VOA常速英语:A Successful Saturn Probe Ends its Mission

It was 1997 television was still in 3*4 format, a chess-playing computer beat a human chess champion for the first time and the film Jurassic Park was stunning audiences.
1997年，当时的电视仍然采用3×4格式，国际象棋电脑首次击败了国际象棋冠军，而电影《侏罗纪公园》让观众惊叹不已。

In NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California, engineers were performing the final tests on a spacecraft built jointly with a European based agency ESSA to be sent on a journey of more than a billion kilometers.
在美国宇航局加利福尼亚州喷气推进实验室中，工程师们联合欧洲环境观测卫星中心正在进行一个超过十亿公里的宇宙飞船飞行旅程最终测试。

Named after to 17th century astronomers Giovanni Cassini and Christian Huygens the spacecraft had two parts:a Saturn orbiter and a separate probe that was supposed to land on its moon Titan.
以十七世纪天文学家：乔凡尼卡西尼和克里斯蒂安惠更斯命名的宇宙飞船分为两部分：一个土星人造卫星，和一个应该降落在月球土卫六的单独的探头。

During its seven-year journey to the sixth planet the spacecraft made several flybys including one that produced most detailed color photo of Jupiter.
在它第七年飞至第六行星的旅程中，飞船几次飞近探测，拍摄到了最详细的木星彩色照片。

In July 2014, the spacecraft finally entered orbit around Saturn and in December the probe Huygens separated from its mother ship and landed on Titan.The first landing anywhere in the outer solar system.
2014年7月，宇宙飞船终于进入了环绕土星的轨道，12月，探测器惠更斯号从母船上分离，降落在土卫六上，完成了在太阳系外的首次登陆。

I don’t think you have to be a ring scientist to imagine what last time was for us.It was beyond description really, it was mind-blowing, it was every adjective you could think of.
你不一定非要是一名科学家才能想象得到上一次对我们来说意味着什么。这实在是无法形容的，它是令人兴奋的，你尽管用你能想象到的所有形容词来形容它吧。

Cassini continue to orbit Saturn discovering many more of its moons and sending back spectacular pictures of its rings.
卡西尼号继续在土星轨道上飞行并发现了更多的卫星，接着传回了拍摄到其光环的壮观照片。One of the things that stunned scientists was the discovery of a water vapor gazers erupting from the South pole of Saturn’s moon Enceladus which pointed to a possible large salty internal ocean.
使科学家们震惊的是土卫二南极的水蒸气喷发，为内陆盐湖的形成指出了一个可能性。

With Cassini’s journey coming to an end, scientists say they now know what to look for on future missions.
随着卡西尼号的旅程即将结束，科学家们说他们现在知道了在未来的任务中应该寻找什么。

It’s there, evidence of biological activity in the plume of Enceladus which would indicate there’s life in its oceans.In my opinion, this is the most exciting, most thrilling question that we face in the exploration of the solar system now.
它存在着，在土卫二烟羽中的生物学证据表明了海洋中有生命的存在。在我看来，这是我们在探索太阳系时所面向的最激动人心的问题。

Scientists decided to destroy Cassini in order to avoid possible contamination of Saturn’s moons with microbes from Earth that inevitably hitch a ride on all spacecraft.But before it disintegrates in Saturn’s atmosphere,Cassini is expected to send the last and most spectacular close-up pictures of the gaseous giant.
为了避免微生物从地球搭乘飞船污染土星群，科学家们决定摧毁卡西尼号。不过在卡西尼号将于土星表面解体之前，它仍将发送最后最壮观的气态巨星的特写照片。

George Putic, VOA News, Washington.
美国之音，George Putic，华盛顿报道。