EXPLORATIONS - SPACE DIGEST

EXPLORATIONS - SPACE DIGEST
By Paul Thompson

Broadcast: Wednesday, March 16, 2005

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VOICE ONE:

I'm Faith Lapidus.

VOICE TWO:

And I'm Steve Ember with EXPLORATIONS in VOA Special English. Today we tell about information sent to Earth from the Cassini spacecraft in orbit around Saturn¹. We report about the two Voyager spacecraft that are now leaving the influence of our solar system.

We tell about the training of the next crew of the Space Shuttle Discovery. And we begin with a report about a newly discovered living organism that had been frozen for many thousands of years.

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VOICE ONE:

 
An image of bacteria found in ancient ice. Living bacteria are stained green.
American space agency scientists have found a new kind of living organism that had been frozen for more than thirty thousand years. NASA scientist Richard Hoover discovered the one-celled bacterium² in ice underground near the town of Fox, Alaska. He found the bacterium in an area called the permafrost. Permafrost is a mix of permanently³ frozen water ice, rock and soil. Permafrost stays at a temperature of about minus four degrees Celsius⁴ all the time.

Mister Hoover said he and his team cut into ice that was there during the Pleistocene Age or about thirty thousand years ago.

VOICE TWO:

Mister Hoover said they found the living bacterium deep inside ice that was about a half meter thick. They removed a piece of the ice and examined it under a microscope. As soon as the ice melted, Mister Hoover says he saw the bacterium begin to swim in the water. Scientists named the bacterium Carnobacterium Pleistocenium. It is very unusual. It does not need oxygen to survive. Mister Hoover and his team said the new bacterium was unknown to science before it was taken from the ice five years ago. It is the first fully⁵ described and confirmed kind of organism ever found alive in ancient ice.

VOICE ONE:

The announcement of the discovery of the new bacterium came almost at the same time as a team of European researchers said they found huge blocks of water ice near the surface of Mars. The European scientists said the Martian ice was between two and five million years old.

Mister Hoover says the bacteria he found in the Alaskan ice might be able to survive for many millions of years. And he said this might be true for similar organisms on Mars.

Mister Hoover says scientists now know it is possible for life to exist in extremely difficult conditions. He says studying these kinds of organisms helps us understand the many different kinds of life in the universe.

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VOICE TWO:

 
An artists picture of Voyager One.
In the summer of nineteen seventy-seven, two Voyager spacecraft were launched two weeks apart. Both are now leaving the solar system. However, they continue to make history. In January, the NASA Voyager team observed an anniversary of ten thousand days since the launch of the two spacecraft.

NASA scientists say both spacecraft are working and returning valuable information. Both spacecraft are expected to continue to work and send information back to Earth until at least the year twenty twenty.

VOICE ONE:

NASA scientists say the Voyagers have sent back new information about the effects of the Sun in the far reaches of space. These include effects caused by the movement of atoms through space called solar winds.

Explosions on the surface of the Sun cause solar winds. These explosions release huge amounts of gas into space. An example of information sent back by the Voyager spacecraft includes observations of a huge explosion that took place in April, two thousand three. The effects of that explosion reached Voyager Two in April, two thousand four.

VOICE TWO:

At the beginning of the flights, three hundred NASA scientists were working on the Voyager program. Today, only ten people are working on the program full time.

Two members of this team have worked on the program since the launch of the Voyagers. Several college students working with the program had not yet been born when the two spacecraft were launched.

During their flight through space, Voyager One and Two flew past Jupiter and Saturn. They provided information that greatly expanded our knowledge of these planets.

Voyager Two went on to fly past Uranus⁶ and Neptune⁷. Voyager Two is still the only spacecraft to visit these distant planets. The two spacecraft sent back to Earth almost eighty thousand photographs and huge amounts of information about these planets.

After traveling through space for more than twenty-seven years, Voyager One is now more than fourteen thousand million kilometers from the Sun. Voyager One is the most distant human-made object in the universe. Voyager Two is eleven thousand million kilometers from the Sun.

Both spacecraft are now beginning to leave the solar system. They are studying the area of space called terminal shock. It is where the Sun's influence ends and the dark areas of space begin.

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VOICE ONE:

NASA's Cassini spacecraft continues to orbit Saturn. It is making exciting discoveries almost daily. Cassini has found and photographed a giant hole made by a space object that crashed into the surface of Saturn's moon, Titan.

NASA scientists say the hole is four hundred forty kilometers wide. The scientists say either a comet or an asteroid⁸ hit the surface of Titan and created the crater⁹. They say the object that made the crater was from five to ten kilometers in size. The Cassini instruments also made images of another crater. This one was about sixty kilometers wide.

