英语听力：自然百科 行星旅行：土星 Saturn—4（在线收听） |
Hopes and dreams of thousands of scientists and engineers are resting on the next few moments. We’ve been to Saturn twice before with the voyager I and voyager II spacecraft. But rather than these quick Kodak moments, we want to take a nice long leisurely look at the Saturnian system. The only way to do that was to slow down and let Saturn’s gravity capture send to orbit. Current speed of the Cassini spacecraft, 50,000 miles an hour, and increasing as Saturn’s gravity draws us in. Cassini presses on, aiming for the gap between the outer F and G rings, hopefully clear of orbital debris. We turn the /main Huygens antenna in the direction that the craft would see the ring particles coming toward it, so that it would act as a shield.
You’re listening to the actual recording of tiny particles hitting the spacecraft as it crosses the plane of the rings,
Let’s go ahead and switch camera over to be zero.
So far, so good. But as Cassini disappears into radio silence behind Saturn, everything rests on the spacecraft firing its engine perfectly and slowing down.
It’s a nail-biting wait at mission control. Go ahead and switch on.
As Cassini emerges proudly from Saturn’s shadow, it turns to cross the ring plane again.
Through any potential inhabitants of the Saturnian system, your eyes are not deceiving you tonight, there’s a 30 second moon racing your night skies, and that’s the Cassini-Huygens spacecraft. |
| 原文地址：http://www.tingroom.com/lesson/zrbaike/2012/260594.html |