人类首次！外媒热议“嫦娥四号”着陆月背_公共英语阅读理解

人类首次！外媒热议“嫦娥四号”着陆月背

In a spaceflight first, China’s Chang’e-4 has landed where no spacecraft has touched down in one piece before: the far side of the moon.

中国的“嫦娥四号”在月球背面着陆，此前从没有航天器曾在此着陆过。

If successful, the mission could answer fundamental questions about Earth’s only natural satellite. There are still mysteries, for example, about the moon’s formation and early evolution, which, in turn, hold clues to the history of the entire solar system.

如果任务成功，就可以回答有关月球作为地球唯一一颗天然卫星的基本问题。例如，关于月球的形成和早期演化目前仍然存在一些谜团，而这些谜团反过来又为整个太阳系的历史提供了线索。

Additionally, the mission will conduct the first radio astronomy experiments from the moon’s far side and the first investigations to see whether plants can grow on the moon — a crucial step toward long-term human missions beyond Earth.

此外，此次任务还将在月球背面进行首次射电天文学实验，并就植物能否在月球上生长首次进行研究——这是人类在地球之外开展长期任务的关键一步。

报道还称，这仅仅是中国未来一系列航天任务中的一个。

China now plans to begin fully operating the third space station of the world by 2022, to put astronauts in a lunar base by later in that decade, and to send probes to Mars, including ones that could return samples of the Martian surface back to Earth.