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Bill Stone: Robot sub, alien life, Jupiter’s moon 

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Bill Stone: In my opinion, within our lifetimes, microbiological life will be shown to exist either on Mars or on Europa, or some other outer planet’s watery moon.

比尔•斯通：在我看来，在我们的有生之日，将会看到微生物在火星、“欧罗巴”或一些外星的冰质卫星上存在。

You’re listening to research engineer Bill Stone of Stone Aerospace. He is developing a self-guided robotic submarine, called ENDURANCE, to look for alien life on Europa, an icy moon of Jupiter. In 2010, the ENDURANCE robot completed six months of tests here on Earth, at a frozen lake in Antarctica called West Lake Bonney.

您听到的是对斯通宇航公司的研究工程师比尔•斯通的采访。他正在研发一种叫做“耐力”的自我导航潜水机器人，以便在木星的冰质卫星——“欧罗巴”寻找外星生命。在2010年，“耐力”机器人在地球南极洲结冰的西邦尼湖上完成了六个月的测试。

Bill Stone: The job that we were doing down there was to see if we could build a robot that could explore on its own, build three dimensional maps, navigate back home on those maps.

比尔•斯通：我们在那里要做的工作就是考虑能否建造一种能自己探索、自己绘出三维地图并根据地图自行导航回到基地的机器人。

The ice at West Lake Bonney was just a few meters thick, compared to the ice on Jupiter’s moon Europa which is believed to be at least a thousand times thicker. Astronomers think that there’s liquid water below that ice, and possibly life. But Stone said the West Lake Bonney was a good place to test the robot.

在西邦尼胡的冰只有几米深，而相对于木星的卫星“欧罗巴”来说，那里的冰要比这里的厚上至少一千倍。宇航员认为，在冰层之下有着液态水，并且有可能存在生命。但是斯通表示西邦尼胡是一个测试机器人的好地方。

Bill Stone: The analog to Europa was very close, and even more so because the place we were going was completely unexplored. Below that ice cap, no human, no robot had ever been in this place.

比尔•斯通：（西邦尼胡的）模拟图与“欧罗巴”十分接近，甚至比这还要接近，因为我们要去的这个地方是完全没有被探索过的。在那冰层以下，没有任何人，任何机器人曾经到过那里。

The ENDURANCE successfully mapped and explored the water beneath the frozen lake. What’s more, said Stone, it found several strains of previously unknown microscopic organisms. 

“耐力”机器人成功绘制了冰湖的地图，并探索了冰湖下面的水。斯通表示，值得一提的是，它发现了一些以往未知微生物的新品种。

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