NASA pulled off its eighth landing of a spacecraft on the surface of Mars as the world watched on Monday last week. But making the long journey and touching down without any explosions is just the beginning.

上周一，NASA在举世瞩目下成功完成了有史以来第八艘火星探测器的登陆任务。在漫长的太空旅行和焦灼的登陆过程后，“洞察号”的火星之旅才刚刚开始。

InSight's descent and landing, consisting of about 1,000 individual steps that had to be flawlessly executed to achieve success, capped a six-month journey of 548 million km from Earth.

“洞察号”的登陆过程包含了约1000个具体步骤，每一个步骤都必须完美完成以确保成功；在这之前，它从地球出发，耗时六个月，度过了总里程5.48亿公里的漫长旅程。

The spacecraft was launched from California in May on its nearly $1 billion mission. It will spend the next 24 months - about one Martian year - collecting a wealth of data to unlock mysteries about how Mars formed and, by extension, the origins of the Earth and other rocky planets of the inner solar system.

此次的发射任务耗资将近10亿美元，今年五月在加州成功发射升空后并成功登陆后，飞船将花上24个月——也就是一整个“火星年”，大量采集火星上的数据，来解释火星形成的原因，甚至是近太阳系中其它固态行星的起源奥秘，其中便包括了我们赖以生存的地球。

The first few things the InSight lander did after its hot and harrowing six-minute descent through the Martian atmosphere included snapping a dusty but still remarkable photo and then beginning to unfurl its solar arrays. 

“洞察号”探测器进入灼热的火星大气后，经历了关键的6分钟着陆阶段，成功着陆后，它做的第一件事情，便是拍了一张盖满灰尘，但足以证明成功登陆的照片，随即它展开“双翼”打开太阳能板开始了工作。

The 800-pound lander is parked on a broad plain north of the Martian equator known as Elysium Planitia — a mostly rock-free area that was faintly visible in the photo sent back from the lander. Over the next two to three months, the team on the earth will direct the lander’s six-foot-long robotic arm to pluck each science instrument from the craft and place it directly on the Martian surface.

这台重达800磅的探测器着陆的地点是火星赤道北部的一块叫做“埃律西昂平原”的地方——从探测器传回的模糊照片中便可得知此地地势十分平坦，没有什么岩石。在接下来的两三个月中，“洞察号”团队将远程操控探测器六尺长的机器手臂，将需要的科学仪器从舱内取出，放置到火星表面上。

The most important mission of the trip to Mars is conducted by a dome-shaped seismometer, which is designed to eavesdrop on Mars’ deep interior, listening in on seismic activity and measuring the frequency and magnitude of “marsquakes”. 

此次火星探测任务中最重要的使命是由一个圆顶状的地震仪来完成的，它将监听火星地表下发出的“声音”，监测地震活动，测量“火星地震”的频率和强度。

InSight and the next Mars rover mission, scheduled for 2020, are both seen as precursors for eventual human exploration of Mars, an objective that NASA said might be achieved as early as the mid-2030s.

NASA表示，“洞察号”和后续将在2020年发射的探测器都是为了最终人类登陆火星探测做准备，而这一项伟大任务，预计最早能在2035年前后成为现实。

VOCABULARY

unfurl: v. 展开；张开

eavesdrop: v. 偷听

seismic: adj. 地震（有关）的