美国有线新闻 CNN NASA火星车“毅力号”即将登陆火星（在线收听）

Where would you find the tallest mountain in the solar system? Nepal, Mars, the Moon or Titan. Scientsts believe that Olympus Mons, a volcano on Mars is the tallest mountain in the solar system.

在以下哪里能找到太阳系中最高的山峰？尼泊尔、火星、月球还是土卫六？科学家认为，火星上的火山奥林匹斯山是太阳系中最高的山峰。

Since the 1960s, NASA has launched more than 20 missions to the red planet. Not all of them have been successful. As the project manager for the newest Rover mission puts it, landing on Mars is hard. But that hasn't deterred the scientists behind the $2.7 billion Perseverance Project. The Rover is set to touch down on Mars in 20 days. It's the biggest, heaviest and most advanced machine of its kind that NASA's ever built and scientists will be relying completely on its computer systems to get the landing right. Mars is more than 292 million miles away. It takes 10 and a half minutes for radio signals on earth to reach a rover on Mars and the landing process occurs over seven minutes. So if anything goes wrong as Perseverance gets close to the surface, there won't be enough time for NASA to correct it.

自20世纪60年代以来，美国国家航空航天局（NASA）已执行了20多次火星发射任务。但并非所有任务都成功了。正如最新的“漫游者”任务的项目经理所说，登陆火星很难。但这并没有阻止科学家参与这个投资27亿美元的毅力号计划。“漫游者”将在20天后在火星着陆。这是美国国家航空航天局有史以来建造的体积最大、质量最重、也最先进的探测机器，科学家将完全依靠该机器的计算机系统实现安全着陆。火星距离地球2.92亿英里。地球上的无线电信号到达火星探测器需要10分半钟，着陆过程需要7分钟。因此，如果“毅力号”在接近地面的过程中出现任何问题，美国国家航空航天局没有足够的时间来纠正。

Of course the organization has done this before with other landers and rovers. And assuming Perseverance gets to Mars, oK, it will start taking pictures and exploring the planets geology and climate. The rover is also carrying a helicopter named Ingenuity. The $23 million aircraft isn't collecting any scientific info. It's there just to see if helicopter flight is feasible for future missions. While it does that the Perseverance Rover is expected to cover 15 miles in its year's long journey.

当然，美国国家航空航天局以前也在其他着陆器和探测器上这样做过。假设“毅力号”顺利到达火星，它将开始拍照并探索火星的地质和气候。探测器还搭载了一架名为“独创号”的直升机。这架价值2300万美元的直升机不需要收集任何科学信息。其存在只是为了观察直升机飞行在未来的任务中是否可行。“毅力”号探测器预计将在一年的漫长旅程中行驶15英里。