VOA常速英语:再见，卡西尼号

The Cassini’s spacecraft mission to Saturn and its study of the systems of rings and moons brought many surprises.
卡西尼号宇宙飞船肩负着探索土星的使命，致力于研究光环和卫星系统，它的一生给人们带来了许多惊喜。

“At the time of its design, we had no idea that ocean worlds existed in the outer solar system.”
“最初在设计卡西尼的时候，我们根本不知道外太阳系中居然有海洋世界的存在。”

These ocean worlds could mean life.One unexpected discovery came from the south pole of Enceladus, a moon embedded in one of Saturn’s rings.
而这些海洋世界就意味着土星上可能有生命存在。科学家在土星光环中藏着的卫星Enceladus的南极竟有了意外发现。

“It has a liquid water ocean underneath and it shoots geysers. So these cracks open up and geysers shoot up.”
“Enceladus下面有一个液态水海洋，能向外喷射羽流。这些裂缝张开之后，羽流便喷涌而出。”

Instruments on Cassini have been able to detect the gas coming from that geyser plume.
卡西尼号所携带的仪器已经能够检测出羽流中的气体。

“We know that there are salts. Now this is important for life because life needs certain minerals and salts to exist.We have very strong evidence that there are hydro-thermal vents down at that base of that ocean, the ocean floor.Now any time you find hydro-thermal vents here on Earth, you find rich communities of organisms.”
“据我们所知，Enceladus喷出的羽流中有盐。这对生命非常重要，因为生命的存在离不开某些矿物质和盐类。我们还有非常强有力的证据可以表明，那片海洋的底部有热液喷口。现在不管什么时候，只要你能在地球上找到热液喷口，就可以发现丰富的生物群落。”

Cassini was also able to gather data from Saturn’s largest moon,Titan, which has lakes and seas of liquid methane and ethane instead of water.There is also evidence of a liquid ocean beneath the surface that probably contains ammonia and water.Scientists and engineers say the environment could still hold life.
卡西尼号还可以从土星周围最大的卫星——泰坦中获取数据，泰坦上的湖泊和海洋中都是液态甲烷和乙烷而非水。还有证据表明，泰坦卫星的地表下很可能有水和氨。科学家和工程师们表示，这种环境依然能维持生命。

“We’re still open to trying to look for weird life in places like this and we found a strange place right here in our own solar system.”
“我们仍然愿意尝试在这类地方寻找异态生命，而如今我们已经在自己的太阳系中发现了一个奇怪的地方。”

How to dispose of Cassini now that is running out of fuel is something scientists and engineers are trying to figure out since they do not want any earthly organisms that may be on Cassini to contaminate a moon that may have life.
目前卡西尼号上的燃料即将耗尽，而如何结束它的生命就成为了科学家和工程师们要努力解决的问题，因为他们不想让卡西尼上携带的任何微生物污染可能有生命存在的卫星。

“I want to find life elsewhere in a place like Enceladus but I don’t want to realize later on that we put it there.”
“我想要在其他类似Enceladus的地方找到生命迹象，可不希望最后发现原来是我们落在那里的。”

Scientists and engineers are already envisioning future missions back to Saturn and its moons to look deeper into the possibility of life.
科学家和工程师们已经开始设想未来重新探索土星和其他卫星的计划，以更深入地了解生命存在的可能性。

“And I think with today’s instrumentation, things that we could put on a spacecraft right now,we could find that life with our instruments of today.”
“而且我认为，利用现如今可以放到航天器当中去的仪器和其他工具，我们可以更顺利地寻找那些生命。”

It looks like the end of Cassini will be a death dive into Saturn’s atmosphere, sending critical data to Earth until the very end.It’s information that will be studied and analyzed by scientists long after the end of Cassini.
目前看来，卡西尼的结局将是飞入土星大气层自毁，并在彻底坠毁前将关键数据发回到地球。而科学家们要在卡西尼结束使命很长时间之后才能对这些信息进行研究和分析。

Elizabeth Lee, VOA news, Los Angeles.
VOA新闻，伊丽莎白·李于洛杉矶为您播报。