【BBC纪录片】月球之谜 第十一期

As the moon pulls away it will put an end

to one of nature's most glorious spectacles;

a total solar eclipse.

The moon is 400 times smaller than the sun.

But at the moment it is also precisely 400 times

closer to the earth than the sun is.

This amazing coincidence means that

when the moon passes directly in front of the sun,

it appears exactly the same size.

We are living at the only time in the history of the solar system

when this unique spectacle is possible.

As the moon drifts away from us,

this awe-inspiring sight will be over forever.

So over the years scientists continued to

make exciting new discoveries about our moon.

But somehow it was never enough to reignite our passion

for our closest neighbour.

And that was partly because our attention had turned elsewhere.

There are over one hundred

and fifty other moons in the solar system,

and by the late 1970's we were starting to explore them.

The results were spectacular.

The journey of discovery began with the Voyager probes.

They were sent to explore the outer solar system

the gas giants like Jupiter and Saturn.

Until now these extraordinary worlds

had been seen only through telescopes.

It took 2 years for these probes to reach their first port of call

Jupiter.

Scientists all over the world were gripped,

waiting for the first close up pictures of the great giant.

But when Voyager started transmitting pictures back to earth,

they were in for a surprise.

It seemed it was Jupiter's moons, rather than the planet itself,

that held the most exciting secrets.

We thought the moons of the outer planets

would be lumps of ice covered in craters.

And that was about it.

But when Voyager started transmitting

back pictures of Jupiter's innermost moon,

lo, there was a strange anomaly.

A young NASA scientist spotted

an odd looking bulge on the moon's side.

I came in about 9 o'clock that morning to the navigation area

and the tape with the pictures the spacecraft

had taken the day before was on my desk.

I put them on the computer system

and I displayed them and I could see that lo,

the moon of lo, was a crescent as very

often our own moon is a crescent in the night sky.

And I went and enhanced the brightness

and there appeared beside lo,

an object, a huge object that looked like something

I couldn't recognise and could never have expected

and it completely captured my attention.

I wanted to know so badly what that was.

I just had to ask myself 'my goodness what is that? '.

随着月球日渐远离

自然界中最壮丽的奇景也将画下句点

那就是日全食

月球的体积是太阳的四百分之一

但目前和地球的距离

也是太阳和地球距离的四百分之一

这个惊人的巧合表示

月球经过太阳前方时

两者看来体积相当

只有我们身处的这个时代

才看得到这种奇观

随着月球日渐远离

这个令人敬畏的异象，将会成为历史

这些年来科学家不断做出

有关月球的新发现

但似乎永远不足以再度引燃

我们对月球的热情

有部分原因可归咎于人们的注意力已转向别的地方

太阳系中还有150多颗

其他的卫星

我们在1970年代末期，开始探索这些卫星

得到的结果令人啧啧称奇

航海家探测器为这趟发现之旅揭开了序幕

它们的目的是探索外侧太阳系

如木星和土星等巨型气体行星

在此之前人们只能透过望远镜

观察这些奇异又美丽的世界

这些探测器花了两年才抵达第一个停靠点

木星

Scientists all over the world were gripped,

世界各地的科学家都屏息

等待木星第一批特写照片回传

但是航海家开始将影像回传地球时

科学家有了意想不到的惊喜

看来最惊人的秘密，似乎存在于木星的卫星

而非木星本身

我们一直以为外行星的卫星

都是布满陨石坑的冰块

此外乏善可陈

但航海家开始回传

最靠近木星的卫星木卫一的影像时

出现了一个奇怪的异常之处

航太总署一名年轻科学家发现

卫星的侧面有个奇怪的隆起

我那天早上九点左右来到导航区

探测器前一天拍到的影片

就放在我桌上

于是我就用电脑放出来看

我看到

木卫一呈新月形

就如同我们自己的月亮在夜空中往往呈新月形一样

我增加了画面的亮度

发现木卫一的一侧

出现一个巨大的物体

我没料到会看到这种情景，也不知道那是什么

所以看得全神贯注

我很想知道那是什么

忍不住自问 “天啊，那是什么？”

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