2015-01-14 科学新发现：重新发现冥王星-25

With such a short window to capture data, the team must test and retest the instruments throughout new horizons' nine-year journey.Every year for about two months we are going to wait the spacecraft up and do some testing, some observations of celestial¹ objects and some commissioning testing of all the instruments to check them out, to make sure they are still performing and will be ready to go when we finally get to Pluto² in July 2015.

Ready to answer some of science's most fundamental questions.

The delivery of organic material and water from the outer solar system to the inner solar system may have played a pivotal role in the formation of life on the earth.

It's just one of many questions about the solar system and its formation that scientists hope that new horizons will help answer, but above all when new horizons arrives, astronomers³ are expecting the unexpected.

I think the most exciting things we are going to learn from new horizons are all those things that never even occurred to us to ask, and suddenly you go there and you realise we didn't know anything.

One thing is certain, the arrival of new horizons will be the astronomical⁴ event of the 21st century.

It's a whole new kind of world, it's a planet i think everyone is trying to imagine, it's a frontier world, it's going to be the cover of the Rolling Stone.

And perhaps most fittingly the spacecraft carries the ashes of the man who started the journey to Pluto almost 80 years ago, Klair T, this is a journey to one of the solar system's most puzzling, most mystifying worlds, once the ninth planet, now a dwarf⁵ planet, an isolated⁶ oddity that became one of many.

 

1 celestial   

adj.天体的；天上的

参考例句：

• The rosy light yet beamed like a celestial dawn.玫瑰色的红光依然象天上的朝霞一样绚丽。
• Gravity governs the motions of celestial bodies.万有引力控制着天体的运动。

2 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。

3 astronomers   

n.天文学者，天文学家( astronomer的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Astronomers can accurately foretell the date,time,and length of future eclipses. 天文学家能精确地预告未来日食月食的日期、时刻和时长。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Astronomers used to ask why only Saturn has rings. 天文学家们过去一直感到奇怪，为什么只有土星有光环。 来自《简明英汉词典》

4 astronomical   

adj.天文学的，（数字）极大的

参考例句：

• He was an expert on ancient Chinese astronomical literature.他是研究中国古代天文学文献的专家。
• Houses in the village are selling for astronomical prices.乡村的房价正在飙升。

5 dwarf   

n.矮子，侏儒，矮小的动植物；vt.使…矮小

参考例句：

• The dwarf's long arms were not proportional to his height.那侏儒的长臂与他的身高不成比例。
• The dwarf shrugged his shoulders and shook his head. 矮子耸耸肩膀，摇摇头。

6 isolated   

adj.与世隔绝的

参考例句：

• His bad behaviour was just an isolated incident. 他的不良行为只是个别事件。
• Patients with the disease should be isolated. 这种病的患者应予以隔离。