科技英语新闻:JPL Open House gives visitors excitement in explorations

LOS ANGELES, May 14 (Xinhua) -- Thousands of visitors, many of them children, went to the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California for the annual open house Saturday to experience the excitement in explorations.

To many visitors, the open house is a rare opportunity to see the federally funded research and development center and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) field center, which is close to the public. JPL is managed by California Institute of Technology.

The event, themed "The Excitement in Explorations," provides visitors with the chance to share in the wonders of space through high-definition and 3-D videos, live demonstrations, interactions with scientists and engineers, and a first look at JPL's new Earth Science Center.

The Earth Science Center showcases the home planet and JPL's Earth science missions. Since it was the first time open to the public, it attracted many visitors who had to wait for over an hour to get admitted.

Visitors first passed by two touchscreens located on opposite walls of the facility that control real-time views of "Eyes on the Earth," an interactive 3-D visualization website. Visitors also had the opportunity to watch a movie in the 3-D theater, which seats up to 40 people.

Other Open House highlights include: A chance to see the most unique car in this world before it leaves Earth: The next rover bound for Mars, Mars Science Laboratory/Curiosity, in the "clean room" before it is shipped to Florida for a November 2011 launch.

JPL further runs its own "reality TV show" via live-streaming webcam: http://www.ustream.tv/nasajpl.

The life-size rover models in a "Mars" test bed is another attraction and a perennial crowd-pleaser. Named the Robo-Dome, it is where visitors could see a pair of 700-pound robots gliding in a high-tech arena under artificial stars.

The Robo-Dome is used to simulate complex maneuvers that could be used for future space missions.

The year 2011 is an exciting year for JPL's robotic explorers. In the past twelve months, two spacecraft made close encounters of comets. This summer, the Dawn spacecraft will arrive at the giant asteroid Vesta.

In 2011, JPL will launch the Aquarius satellite studying Earth' s ocean, the Juno mission to Jupiter, the Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory's twin spacecraft to Earth's moon, and JPL's next-generation rover - Mars Science Laboratory's Curiosity.