第二步：精读重点段落

（Tips: 双击文中单词可以查释义并加入你的生词本哦）

[1] Thick in the night of Oct. 15, 1997, a Titan rocket shattered the darkness over Cape Canaveral and catapulted the six-ton Cassini spacecraft toward a historic rendezvous with Saturn. This week the script will repeat, but with a dramatic flip. Under a noontime sun on Saturn — at 7:55 a.m. EDT on Friday — Cassini will plunge into the ringed planet's atmosphere, briefly blazing once again before descending forever into the black.

• Shatter v. （使）粉碎，（使）破碎
• Catapult v. 把…弹[射]出去
• Rendezvous n. 会合，会面，相会
• Saturn n. 土星
• Script n. 〔戏剧、电影等的〕剧本
• Flip n/v. 反转
• plunge into 投入；跳入；突然或仓促地开始某事
• descend v. 下来，下降; be descended from sb 为某人的后裔

[2] That celestial swan dive will mark the end of one of the most audacious acts of exploration our species has ever undertaken. (You can watch it unfold live on NASA TV in the window below.) Over 13 years, Cassini has scrutinized Saturn and its moons and rings in unprecedented detail — and returned a staggering 453,048 pictures. The results have shifted our understanding of the solar system and redirected the search for life in the universe.

• Celestial adj. 天上的；天堂的；极美的
• Audacious adj. 大胆的，无畏的
• Scrutinize v. 仔细检查，认真查看
• Unprecedented adj. 空前的；无前例的
• Staggering adj. 惊人的，令人震惊的

[8] Even more exciting is Enceladus, an ice-covered moon that may harbor life right now. Cassini’s sensors discovered a network of geysers erupting from fissures near Enceladus’s south pole. The geysers emerge from a warm global ocean that’s believed to be sloshing about no more than a few miles beneath the frozen surface.

• Harbor v. 庇护；藏匿；n. 海港，港口
• Geyser n. 间歇(喷)泉
• Erupt v. 爆发；喷出
• Emerge v. 冒出，露出
• Slosh v. (液体)来回晃荡

[9] Chemical traces in the water show that the ocean is energized by volcanic activity and laced with carbon compounds, two key conditions for biology. Astrobiologists now question whether life really needs a host planet just like Earth, with a thick atmosphere and liquid water up top. Ice worlds that hold their oceans on the inside — like Enceladus — might be just as hospitable, and a lot more common. Enceladus is the key to finding out.

• Energize v. 供给…能量，激励
• Be laced with 掺加了
• carbon compounds 碳化合物
• Astrobiologist n. 天体生物学家

[10] Ironically, it was the prospect of life on Enceladus that helped determine Cassini’s fate. Early on, mission scientists had considered parking the probe in orbit around Saturn. Over the long term, though, such an orbit could become unstable and lead to a crash landing on one of Saturn’s moons.

• Orbit n. 轨道
• Probe n. 探测器

[11] Even a small chance that Earthly microbes clinging to Cassini might end up contaminating Enceladus was an unacceptable violation of NASA’s planetary protection protocols. And so, in a 2014 meeting, Spilker and her colleagues resolved to send Cassini to a fiery grave.

（Tips: 双击文中单词可以查释义并加入你的生词本哦）

Scientists Bereft Over End of Cassini's Extraordinary Mission

[1] Thick in the night of Oct. 15, 1997, a Titan rocket shattered the darkness over Cape Canaveral and catapulted the six-ton Cassini spacecraft toward a historic rendezvous with Saturn. This week the script will repeat, but with a dramatic flip. Under a noontime sun on Saturn — at 7:55 a.m. EDT on Friday — Cassini will plunge into the ringed planet's atmosphere, briefly blazing once again before descending forever into the black.

