Jupiter Moon to Be Searched for Life
尋找木星月亮的生物
By Steve Mirsky on March 10, 2017
評論:這篇的受訪者英文很繞口,不值得學習!
影音說明:https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B-Bg0auB-gcoQ3VIVXY3WXVpU0U
“And this mission would be NASA’s first mission that is directly tasked with(直接被賦予…任務) searching for signs of life(生命跡象) on another world since the Viking Spacecraft were given that task back in the 1970s on the surface of Mars.” Kevin Hand of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory(噴射推進實驗室). “We talk about finding, searching for signs of life on some of these ocean worlds, and in particular these geologically active ocean worlds with rocky seafloors like Europa(木衛二).”
這個任務將會是美國太空總署自1970年代後第一個直接賦予尋找其它世界生命跡象的任務,因為早在70年代維京號太空船就賦予火星上的相同任務,美國太空總署噴射推進實驗室的凱文漢德說道,我們講的是在海洋世界尋找、搜尋生命跡象,特別是木衛二這種地理活躍岩石海底結構的海洋。
Hand spoke February 17th at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Boston. He’s the deputy (代理、副手) project scientist for the Europa mission, which plans to send a lander(太空登陸器) to the ice-covered moon of Jupiter.
漢德在二月十七日波士頓舉辦的美國科學促進會年會上發表演說,他是木衛二任務的方案副手科學家,木衛二的任務是發射太空登陸器到冰封的木星的一顆月亮。
“We’re talking about environments where life could be alive today…so these ice shells may serve as a window into the oceans below and oceanic material may be coming up to the surface. Where a mission like a lander could actually sample that material directly…and I’m the pre-project scientist for this mission. This is a mission that would reach the launch pad(發射台) in the 2024–2025 time frame(時間範圍), it would land on Europa’s surface and operate for about 20-plus days(二十多天).”
「我們談論的是目前生命可以生存的環境,所以這些冰殼可以當作是進入下面海洋的一座窗戶,海洋的物體也許能跑到表面上,在那裏,登陸器就可以真的直接採集樣本,我是這項任務的前導計畫工程師,這項任務可望在2024到2025年的時程登上火箭發射台,它將會登陸木衛二表面,運行約二十多天。」
The instrumentation(整體控制儀器) that gets sent to Europa needs to be recognized(辨識出) signs of life in minute(微小的) amounts. “A picomole(皮莫爾,10的負12次方莫爾,1莫爾相當於和12克碳原子數相等物質重量) of organics(有機物) per gram of sample is one key requirement. Being able to detect cell number abundances(大量) to as low of a level as 100 cells per milliliter(毫升) of ice acquired from Europa’s surface. We reached that benchmark(基準點) by comparison to subglacial(冰川下的) Lake Vostok(南極沃斯托克冰下湖) here on Earth. And the size that the microscope in the model payload(有效負載、負荷量、最大能力) would need to be able to characterize(歸納… 特性) is down to a 0.2 micron(微米、百萬分之一米) diameter(直徑) for any putative(假定存在的) organisms(有機物) collected in a surface sample of Europa. This mission is a bold(大膽), very exciting mission that marks NASA’s return to the direct search for life via in situ(原本的) capabilities on a potentially inhabited(有人居住的) ocean world beyond Earth.”
登上木衛二的全部儀器設備必須能夠從微小的數量中識別生命跡象,「分析一公克樣本裡的一皮莫爾有機物是最起碼要求,必須能夠從木衛二表面冰層每毫升100個細胞這麼少數量的樣本裡,偵測出裡面的細胞,我們用地球南極的沃斯托克冰下湖拿來當基準點比較,成功達到基準,顯微鏡有效範圍必須能夠歸納樣本特性的樣本尺寸小到約直徑0.2微米,可偵測任何在木衛二表面樣本的假定存在有機物。這是一個大膽的任務,非常刺激的任務,代表美國太空總署回到直接尋找生命,藉由地球以外原本就有能力足以讓潛在生物居住的海洋來完成。
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