1.In the next 18 minutes, I’m going to take you on a journey.
在接下来的18分钟里，我会带大家
2.And it’s a journey that you and I have been on for many years now, and it began some 50 years ago, when humans first stepped off our planet.
踏上一个你我都没停下脚步的旅程， 50多年前，人类首度迈出地球。
3.And in those 50 years, not only did we literally physically set foot on the moon, but we have dispatched robotic spacecraft to all the planets — all eight of them —
在这50年间，人类不仅迈向月球， 还向所有8个行星发送机器人，
4.and we have landed on asteroids, we have rendezvoused with comets, and at this point in time, we have a spacecraft on its way to Pluto,
我们的足迹遍布小行星，我们还同彗星有亲密接触， 现在，我们正有一个飞船驶向冥王星，
5.the body formerly known as a planet.
过去冥王星也被认作行星之一。
6.And all of these robotic missions are part of a bigger human journey: a voyage to understand something, to get a sense of our cosmic place,
所有这些机器人探测计划都是人类征程的一部分： 一个为理解而出发的征程，为理解我们置身的宇宙，
7.to understand something of our origins, and how Earth, our planet, and we, living on it, came to be.
为理解人类的起源，为理解地球、 和人类的发展。
8.And of all the places in the solar system that we might go to and search for answers to questions like this, there’s Saturn. And we have been to Saturn before —
在太阳系中我们足迹可以遍及的各个角落 我们寻找答案， 人类曾登上过土星–
9.we visited Saturn in the early 1980s — but our investigations of Saturn have become far more in-depth and detailed since the Cassini spacecraft, traveling across interplanetary space
早在上世纪80年代初– 人类对土星的探索变得更加深入、透彻 自打7年前罗西尼号探测器遨游在星际间
10.for seven years, glided into orbit around Saturn in the summer of 2004, and became at that point the farthest robotic outpost that humanity had ever established around the sun.
2004年罗西尼正式进入土星轨道， 成为当时 人类在太阳系走的最远的探测器。
11.Now, the Saturn system is a rich planetary system.
现在，土星是一个丰饶的行星系统。
12.It offers mystery, scientific insight and obviously splendor beyond compare, and the investigation of this system has enormous cosmic reach.
她的神秘感、她带给科学的新视角及她无与伦比的光环 带给宇宙探索无限的新发现。
13.In fact, just studying the rings alone we stand to learn a lot about the discs of stars and gas that we call the spiral galaxies.
光是研究她的光环，我们就学到很多 我们把那些星星的环状聚集体称为螺旋星系
14.And here’s a beautiful picture of the Andromeda Nebula, which is our closest, largest spiral galaxy to the Milky Way.
这张令人惊艳的照片是仙女座星系 仙女座星系距地球最近，同时也是银河中最大的螺旋星系
15.And then here’s a beautiful composite of the Whirlpool Galaxy, taken by the Hubble space telescope.
这是哈伯太空望远镜拍摄的漩涡星系 一张美丽的图片
16.So the journey back to Saturn is really part of — and is also a metaphor for — a much larger human voyage to understand the inter-connectiveness of everything around us,
所以去土星的旅程实际上是–打个比方 人类征程的放大 要了解与周围万物的内在关联性
17.and also how humans fit into that picture.
以及人类在其中的作用
18.And it pains me that I can’t tell you all that we have learned with Cassini — I can’t show you all the beautiful pictures that we’ve taken
不能向大家展示所有卡西尼传回的信息，我很难受 因为时间缘故
19.in the last two-and-a-half years, because I simply don’t have the time.
我无法向大家展示过去两年半拍摄的美丽照片
20.So I’m going to concentrate on two of the most exciting stories that have emerged out of this major exploratory expedition that we are conducting around Saturn,
不过，我会着重于 过去两年半 探索土星旅程中
21.and have been for the past two and a half years.
两个最激动人心的方面
22.Saturn is accompanied by a very large and diverse collection of moons.
土星被一组庞大而多样的卫星所环绕
23.They range in size from a few kilometers across to as big across as the US.