Cassini flew within one thousand five hundred kilometers of Titan's surface. This is the third closest flight Cassini has made near the surface of Titan.

VOICE TWO:

Just one day after the flight near Titan, Cassini few past Saturn's moon, Enceladus. Cassini sent back the first close images ever seen of this small moon that has the brightest surface in the solar system.

 
The surface of Enceladus.
NASA's Voyager spacecraft had flown by Enceladus in nineteen eighty and nineteen eighty-one. Since that time scientists have been waiting for better images of the moon's unusual surface. Cassini returned images of an icy moon. Some areas of the ice are cracked and broken. Other areas of ice are smooth as glass.

The images show few holes left by the crash of space rocks. Scientists say this usually means an object without such holes is very young. They also say the broken areas of ice might mean Enceladus has some volcanic¹⁰ activity.

VOICE ONE:

Carolyn Porco is the image team leader for the Cassini project. Miz Porco says Cassini has now observed the surfaces of Titan and Enceladus and the rings of Saturn.

She says Cassini has returned images that are ten times better than those produced by the Voyager flights more than twenty years ago. She says the information sent by Cassini is very exciting.

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VOICE TWO:

For the past several months, a crew of astronauts has been training for the next flight of the Space Shuttle Discovery. They have done most of the training at the Johnson Space Flight Center in Texas.

Recently, the crew flew to the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. They did so to take part in training in the shuttle Discovery on the equipment they will use during their flight.The Discovery flight commander is Eileen Collins. She says the training is extremely important. She says the crew has been training on an exact copy of the Discovery.

However, working on the shuttle Discovery itself is even more important. Experts say training on Discovery is a little like a final test in school before graduation. In this case, graduation is the launch of the Discovery.

VOICE ONE:

The Shuttle crewmembers already know all the equipment they will use during the flight. But NASA officials say they do not want crewmembers to see the Shuttle Discovery for the first time on the day of the launch. They want them to be at ease with the vehicle.

However, it is not possible for the crew to spend a great deal of time on Discovery. So the test is carefully designed to provide them with the most important requirements. A large group of experts decide what the crew will do during this final test. It takes a great deal of planning.

Flight Commander Eileen Collins says it is time for the United States to get back into space. The Space Shuttle Discovery is expected to be launched into space May fifteenth.

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VOICE TWO:

This program was written by Paul Thompson. It was produced by Mario Ritter. I'm Steve Ember.

VOICE ONE:

And I'm Faith Lapidus. Join us again next week for another EXPLORATIONS program in VOA Special English.

1 Saturn   

n.农神，土星

参考例句：

• 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。
• These comparisons suggested that Saturn is made of lighter materials.这些比较告诉我们，土星由较轻的物质构成。

2 bacterium   

n.(pl.)bacteria 细菌

参考例句：

• The bacterium possibly goes in the human body by the mouth.细菌可能通过口进入人体。
• A bacterium is identified as the cause for his duodenal ulcer.一种细菌被断定为造成他十二指肠溃疡的根源。

3 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。

4 Celsius   

adj.摄氏温度计的，摄氏的

参考例句：

• The temperature tonight will fall to seven degrees Celsius.今晚气温将下降到七摄氏度。
• The maximum temperature in July may be 36 degrees Celsius.七月份最高温度可能达到36摄氏度。

5 fully   

adv.完全地，全部地，彻底地；充分地

参考例句：

• The doctor asked me to breathe in,then to breathe out fully.医生让我先吸气，然后全部呼出。
• They soon became fully integrated into the local community.他们很快就完全融入了当地人的圈子。

6 Uranus   

n.天王星

参考例句：

• Uranus is unusual because it is tilted.天王星非常特殊，因为它是倾斜的。
• Uranus represents sudden change and rebellion.天王星代表突然性的改变和反叛。

7 Neptune   

n.海王星

参考例句：

• Neptune is the furthest planet from the sun.海王星是离太阳最远的行星。
• Neptune turned out to be a dynamic,stormy world.海王星原来是个有生气、多风暴的世界。

8 asteroid   

n.小行星；海盘车(动物)

参考例句：

• Astronomers have yet to witness an asteroid impact with another planet.天文学家还没有目击过小行星撞击其它行星。
• It's very unlikely that an asteroid will crash into Earth but the danger exists.小行星撞地球的可能性很小，但这样的危险还是存在的。

9 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。

10 volcanic   

adj.火山的；象火山的；由火山引起的

参考例句：

• There have been several volcanic eruptions this year.今年火山爆发了好几次。
• Volcanic activity has created thermal springs and boiling mud pools.火山活动产生了温泉和沸腾的泥浆池。