英语听力文摘 English Digest 490、最遥远的距离

对于外太空,亲,你知道多少呢?旅行者号,你知道吗?太阳风,你知道吗……如果你的答案是no,那我们都是一样的哦,宇宙太奇妙,需要一代代人不断去探索.今天我们就来讲讲我们的太阳系……

The Real Final Frontier

Don: You know what amazes me? Voyager!

Yaël: Me too! Did you see the one were seventh of nine gets a face-lift?

D: I don't mean that TV show. I mean the real thing --- the Voyager spacecraft launched by NASA twenty-six years ago. For years this probe sent back amazing pictures of the outer planets in our solar system before sailing off into space. Now, Voyager is ninety times as far from the sun as we are, and is about to reach the Termination Shock.

Y: The Termination Shock? You sure this isn't a sci-fi?

D: Not at all. The Termination Shock is one of two proposed boundaries to our solar system. You can say that the solar system ends with Pluto¹. Astrophysicists, however, think of the solar system as extending farther out to include two less obvious, but just as real, outer edges.

One is the Termination Shock, where the charged particles blown out by the sun–and known as the “solar wind”–slow down abruptly, thanks to the pressure from other charged particles coming from deep space. Beyond that is the edge of the Heliosphere, which is where the solar wind finally ends.

The Voyager probe is just now crossing the Termination Shock. In another fifteen years or so it will pass the outer edge of the Heliosphere–a human-made object moving for the first time in history into true interstellar space. It’s an awesome² thought.

Y: That is cool!

真正的边界

Don: 你知道是什么东西让我大开眼界吗？Voyager!

Yaël: 我也是呢。你看到被做了大幅度改造的那一期了吗？

D: 我说的不是电视节目，是真的东西——美国航空航天局（NASA）26年前发射的旅行者号探测器。在飞出太阳系之前，数年来，旅行者号不断地传回太阳系内让人叹为观止的图片。现在，旅行者号距离地球非常遥远，相当于地球与太阳距离的90倍，快要达到太阳系的终点（Termination Shock）了。

Y: 极限？你确定这不是在讲科幻故事？

D: 完全不是。Termination Shock是人类提出的太阳系的两个边界点之一。你可以说太阳系的边界是冥王星。然而，我们的天文物理学家们认为，太阳系不断向外外延伸至两个不是很明显但是确确实实存在的边界点。

一个就是我们的Termination Shock，由于深层空间内射出的带电粒子流所形成的气压的作用，太阳所射出的离子体带电粒子流——也就是我们所熟知的“太阳风”——在这里骤然减速。除此之外，另外一个就是日光层的的边缘，太阳风最终会在这里完全停下来。

旅行者号探测器现在正在穿越Termination Shock。再过15年左右，旅行者号将会穿过更外围的日光层，成为史上首个进入星际空间的人造物体。这真的太让人惊叹了！

Y: 真的很酷呢！

 

1 Pluto   

n.冥王星

参考例句：

• Pluto is the furthest planet from the sun.冥王星是离太阳最远的行星。
• Pluto has an elliptic orbit.冥王星的轨道是椭圆形的。

2 awesome   

adj.令人惊叹的，难得吓人的，很好的

参考例句：

• The church in Ireland has always exercised an awesome power.爱尔兰的教堂一直掌握着令人敬畏的权力。
• That new white convertible is totally awesome.那辆新的白色折篷汽车简直棒极了.