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This is Scientific American sixty seconds space, I'm John Matson, got minute?

"Touchdown confirmed. We are safe on Mars. Time to see where our Curiosity will take us."

The control room at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory late in the evening of August 5th, Pacific time, when word arrived that the Curiosity rover had landed safely on Mars. The one-ton rover, which dwarfs¹ all Mars landers that came before it, will now spend a planned two years exploring the Martian surface. The mission is expected to cost 2.5 billion dollars.Curiosity's task is to investigate the inside of Gale² Crater³, where a giant mound⁴ of sedimentary deposits may provide evidence of a wetter, possibly habitable Mars billions of years ago.But first it had to survive an elaborate landing sequence, which appears to have gone smoothly⁵. Curiosity landed on time and on target and soon beamed back grainy photos of its wheels and its shadow.Given the carlike size of the rover and the challenges of landing on Mars, Curiosity's landing goes down as one of the greatest parking jobs in history.

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1 dwarfs
n.侏儒，矮子（dwarf的复数形式）vt.（使）显得矮小（dwarf的第三人称单数形式）
参考例句：
Shakespeare dwarfs other dramatists. 莎士比亚使其他剧作家相形见绌。来自《简明英汉词典》 The new building dwarfs all the other buildings in the town. 新大楼使城里所有其他建筑物都显得矮小了。来自辞典例句

2 gale
n.大风，强风，一阵闹声（尤指笑声等）
参考例句：
We got our roof blown off in the gale last night.昨夜的大风把我们的房顶给掀掉了。 According to the weather forecast,there will be a gale tomorrow.据气象台预报，明天有大风。

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 mound
n.土墩，堤，小山；v.筑堤，用土堆防卫
参考例句：
The explorers climbed a mound to survey the land around them.勘探者爬上土丘去勘测周围的土地。 The mound can be used as our screen.这个土丘可做我们的掩蔽物。

5 smoothly
adv.平滑地，顺利地，流利地，流畅地
参考例句：
The workmen are very cooperative,so the work goes on smoothly.工人们十分合作，所以工作进展顺利。 Just change one or two words and the sentence will read smoothly.这句话只要动一两个字就顺了。