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"Touchdown confirmed. We are safe on Mars. [Cheers.] Time to see where our Curiosity will take us."
“著陸完畢。我們安全抵達火星。現在來看看我們的好奇號漫游車將帶我們去何方。”
The control room at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory late in the evening of August 5th, Pacific time, when word arrived that the Curiosity rover had landed safely on Mars. The one-ton rover, which dwarfs all Mars landers that came before it, will now spend a planned two years exploring the Martian surface. The mission is expected to cost $2.5 billion.
太平洋時間8月15日深夜，美國宇航局噴氣推進實驗室的控制室收到好消息：好奇號漫游車安全登錄火星。這個漫游車重達一噸，令之前所有的火星探測器相形見絀。按照計劃它將在火星表面進行為期兩年的探測行動。這個項目預計將花費25億美元。
Curiosity's task is to investigate the inside of Gale Crater, where a giant mound of sedimentary deposits may provide evidence of a wetter, possibly habitable Mars billions of years ago.
好奇號漫游車的任務是調查蓋爾隕坑內部。蓋爾隕坑有大量的沉積物，這可能會提供證據證明幾十億年前的火星更加濕潤，適于居住。
But first it had to survive an elaborate landing sequence, which appears to have gone smoothly. Curiosity landed on time and on target and soon beamed back grainy photos of its wheels and its shadow.
但首先它必須通過精心設計的登錄程序，這似乎進展得很順利。好奇號漫游車準時準點著陸，很快便傳回它自己的輪子和影子的模糊照片。
Given the carlike size of the rover and the challenges of landing on Mars, Curiosity's landing goes down as one of the greatest parking jobs in history.
鑒于它類似于汽車的身形，以及在火星上著陸的種種挑戰，好奇號的著陸堪稱是歷史上最偉大的“停車”。
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