科学美国人60秒 火星上发现失传已久的着陆器（在线收听）

Christmas 2003 was bittersweet for Mars scientists. Because one gift they desperately wanted never arrived: The British-built spacecraft Beagle 2 was scheduled to land on the Red Planet, radio home the good news and begin a search for life. Instead, mission controllers heard nothing. They finally declared the Beagle 2 lost after months of silence. Many space scientists thought it crash-landed or broke up in the thin Martian atmosphere.

对于研究火星的科学家们来说，2003年圣诞节是苦乐参半的。因为他们极其想要的一份礼物没有到来：英国建造的飞船“猎兔犬2号”本应降落于该红色星球上，然后为科学家们传达回好消息，并开始寻找生命迹象。然而，该任务的指控人员没收到任何信息。经过几个月的沉默，他们最终宣布“猎兔犬2号”丢失了。许多太空科学家认为它在火星稀薄的大气中迫降或分解了。

But now Beagle 2’s final resting place has been found. New images from NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter revealed the spacecraft in its intended landing region, a massive impact basin near the Martian equator.

但现在“猎兔犬2号”的最后安息地已被发现。美国宇航局的火星侦察轨道器传回的新图像显示该飞船在其预定着陆区——火星赤道附近一个巨大的撞击盆地。

The two-meter-wide lander is little more than a low-resolution lump of pixels in the images. But investigators gathered enough information to piece together what probably went wrong: the probe’s solar panels seem to have only partially deployed, throttling Beagle 2’s power and preventing it from phoning home. Without contact with mission control, the probe was doomed to a slow demise before it could perform any science.

在图像中，这个两米宽的着陆器更像是一个像素分辨率很低的肿块。但研究人员收集了足够的信息来拼凑出可能出错的原因：探测器的太阳能电池板似乎只有一部分展开了，限流了“猎兔犬2号”的电源，致使其无法向地球传送信息。无法联系任务控制中心，在其无法执行任何科学任务前探测器注定要缓慢死亡。

Nevertheless, the lander appears intact, and the remains of a parachute and an atmospheric-entry cover lie hundreds of meters away. Beagle 2 may now be considered a partial success, delivering the United Kingdom a very late Christmas gift: the nation’s first soft landing on another planet.

不过着陆器看起来完好无损，而降落伞和进入大气层的封盖的遗骸躺在几百米外。现在“猎兔犬2号”可被认定为部分成功了，也算是送给英国一个晚来的圣诞礼物：该国在另一星球的第一次软着陆。