它们当中，有的仅几千米大，有的有美国从东南到北那么大
24.Most of the beautiful pictures we’ve taken of Saturn, in fact, show Saturn in accompaniment with some of its moons. Here’s Saturn with Dione,
其实，最美丽的照片 是那些有卫星环绕的土星照片。这是一张土星和土卫四
25.and then here’s Saturn showing the rings edge-on, showing you just how vertically thin they are, with the moon Enceladus.
这是一张土星光环侧向地球 这光环实际上纵向是很浅薄的，旁边是土卫二
26.Now, two of the 47 moons that Saturn has are standouts.
土星47个卫星中有两个是很突出的
27.And those are Titan and Enceladus. Titan is Saturn’s largest moon, and until Cassini had arrived there, was the largest single expanse of unexplored terrain
土卫六和土卫二。土卫六是土星最大的卫星 直到卡西尼进入其轨道 这是对太阳系未知领域的
28.that we had remaining in our solar system.
又一次重大探索
29.And it is a body that has long intrigued people who’ve watched the planets.
对于研究行星的人这可是一个令人朝思暮想的形体
30.It has a very large, thick atmosphere, and in fact its surface environment was believed to be more like the environment we have here on the earth,
它有一个巨大、浑厚的大气 事实上它的气候 与地球大气非常接近
31.or at least had in the past, than any other body in the solar system.
至少过去相较于其他行星来说是这样的
32.Its atmosphere is largely molecular nitrogen, like you are breathing here in this room, except that its atmosphere is suffused with
它的大气有分子态氮组成，就像我们现在这个房间一样 不过它的大气中充满
33.simple organic materials like methane and propane and ethane.
甲烷、丙烷和乙烷等有机材质
34.And these molecules high up in the atmosphere of Titan get broken down, and their products join together to make haze particles.
土卫六上这些分子含量很高 这些分子分解后形成烟雾
35.This haze is ubiquitous, it’s completely global and enveloping Titan.
这些烟雾无处不在，弥漫于整个土卫六
36.And that’s why you cannot see down to the surface with our eyes in the visible region of the spectrum.
在我们肉眼可辨识的范围内 其表面是不可见的
37.But these haze particles, it was surmised, before we got there with Cassini, over billions and billions of years gently drifted down to the surface and coated the surface
但这些雾气的存在不过是推测 在卡西尼探测的数亿年前 这些雾气悬浮于地表后附着其上
38.in a thick organic sludge.
形成有机污垢
39.So like the equivalent, the Titan equivalent of tar, or oil, or what — we didn’t know what.
类似于地球上的焦油，或油什么的，我也不清楚
40.But this is what we suspected. And these molecules, especially methane and ethane, can be liquids at the surface temperatures of Titan.
我们是这样推测的。这些分子 尤其是甲烷和乙烷，在土星地温下是液态的。
41.And so it turns out that methane is to Titan what water is to the earth.
我们发现甲烷就是土星的水。
42.It’s a condensable in the atmosphere, and so recognizing this circumstance brought to the fore a whole world of bizarre possibilities. You can have methane clouds, OK,
在大气里是可以凝缩的 这一发现 为许多稀奇古怪的设想提供了可能。土星有甲烷云层。
43.and above those clouds you have this hundreds of kilometers of haze which prevent any sunlight from getting to the surface.
甲烷云层上有数百公里高的雾气层 光线无法穿透云层射向地面
44.The temperature at the surface is some 350 degrees below zero fahrenheit.
土星地面气温仅为零下350华氏度
45.But despite that cold, you could have rain falling down on the surface of Titan.
虽冷，但还有雨
46.And doing on Titan what rain does on the earth, it carves gullies, it forms rivers and cataracts. It can create canyons, it can pool in large basins and craters.
就像地球一样，土星在雨的作用下形成溪谷河流 和大瀑布、峡谷、盆地和地坑。
47.It can wash the sludge off high mountain peaks and hills down into the lowlands. So stop and think for a minute.
雨洗净山顶的污垢 然后冲向地底。大家停下来想一想
48.Try to imagine what the surface of Titan might look like.
