破解冥王星密码需要怎样的努力？

长距离飞行背后的远征

当然，我们需要做大量准备工作，比如确定我们打算解决哪些科学问题，装载哪些仪器，以及如何在几十年时间里有效地操控探测器并与之通信。“新视野号”于九年半前发射，但我们的工作并未就此结束。在地球上，我们要做的事还有很多。

虽然听起来可能有些不可思议，但这个项目自始至终都令人激动。科学团队的会议总是既有趣又活泼，我们的每次会谈都和对冥王星的大胆想象交织在一起。甚至在无数次的电话会议上，大家也经常妙语迭出。

“新视野号”已经继续踏上征程，我的主要工作则是为冥王星大气层建立计算机模型，以帮助我们理解最终的观测结果。这比我预想的要难得多。此前我们从未见过冥王星这样的行星大气层，气体以超音速“逃离”这样一个冰冷星球是一种全新的情景。随着更多观测结果出炉，这项挑战变得越来越复杂。

The long haul behind a long-haul mission

Of course we had to do tons of prep work — deciding what scientific questions we’d try to tackle, which instruments to include, how to effectively steer and communicate with the probe over decades. And our work didn’t end with the launch nine-and-a-half years ago — there was still plenty left for us to do here on Earth.

Maybe it’s surprising, but this project has been exciting all the way through. The science team meetings were always interesting and animated, and at every step our conversations were laced with wild speculation about Pluto. Even the zillions of teleconferences usually had doses of humor sprinkled throughout.

While New Horizons was plugging away on its journey, my work mostly consisted of trying to prepare computer models of Pluto’s atmosphere to help us understand our eventual observations. This was much more difficult that I had thought it would be. We’d never encountered a planetary atmosphere like Pluto’s: gases escaping at supersonic speeds from such a frigid planet are a completely new situation. And that challenge continues to complicate interpreting the observations that are rolling in right now.

破解冥王星密码

冥王星的神秘感似乎一直有增无减，甚至是在“新视野号”发射后。除了已知的大型卫星冥卫一外，人们又发现了两颗卫星，随后又是两颗！神秘的冥王星引起了人们的兴趣，每个新发现似乎都让人们更好奇。2006年国际天文学联合会将冥王星从行星降级为矮行星，这似乎进一步激起了人们的兴趣。围绕冥王星等级的政治争吵、诡异发现以及“新视野号”的漫漫征途让公众对我们这个项目更感兴趣，也更为支持，这也激励了我们的团队。

以这样的方式创造历史一辈子确实只有一次。在了解冥王星的过程中，“新视野号”项目是人们迈出的最大一步，今后几十年里人们都会这么看，而我则是这个项目的一份子，每念及此我都非常满足。

我写下这些一天前，“新视野号”和冥王星相会；现在，它发回的信息让我们惊叹不已！新的发现接踵而至。我们要用好几年的时间来研究并理解这些崭新的数据。同时，“新视野号”团队的任务远未结束。我们将继续协作，为“新视野号”制定新的任务，那就是飞掠另一个冰雪覆盖的矮行星，目前姑且命名为PT1或PT3，希望我们能在2018年中期实现这个目标。（财富中文网）

本文作者麦克·萨默斯是乔治梅森大学行星科学和天文学教授。

本文为《财富》和《对话》杂志的合作内容，原文刊登在theconversation.com上。

译者：Charlie

校对：詹妮

Cracking Pluto’s mysteries

Pluto’s intrigue seemed only to increase, even after we launched New Horizons, when two more moons were discovered in addition to its known large moon Charon. And later two more were discovered! People were drawn to Pluto’s mysteries and each new revelation seemed to captivate more of their interest. And the International Astronomical Union’s demotion of Pluto from planet to dwarf planet status in 2006 seemed to make it even more interesting to the public. The political wrangling over Pluto’s status, the bizarre discoveries and New Horizons’ continuing quest worked via synergy to increase public interest in and support for our mission, which in turn energized the team.

This was truly a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to be involved in such a history-making event. It’s gratifying to know that for decades to come, the New Horizons mission will be known as the endeavor that gave us our biggest leap forward in understanding Pluto, and that I was a part of it.

As I write, this it’s the day after the encounter. We are getting back results that are astonishing! Discoveries left and right. We’ll be working on understanding the brand new data for years. And this is nowhere near the end for the New Horizons team. We’ll stay together to plan an Extended Mission for New Horizons to fly by another dwarf ice planet — either the cryptically named PT1 or PT3 — hopefully in mid-2018.

Mike Summers is a Professor of Planetary Science and Astronomy at George Mason University.

This post is in partnership with The Conversation. The article below was originally published at theconversation.com.