第1590期:Why are we trying to go to Mars?

It sounds like something from the realms of science fiction – a space expedition into the vast expanse of space, heading towards the Red Planet. While we’re not quite ready to put a person on terra firma, the question we ask today is: why are so many countries interested in going to Mars?这听起来像是科幻小说领域的东西——太空探险进入广阔的太空，前往红色星球。虽然我们还没有准备好将一个人送上地球，但我们今天要问的问题是：为什么这么多国家对去火星感兴趣？The space race saw the USA and USSR compete to achieve firsts in spaceflight. The Soviet Union released Sputnik 1, an artificial satellite, before anyone else, and the US landed on the Moon first. Now it appears that Mars is the celestial body of desire. While the kudos and bragging rights to be the first nation to touchdown is an obvious draw, there are other reasons we want to get there.太空竞赛见证了美国和苏联在太空飞行中争夺第一。苏联比其他任何人都更早地发布了人造卫星 Sputnik 1，美国首先登上了月球。现在看来，火星是欲望的天体。虽然作为第一个达阵国家的荣誉和吹牛的权利是一个明显的吸引力，但我们想要到达那里还有其他原因。One of these could be the survival of our species. You only have to look at the fossilised remains of the dinosaurs to see the benefit of finding another habitable planet. While Mars doesn’t have the right conditions to call it home just yet, there’s always the concept of terraforming – changing the environment of a planet to suit our needs.其中之一可能是我们物种的生存。你只需要看看恐龙的化石残骸，就能看到寻找另一个宜居星球的好处。虽然火星还没有合适的条件将其称为家园，但始终存在地球化的概念——改变行星的环境以满足我们的需求。However, not everyone agrees. Leading astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson has said the concept of altering habitability of another planet because of the damage we have done to Earth makes no sense when we can simply terraform Earth.然而，并非所有人都同意。领先的天体物理学家尼尔·德格拉斯·泰森 (Neil deGrasse Tyson) 曾表示，当我们可以简单地改造地球时，由于我们对地球造成的破坏而改变另一颗行星的可居住性的概念是没有意义的。It seems the main reason at the moment is the search for extraterrestrial life. It has long been believed that, at one time, Mars was abundant with life. Now seemingly dead, the potential fossils could answer questions about our own evolution and that of our planet. One theory is that bacterial life on our planet didn’t start here, but was transferred via asteroid from Mars.目前看来主要原因是寻找外星生命。长期以来，人们一直认为，火星曾经充满了生命。现在看起来已经死了，潜在的化石可以回答关于我们自己和我们星球进化的问题。一种理论是，我们星球上的细菌生命并不是从这里开始的，而是通过小行星从火星转移过来的。One benefit championed by scientists like Neil deGrasse Tyson is that landing on Mars may inspire more people to become interested in science and astronomy. Surely inspiring a new generation to visit the stars is reason enough.Neil deGrasse Tyson 等科学家倡导的一项好处是，登陆火星可能会激发更多人对科学和天文学产生兴趣。当然，激励新一代探访星空的理由就足够了。词汇表science fiction 科幻小说space expedition 宇宙探险vast expanse 广阔的区域the Red Planet 火星terra firma 陆地space race 太空竞赛spaceflight 宇宙飞行artificial satellite 人造卫星celestial body 天体touchdown 着陆species 物种habitable 适于居住的terraforming （外星环境）地球化astrophysicist 天体物理学家habitability 可居住性Earth 地球extraterrestrial 地球外的bacterial life 细菌生命体asteroid 小行星astronomy 天文学

There are no comments yet.

Please log in to write the first comment.