土星的地表会是什么样子呢？
49.It’s dark — high noon on Titan is as dark as deep earth twilight on the earth.
月光下的土星是黑暗的，就像黎明前的地球
50.It’s cold, it’s eerie, it’s misty, it might be raining, and you might be standing on the shores of Lake Michigan brimming with paint thinner.
此时寒冷、阴森、雾气缭绕 还有可能在下雨，想象站在雨中 面前是密歇根湖，闪闪发光
51.That is the view that we had of the surface of Titan before we got there with Cassini, and I can tell you that what we have found on Titan, though it is not the same in detail,
在卡西尼问世前，我们是这样想象土星的 我们的发现，虽细节上有差异
52.is every bit as fascinating as that story is.
但同样令人神往
53.And for us it has been like — for Cassini people it has been like a Jules Verne adventure come true.
对于我们来说，对热爱卡西尼的人来所 这就像凡尔纳的小说变成现实
54.As I said, it has a thick extensive atmosphere.
正如我所说的，土星有一个厚重的大气
55.This is a picture of Titan back-lit by the sun, with the rings as a beautiful backdrop.
这张是土星在太阳的光辉下光环奕奕生彩的照片
56.And yet another moon there — I don’t even know which one it is. It’s a very extensive atmosphere.
这是另一个卫星 我也不清楚是哪一个。它的大气面积很大
57.We have instruments on Cassini which can see down to the surface through this atmosphere, and my camera system is one of them.
卡西尼上的设备可以穿过大气看清土星地表 我的设备也在上面
58.And we have taken pictures like this.
我们的照片中有这样的
59.And what you see is bright and dark regions, and that’s about as far as it got for us.
其中有光明和黑暗的区域，我们的设备也只能达到这个水平
60.It was so mystifying — we couldn’t make out what we were seeing on Titan.
这很神秘–我们怎样也无法弄清土星地表
61.When you look closer at this region, you start to see things like sinuous channels, we didn’t know. You see a few round things.
仔细观察你会有所发现 比如蜿蜒的渠道，这是我们以前所不知的，你还能看到环状物
62.This, we later found out, is in fact a crater, but there’s very few craters on the surface of Titan, meaning it’s a very young surface.
后来我们这是一个地坑 但土卫六上却没有几个 所以这个地表是新形成的
63.And there are features that look tectonic.
同时还有地质构造
64.They look like they’ve been pulled apart.
有些似乎是被撕裂的
65.Whenever you see anything linear on a planet, it means there’s been a fracture, like a fault.
在任何行星上看到线形地质 就说明有断层
66.And so it’s been tectonically altered.
这里的地质结构被改变过
67.But we couldn’t make sense of our images, until six months after we got into orbit, an event occurred that many have regarded as the highlight of Cassini’s investigation of Titan.
但我们无法理解这些图片 直到6个月后卡西尼进入土星轨道 一个发现可以被称为 卡西尼土星征程的里程碑
68.And that was the deployment of the Huygens probe, the European-built Huygens probe that Cassini had carried for seven years across the solar system. We deployed it to the atmosphere of Titan,
这是惠更斯号探测器的投入使用 卡西尼携带的欧洲制造的惠更斯号 傲游了7年。我们将它步入土卫六大气中
69.it took two and a half hours to descend, and it landed on the surface.
经过两个半小时的降落，最终着陆与土卫六
70.And I just want to emphasize how significant an event this is.
我想强调一下其重要性
71.This is a device of human making, and it landed in the outer solar system for the first time in human history.
这是人造的设备 在人类历史上首次着陆与太阳系外
72.It is so significant that in my mind, this was an event that should have been celebrated with ticker-tape parades in every city across the US and Europe,
这对我很重要 我们应该在欧美用彩车 大肆庆祝
73.and sadly that wasn’t the case.
虽没实现
74.(Laughter).
（笑）
75.It was significant for another reason. This is an international mission, and this event was celebrated in Europe, in Germany, and the celebratory presentations were given in English accents
重大的原因还有一个，那就是，这是一次国际任务 在欧洲，德国，人们举国欢庆 庆祝演讲在英国
76.and American accents and German accents and French and Italian and Dutch accents.
