美国国家公共电台 NPR A Slow Trip To A Hot Planet: Spacecraft Launches For Mission To Mercury

 

AILSA CHANG, HOST:

Later tonight at Europe's spaceport in French Guiana, a probe is scheduled to lift off. Its goal, as NPR's Joe Palca reports, is to explore the mysteries of Mercury.

JOE PALCA, BYLINE¹: Mercury is a funny little planet. Like the Earth, it has a metal core. But Mercury's metal core takes up most of the planet.

NANCY CHABOT: You can imagine it as a giant metal ball surrounded, like, a little bit of rock on the top.

PALCA: Nancy Chabot is a planetary scientist at the Johns Hopkins Applied² Physics Laboratory. She worked on a NASA probe called Messenger that orbited the innermost planet to the sun earlier this decade. Messenger proved Mercury holds some surprises. Despite 800-degree temperatures on the sunny parts of the planet, there are places in craters⁴ near the poles that never see the sun.

CHABOT: In these permanently⁵ shadowed regions, it is cold enough that water ice is stable for billions of years.

PALCA: Yes, ice. Messenger only got close enough to see ice at the north pole. But Chabot says the real icy action is at the south pole.

CHABOT: The largest crater³ to host these water ice deposits is right smack-dab at the south pole of Mercury. And so I'm very excited that BepiColombo is going to be in an orbit that passes much closer to the southern hemisphere.

PALCA: Bepi Colombo was an Italian scientist after whom the European Space Agency mission is named. It's actually two probes, one that will orbit the planet close up and another supplied by the Japanese space agency that will be further out, measuring Mercury's magnetic field. There's one feature on Mercury Chabot is particularly curious about.

CHABOT: The crater made by Messenger.

PALCA: At the end of its mission, Messenger managers decided⁶ to crash the spacecraft into the planet.

CHABOT: Once BepiColombo gets into orbit, they should be able to take the highest resolution image they possibly can. And we might be able to see Messenger's final resting spot.

PALCA: It's more than sentiment that makes Chabot curious about the crash site. The impact will undoubtedly⁷ have tossed up lots of debris⁸.

CHABOT: And we might be able to learn something about that freshly exposed material and more about Mercury.

PALCA: BepiColombo will take seven years to reach Mercury. It flies once by Earth, twice by Venus and six times by Mercury before it's in the right orientation⁹ to go into orbit around the hot little planet. Joe Palca, NPR News.

1 byline   

n.署名；v.署名

参考例句：

• His byline was absent as well.他的署名也不见了。
• We wish to thank the author of this article which carries no byline.我们要感谢这篇文章的那位没有署名的作者。

2 applied   

adj.应用的；v.应用，适用

参考例句：

• She plans to take a course in applied linguistics.她打算学习应用语言学课程。
• This cream is best applied to the face at night.这种乳霜最好晚上擦脸用。

3 crater   

n.火山口，弹坑

参考例句：

• With a telescope you can see the huge crater of Ve-suvius.用望远镜你能看到巨大的维苏威火山口。
• They came to the lip of a dead crater.他们来到了一个死火山口。

4 craters   

n.火山口( crater的名词复数 )；弹坑等

参考例句：

• Small meteorites have left impact craters all over the planet's surface. 这个行星的表面布满了小块陨石留下的撞击坑。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The battlefield was full of craters made by exploding shells. 战场上布满弹坑。 来自《现代英汉综合大词典》

5 permanently   

adv.永恒地，永久地，固定不变地

参考例句：

• The accident left him permanently scarred.那次事故给他留下了永久的伤疤。
• The ship is now permanently moored on the Thames in London.该船现在永久地停泊在伦敦泰晤士河边。

6 decided   

adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的

参考例句：

• This gave them a decided advantage over their opponents.这使他们比对手具有明显的优势。
• There is a decided difference between British and Chinese way of greeting.英国人和中国人打招呼的方式有很明显的区别。

7 undoubtedly   

adv.确实地，无疑地

参考例句：

• It is undoubtedly she who has said that.这话明明是她说的。
• He is undoubtedly the pride of China.毫无疑问他是中国的骄傲。

8 debris   

n.瓦砾堆，废墟，碎片

参考例句：

• After the bombing there was a lot of debris everywhere.轰炸之后到处瓦砾成堆。
• Bacteria sticks to food debris in the teeth,causing decay.细菌附着在牙缝中的食物残渣上，导致蛀牙。

9 orientation   

n.方向，目标；熟悉，适应，情况介绍

参考例句：

• Children need some orientation when they go to school.小孩子上学时需要适应。
• The traveller found his orientation with the aid of a good map.旅行者借助一幅好地图得知自己的方向。