• Shatter v. （使）粉碎，（使）破碎
• Catapult v. 把…弹[射]出去
• Rendezvous n. 会合，会面，相会
• Saturn n. 土星
• Script n. 〔戏剧、电影等的〕剧本
• Flip n/v. 反转
• plunge into 投入；跳入；突然或仓促地开始某事
• descend v. 下来，下降; be descended from sb 为某人的后裔

[2] That celestial swan dive will mark the end of one of the most audacious acts of exploration our species has ever undertaken. (You can watch it unfold live on NASA TV in the window below.) Over 13 years, Cassini has scrutinized Saturn and its moons and rings in unprecedented detail — and returned a staggering 453,048 pictures. The results have shifted our understanding of the solar system and redirected the search for life in the universe.

• Celestial adj. 天上的；天堂的；极美的
• Audacious adj. 大胆的，无畏的
• Scrutinize v. 仔细检查，认真查看
• Unprecedented adj. 空前的；无前例的
• Staggering adj. 惊人的，令人震惊的

[3] Though Cassini’s demise was planned years in advance, it’s still agonizing to the scientists who have nurtured and even loved the probe since it was first conceived in the mid-1980s.

• Demise n. 终止; 消亡；死亡
• Agonizing adj. 令人痛苦的
• Nurture v. 培养，养育
• Conceive v. 构思；设想；想出〔新的主意、计划等〕

[4] “There will be an empty place in my heart when I realize that there’s no more direct, personal connection to the Saturn system,” says Linda Spilker, Cassini’s project scientist. “Goodbye, Cassini, and thanks for all the incredible data.”

BOLD NEW WORLDS

[5] Cassini’s trove of data has yielded some big surprises: Saturn’s atmosphere changes color with the seasons, for example, while gale-force winds shape polar clouds into a puzzling 20,000-mile-wide hexagon.

• Trove n. 无主珍宝
• Yield v. 产生，得出〔结果、答案或资料〕； 出产，产出（作物）
• gale-force wind 强风（七级以上）

[6] The planet’s rings pulse with activity, too, as ring particles clump, pile up, shatter and ripple in the gravitational wake of passing moons. This elaborate dance parallels the process that formed Earth and the other planets within a much larger disk around the sun some 4.5 billion years ago.

• Particle n. 微粒，粒子
• Clump v. （使）结成块，（使）聚成簇
• pile up 积累，堆积
• shatter v. （使）粉碎，（使）破碎；使〔希望、信念〕破灭
• ripple v. （使）起涟漪
• elaborate adj. 复杂的，精密的
• parallel v. 与〔某事〕同时发生；与〔某事〕相似 adj. 平行的

[7] From Cassini, we know that Saturn’s largest moon, Titan, is dotted with lakes and seas filled not with water but with methane and other simple hydrocarbons. The surrounding landscape, meanwhile, is chockablock with complex organic molecules. Titan may resemble early Earth in deep freeze, a place where we can return to understand how life began.

• is dotted with 点缀着
• methane n. 甲烷
• hydrocarbon n. 碳氢化合物
• chockablock adj. 挤满的，塞满的
• organic molecules 有机分子
• resemble v. 像；与…类似，与…相似

[8] Even more exciting is Enceladus, an ice-covered moon that may harbor life right now. Cassini’s sensors discovered a network of geysers erupting from fissures near Enceladus’s south pole. The geysers emerge from a warm global ocean that’s believed to be sloshing about no more than a few miles beneath the frozen surface.

• Harbor v. 庇护；藏匿；n. 海港，港口
• Geyser n. 间歇(喷)泉
• Erupt v. 爆发；喷出
• Emerge v. 冒出，露出
• Slosh v. (液体)来回晃荡

[9] Chemical traces in the water show that the ocean is energized by volcanic activity and laced with carbon compounds, two key conditions for biology. Astrobiologists now question whether life really needs a host planet just like Earth, with a thick atmosphere and liquid water up top. Ice worlds that hold their oceans on the inside — like Enceladus — might be just as hospitable, and a lot more common. Enceladus is the key to finding out.

