩力相互平衡。

3 albeit   

conj.即使；纵使；虽然

参考例句：

• Albeit fictional,she seemed to have resolved the problem.虽然是虚构的，但是在她看来好象是解决了问题。
• Albeit he has failed twice,he is not discouraged.虽然失败了两次，但他并没有气馁。

4 intriguing   

adj.有趣的；迷人的v.搞阴谋诡计(intrigue的现在分词)；激起…的好奇心

参考例句：

• These discoveries raise intriguing questions. 这些发现带来了非常有趣的问题。
• It all sounds very intriguing. 这些听起来都很有趣。 来自《简明英汉词典》

5 spotted   

adj.有斑点的，斑纹的，弄污了的

参考例句：

• The milkman selected the spotted cows,from among a herd of two hundred.牛奶商从一群200头牛中选出有斑点的牛。
• Sam's shop stocks short spotted socks.山姆的商店屯积了有斑点的短袜。

6 scenario   

n.剧本，脚本；概要

参考例句：

• But the birth scenario is not completely accurate.然而分娩脚本并非完全准确的。
• This is a totally different scenario.这是完全不同的剧本。

7 investigation   

n.调查，调查研究

参考例句：

• In an investigation,a new fact became known, which told against him.在调查中新发现了一件对他不利的事实。
• He drew the conclusion by building on his own investigation.他根据自己的调查研究作出结论。