This Week @ NASA
October 26, 2012

A clip

CURIOSITY ROVER REPORT– JPL (CP) Nina Lanza Reporting
@MarsCuriosity
好奇號探測車報告——噴氣推進實驗室 (CP) Nina Lanza報道
@MarsCuriosity

Nina Lanza, MSL ChemCam Researcher: Hi, I'm Nina Lanza, I’m a post-doc on the ChemCam instrument and this is your Curiosity rover update.
Nina Lanza，ChemCam實驗項目研究員：Hi，我是Nina Lanza，ChemCam儀器博士后研究員，您現(xiàn)在看到的是好奇號探測車的更新報告。

This has been a very exciting week for the Curiosity rover. It delivered its 3rd sample to the CHIMRA to complete its cleaning regimen and also we’ve done our first CheMin analysis and we’ve got a second one on the way. In its spare time, Curiosity has also been making measurements with other instruments, including the ChemCam instrument, which is what I work on.
對于好奇號探測車來說，這是非常令人激動的一周。它將第三個采樣樣本遞交到了CHIMRA，并完成了自我清潔（此處翻譯結合之前一文意譯，因為不太確定regimen的用法，請教討論）。與此同時，好奇號也結束了第一次CheMin分析，進入到了第二次分析的過程。而在空閑時間，好奇號的其它測量儀器也同樣在運轉著，其中就包括我所工作的ChemCam設備。

ChemCam is actually two instruments in one. It includes a camera with a telephoto lens and it also has a laser that vaporizes a very small amount of rock so we can tell what its chemical composition is. And as of this week, we will have done 10,000 shots with the ChemCam laser.
ChemCam實際上是二部儀器合二為一。它包括一個長焦鏡頭攝像機和一個激光器。其中后者能夠蒸發(fā)非常少量的巖石，以便在此過程中告知我們這部分巖石的化學成分是什么。就在這一周，我們計劃用ChemCam激光器發(fā)出10000次激光射線。

This week we’ve been analyzing rocks in an area called Rocknest, and I’ll tell you in particular about one called Zephyr. This one is interesting because it appears to be made of 2 different types of materials.
本周我們分析了一個叫做Rocknest區(qū)域的巖石，其中需要特別說明的是一塊被稱作Zephyr的巖石。它比較有趣是因為它似乎是由兩種不同類型的材料構成的。

It’s got this harder, more resistant material on the top, capping it, and then beneath it has a lighter colored softer material that appears to erode more easily.
Zephyr的頂部比較硬，也比較堅韌耐磨，蓋在上面；而它的下部是淺色的、比較柔軟的材質，似乎比較容易被腐蝕。

It’s actually eroded into a set of natural arches, so some of our team members have taken to calling it, “Stonehenge.”
事實上，它已然被侵蝕成了一組自然的拱門，因此我們的一些組員已經(jīng)開始稱它“巨石陣”。

This feature is really only an inch long and we’re shooting this from about 8 feet away, making the pointing very difficult.
這個特征其實僅有一英寸長，而我們在從約8英尺遠處發(fā)射，這個距離使得準確指向非常困難。

So that’s why we decided to do 9 points instead of just 2, just to make sure we would hit the material of interest.
所以這就是為什么我們決定做9個點而不僅僅是2個點，就是為了確保我們能碰觸到真正感興趣的材料。

We ended up hitting both the dark and the light material and we found that there was indeed a compositional difference.
我們最終成功點射到深色和淺色材料區(qū)域，并且發(fā)現(xiàn)，它們確實存在著成分差異。

In addition to composition, we’ve also been able to make a three-dimensional model of the surface of this target using images from the Remote Micro-Imager part of ChemCam.
除了成分分析，我們也能使用ChemCam的遠程微觀成像器部件所成的像，制作目標區(qū)域表面的三維模型。

We’ve also used ChemCam to measure soils, such as crestaurum. Here you can see a before image, and then after image where you can see the crater left by the laser.
ChemCam也可被用來測量土壤，例如crestaurum。如畫面所示，您看到的是激光發(fā)射前的圖像，之后的的成像就可以看到發(fā)射的激光所留下的火山口狀彈坑。

This week ChemCam did its very first depth profile, in which we shot the laser 600 times in a single location, in order to tunnel through the surface of the rock. Now, this only tunnels about one millimeter in depth, but it can help us understand how the composition of the sample changes from the surface to the interior.
在本周，ChemCam完成了它的第一次深度剖面作業(yè)，我們在同一個位置發(fā)射了600次激光，以打通穿透巖石表面的隧道�，F(xiàn)在盡管只打通了大約1mm的深度，但是它能夠幫助我們了解巖石樣本的組成成分從表到里是如何變化的。

Coming up, we’ll be able to use this information that we’ve learned from ChemCam in order to decide which targets we should hit next with other instruments.
不遠的將來，我們將能夠使用從ChemCam學到的這些信息，決定哪些會是其它儀器下一步應當接觸的首選目標。

This has been your Curiosity rover report. Please check back for more updates.
以上就是好奇號探測車的更新報告。請持續(xù)關注我們未來的更新。


Read the whole piece of the TWAN this week:
http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/podcasting/TWAN_10_26_12.html
Video:
http://www.nasa.gov/701038main_TWAN1026%20-%20iPhone.m4v
Audio:
http://www.nasa.gov/mp3/701037main_TWAN1026%20-%20iPhone.mp3