• Energize v. 供给…能量，激励
• Be laced with 掺加了
• carbon compounds 碳化合物
• Astrobiologist n. 天体生物学家

A LIFE SACRIFICE

[10] Ironically, it was the prospect of life on Enceladus that helped determine Cassini’s fate. Early on, mission scientists had considered parking the probe in orbit around Saturn. Over the long term, though, such an orbit could become unstable and lead to a crash landing on one of Saturn’s moons.

• Orbit n. 轨道
• Probe n. 探测器

[11] Even a small chance that Earthly microbes clinging to Cassini might end up contaminating Enceladus was an unacceptable violation of NASA’s planetary protection protocols. And so, in a 2014 meeting, Spilker and her colleagues resolved to send Cassini to a fiery grave.

• Cling v. 缠着；黏着
• Contaminate v. 弄脏，污染
• Violation n. 违背，违反
• Protocol n. 国际议定书，协议

[12] They held out as long as possible. Cassini has consumed 6,504 pounds of its original 6,565 pounds of propellant and is now running on fumes, says Earl Maize, Cassini’s program manager. There was just enough left for the probe to set a collision course.

• Propellant n. 推进燃料
• collision course 导致冲突的轨迹；[航] 碰撞航向

[13] When Cassini enters Saturn’s atmosphere on the 15th, its sputtering thrusters will fire hard to keep its antenna pointed toward home. Eventually, though, buffeting from Saturn’s winds will win out, and the radio link will be broken. Moments later, Cassini’s instruments will be torn off, and what’s left of the probe will vaporize as a bright meteor streaking through Saturn’s skies.

• sputtering thruster 喷溅的助推器
• antenna n. [电讯] 天线
• buffet v. 〔尤指风、雨或海浪〕猛烈袭击；n. 自助餐
• win out 最后获得胜利
• be torn off 被撕破
• vaporize v. 蒸发
• meteor n. 流星
• streak v. 疾驰； 裸奔

[14] The messages sent back by Cassini just before its demise will contain details about the precise structure and composition of Saturn’s upper atmosphere. That, in turn, will provide clues about how the planet formed and evolved: science to the very end. There will be no final photos, alas. There’s simply not enough bandwidth during the hectic plunge, Maize says.

• Composition n. [材] 构成，合成物，成分；作文，作曲，作品
• hectic plunge 狂热坠落

[15] Strictly speaking, the last communications from Cassini will be ghost signals. Radio waves take 83 minutes to travel from Saturn to Earth. By the time they arrive, the probe will be long gone.

IN MEMORIAM

[16] Maize, like Spilker, is struggling to make peace with that impending loss. “I’m going to feel a little alone,” he says. “But then I think, ‘We’re going out in a blaze of glory. We used up everything in our system, and we nailed it.’”

• Impending adj. 〔尤指不愉快的事情〕逼近的，即将发生的

[17] He expects mission scientists to mark the end of the mission with sober hugs and handshakes — literally, since alcohol is prohibited at government facilities. The drinks and tears will flow that night, when team members plan to go out for a scientific wake.

• Sober adj. 清醒的，冷静的

[18] Not that the probe will truly be gone. It has left behind 635 gigabytes of images and sensor readings — enough to keep planetary scientists busy for decades. Its remarkable discoveries have already inspired concepts for follow-up missions to Enceladus and Titan, as well as a Cassini-inspired mission to Uranus.

• Gigabytes n. 千兆字节，十亿字节
• Uranus n. 天王星

[19] The profound sense of interplanetary connection is still there, too, albeit transfigured. One of the Cassini’s discoveries is that Saturn’s interior circulates nearly from top to bottom. That means the probe’s remains will eventually get stirred through the entire planet.

• Profound adj. 深厚的；意义深远的
• Interplanetary adj. 行星间的
• Albeit conj. 虽然；即使
• Transfigure v. 使改观；美化
• Stir vt. 搅，搅拌，搅动

[20] Carl Sagan said that “we are made of star-stuff.” But now we can say, with equal truth, that we are all Saturnians — that we are a part of Saturn, and Saturn is a part of us.