美国、德国、法国、意大利和荷兰进行
77.It was a moving demonstration of what the words “United Nations” is supposed to mean: a true union of nations joined together in a colossal effort for good.
这是你个激动人心的对 “联合国”的定义 一个真正的各个国家参与的，致力于人类共同未来的联合体
78.And in this case, it was a massive undertaking to explore a planet and to come to understand a planetary system that for all of human history had been unreachable,
这样，探索一颗行星是一个极大的任务 并且，实现探索了一个人类历史上不曾踏足的 行星系统
79.and now humans had actually touched it.
是多么一个壮举
80.So it was — I mean, I’m getting goose bumps just talking about it, it was a tremendously emotional event, and it’s something that I will personally never forget, and you shouldn’t either.
一说的这儿，我都起鸡皮疙瘩了 这是几个激动人心的时刻 我会永远铭记，大家也应铭记在心
81.(Applause).
（鼓掌）
82.But anyway, the probe took measurements of the atmosphere on the way down, and it also took panoramic pictures.
但是，探测器在着陆过程中收集了数据 拍摄了全景照片
83.And I can’t tell you what it was like to see the first pictures of Titan’s surface from the probe. And this is what we saw.
那第一张土卫六地表的照片真的是无法形容的 它是这样的
84.And it was a shocker, because it was everything we wanted those other pictures taken from orbit to be.
挺让人震惊的，这就是我们期待已久的 轨道上的照片
85.It was an unambiguous pattern, a geological pattern.
这是一个清晰的、地理的图像
86.It’s a dendritic drainage pattern that can be formed only by the flow of liquids.
这种树枝状的格局只会是水流形成的
87.And you can follow these channels and you can see how they all converge.
你可以在水道中航行 看看他们是如何覆盖地表的
88.And they converge into this channel here, which drains into this region.
水道进入这个流域后又注入那个地区
89.You are looking at a shoreline.
你看到的是滨线
90.Was this a shoreline of fluids? We didn’t know.
是液态的吗？我们不得而知
91.But this is somewhat of a shoreline.
但这是某种形态的滨线
92.This picture is taken at 16 kilometers.
这张照片是在16千米的高空拍摄的
93.This is the picture taken at eight kilometers, OK? Again, the shoreline.
这张是8千米。好，再看滨线
94.Okay, now 16 kilometers, eight kilometers — this is roughly an airline altitude.
好，16千米，8千米–
95.If you were going to take an airplane trip across the US, you would be flying at these altitudes.
这大约就是在美国的 飞机飞行高度
96.So this is the picture you would have at the window of Titanian Airlines as you fly across the surface of Titan. (Laughter) And then finally, the probe came to rest on the surface,
这就是飞行在土卫六上的飞机 窗外的景色（笑） 最后，探测器着陆
97.and I’m going to show you, ladies and gentlemen, the first picture ever taken from the surface of a moon in the outer solar system.
女士们、先生们，我将向你们展示 首张太阳系外行星卫星地表照片
98.And here is the horizon, OK?
这是地平线
99.These are probably water ice pebbles, yes?
这些是小冰块
100.(Applause).
（鼓掌）
101.And obviously it landed in one of these flat, dark regions and it didn’t sink out of sight. So it wasn’t fluid that we landed in.
很明显，探测器着陆与平坦、黑暗的区域 探测器没有下沉消失。所以它没有落在水路上
102.What the probe came down in was basically the Titan equivalent of a mud flat.
实际上这是 土卫六版的泥巴地
103.This is an unconsolidated ground that is suffused with liquid methane.
这片疏松的土地上充满了液态的甲烷
104.And it’s probably the case that this material has washed off the highlands of Titan through these channels that we saw, and has drained over billions of years to fill in low-lying basins.
大概这就是为何这些物质 冲下土卫六的高地 流下那些我们看过的水道 万年不变的注入低洼的盆地
105.And that is what the Huygens probe landed in.
惠更斯号就着陆于此
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