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What smells like rotten eggs, a used litter box, and an almond-munching mortician? The answer is one of those dirty snowballs in space, a comet. Comet Churyumov-Gerasimenko, to be exact, which is starting to thaw as it closes in on the Sun.
什么東西聞起來(lái)像臭雞蛋？用過(guò)的垃圾箱？嚼著杏仁的殯葬業(yè)者？答案是太空中的“臟雪球”之一——彗星。確切的說(shuō)，是丘留莫夫-格拉西緬科彗星，該彗星一靠近太陽(yáng)就會(huì)開(kāi)始融化。
Since August, the European Space Agency's Rosetta spacecraft has been monitoring the comet. Right now, Churyumov-Gerasimenko is between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter, some 300 million miles from Earth. It's so chilly out there that scientists expected Rosetta's instruments to detect scarcely more than odorless carbon dioxide from the comet.
自八月起，歐洲航天局的羅斯塔飛船便一直在監(jiān)測(cè)該彗星。如今，丘留莫夫-格拉西緬科彗星已進(jìn)入了火星和木星之間的軌道，離地球約3億英里。那里非常寒冷，因此科學(xué)家預(yù)測(cè)羅斯塔能夠從該彗星上探測(cè)出幾乎無(wú)味的二氧化碳。
But instead Rosetta has also detected hydrogen sulphide—with its rotten egg odor—as well as ammonia, with a smell familiar to anyone who has changed a cat pan. Also in the mix: formaldehyde and methanol, found in embalming fluid, mixed with faint traces of poisonous hydrogen cyanide, which has an almond-like aroma.
但事實(shí)恰恰相反，羅斯塔探測(cè)出了帶有臭雞蛋氣味的硫化氫，以及帶有貓糞味的氨氣——任何給貓喂過(guò)食的人對(duì)這種氣味是再熟悉不過(guò)了。羅斯塔還在防腐劑中發(fā)現(xiàn)與微量含杏仁氣味的有毒氰化氫混合在一起的甲醛和甲醇。
Rosetta will deploy a probe to land on the comet this November, and will soon gather more pungent whiffs of the comet's appalling perfume. But by studying this Eau de Comet, researchers hope to better understand the deep—and apparently smelly—chemical origins of our solar system.
羅斯塔將于今年11月份安排一架探測(cè)器到該彗星上，很快的，它將從該彗星那駭人的“香水”中帶回更多刺鼻氣體。通過(guò)研究該彗星的液體，科學(xué)家們希望能對(duì)太陽(yáng)系中的這個(gè)具有明顯臭味的、深?yuàn)W的化學(xué)起源有更好的了解。
