名人教你讲英文：探月计划

名人教英文：探月计划

嫦娥二号绕月探测卫星成功进入轨道，中国探月工程又迈进了一步。嫦娥二号的英文名称（汉语拼音）是“chang'e-2”。有关报道说：china moved closer to its goal of landing on the moon as its second unmanned lunar probe, chang'e-2, blasted off seconds before 7:00pm on friday (1 october) from the southwestern city of xichang (西昌).

报道又说：the circumlunar satellite separated from the rocket at 7:26pm to enter the earth-moon transfer orbit. in less than five days, it will enter a 100-kilometer lunar orbit. the chang'e-2 mission is considered a starting point of the second stage of china's lunar exploration programme that focuses on landing on the moon.

这里多次出现的形容词lunar，意思是“与月球有关的”：绕月轨道是lunar orbit，探月计划是lunar exploration programme，探月卫星可叫lunar probe，亦可叫lunar satellite或circumlunar satellite。在lunar前面加上circum-，是“围绕月球”的意思。probe作为动词，是侦测、探测；作为名词，指一项侦测的行动，或者一件探测仪器，