兒子喜歡天文。自從他一歲多的時候，我?guī)ミ^一次北京天文館，教他認識了九大行星，他就整天叫我Jupiter，他自己扮演Earth，媽媽是Sun。整天上演monster blackhole吃Earth，Jupiter來救Earth的戲。最近我又給他看了好奇號火星車Curiosity降落到火星上的視頻，他就每天要求看一遍才能睡覺。他每天都很關(guān)心Curiosity在Mars上干什么。

正好最近我看到一篇文章，Curiosity在Mars上已經(jīng)2000多天了，為了紀念，許多網(wǎng)站都報道了好奇號在Mars上的生活，附了一些照片，真的很美，值得好好欣賞欣賞。Jerry很喜歡，每一張照片我都給他細細的講解。我先把原文粘貼到下面，然后翻譯或點評一下，不好理解的地方增加一些參考資料。

2,000 Days on Mars With the Curiosity Rover

It has now been just more than 2,000 days since NASA’s Curiosity rover landed on the surface of Mars. In the days (or “sols,” as they are called on Mars) since its complex sky-crane touchdown, Curiosity has made countless discoveries with multiple instruments, including drills, lasers, and an array of imaging instruments that so far have sent 468,926 images back to Earth. Gathered here are a few images of Mars from Curiosity over the past few years. 今天，好奇號火星車在火星上已超過2000天了。自從這座復(fù)雜的天空起重機從天而降，在這些”天“里（應(yīng)該叫“火星日”，等于24.65小時），它利用多種工具（鉆頭、激光、成像設(shè)備），共發(fā)回地球468,926幅照片，有數(shù)不清的發(fā)現(xiàn)。

A selfie on Mars, taken by NASA's Mars rover, Curiosity, on January 23, 2018, or Sol 1943, using its Mars Hand Lens Imager. Image stitched together from a series of panoramic images; sky artificially extended. 先來個自拍，拍攝于2018年1月23日，第1943個火星日。

Two sizes of wind-sculpted ripples are evident in this view of the top surface of a Martian sand dune. Sand dunes and the smaller type of ripples also exist on Earth. The larger ripples—roughly 10 feet (three meters) apart—are a type not seen on Earth nor previously recognized as a distinct type on Mars. The mast camera (mastcam) on NASA's Curiosity rover took the multiple component images of this scene on December 13, 2015, during the 1,192nd Martian day of the rover's work on Mars.The location is part of Namib Dune in the Bagnold Dune Field, which forms a dark band along the northwestern flank of Mount Sharp. 火星沙丘：風雕刻的波紋非常明顯。波紋非常大，波長（相鄰的波紋）有3米，這是非常獨特的，在地球上沒有，在火星上也是首次發(fā)現(xiàn)。好奇號的桅桿攝像機，于2015.12.13（即第1192個火星日）拍攝了多張此景象的照片。夏普山西北側(cè)，巴格諾沙丘群形成了一道黑色帶，這個拍攝地叫納米布沙丘，就在這道黑色帶中。

This image was taken by Curiosity's mastcam on Sol 1648, or March 26, 2017. 拍攝于2017.3.26，第1648個火星日。

Curiosity pauses at the site from which it reached down to drill into a rock target called 'Buckskin' on lower Mount Sharp in this low-angle self-portrait taken August 5, 2015, and released August 19, 2015. The selfie combines several component images taken by Curiosity's Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) during the 1,065th Martian day of the rover's work on Mars. 在夏普山某處暫停，使用火星手持透鏡成像儀（MAHLI）拍個低角度自拍照。在這里，好奇號在一個叫Buckskin的石頭上鉆孔，分析后把成分照及自拍照一起發(fā)回了地球。

Curiosity recorded this view of the sun setting at the close of the mission's 956th Martian day, on April 15, 2015, from the rover's location in Gale Crater, Mars. 火星日落：第956個火星工作日（2015.8.15）快要結(jié)束的時候，好奇號在工作地點“蓋爾”火山坑，拍攝了這種日落照，給地球人欣賞。

On September 9, 2012, when it was just starting out, a close view of two of the left wheels of Curiosity. In the distance is the lower slope of Mount Sharp.

2012.9.9，好奇號剛到火星。這是它的左邊兩只輪子的近照。遠處是夏普山的緩坡。

Years later, on April 18, 2016, NASA used the MAHLI camera to check the condition of the wheels once again. This image of Curiosity's left-middle and left-rear wheels is part of an inspection set taken during Sol 1,315. Holes and tears in the wheels worsened significantly during 2013 as Curiosity was crossing terrain studded with sharp rocks on its route near its 2012 landing site to the base of Mount Sharp. Team members are keeping a close eye for when any of the zig-zag-shaped treads, called grousers, begin to break. Longevity testing with identical wheels on Earth indicates that when three grousers on a given wheel have broken, that wheel has reached about 60 percent of its useful mileage. Curiosity's six aluminum wheels are about 20 inches (50 centimeters) in diameter and 16 inches (40 centimeters) wide. Each of the six wheels has its own drive motor, and the four corner wheels also have steering motors. 幾年后，2016.4.18，第1315個火星日，NASA（美國航天局）利用火星手持透鏡成像儀（MAHLI）再次檢查好奇號的輪子磨損情況。上圖是好奇號的左中輪、左后輪的檢查圖片。2013年，從2012年的降落點到夏普山基地，好奇號跨越了一段鑲嵌有鋒利石頭的地形，造成了輪子上的洞和裂痕。幾年后這些洞和裂痕更嚴重了。團隊成員密切觀察著，這些之字形的齒片何時會壞。在地球上利用同樣的輪子做壽命測試，結(jié)果表明，當一個輪子上3條齒片損壞時，這個輪子的壽命就損耗了60%。好奇號的6個鋁制輪子，直徑50公分，寬40公分。這臺6驅(qū)的車，4個角的輪子都配有轉(zhuǎn)向電機。

NASA's Curiosity Mars rover used the navcam on its mast for this look back after finishing a drive of 328 feet (100 meters) on Sol 548 (February 19, 2014). The rows of rocks just to the right of the fresh wheel tracks in this view are an outcrop called 'Junda.' The rows form striations on the ground, a characteristic seen in some images of this area taken from orbit. For scale, the distance between Curiosity's parallel wheel tracks is about 9 feet (2.7 meters). 上圖拍攝于2014.2.19，第548個火星日。好奇號剛剛結(jié)束了100米的行駛，使用桅桿上的導(dǎo)航相機向后看。兩條軌跡的右側(cè)有一片裸露的石頭，名為Junda。（為了清楚的看一下這些石頭，我在下面加了一張放大圖）?；鹦擒噧蓷l平行的車轍距離為2.7米。

This view from NASA's Curiosity Mars Rover shows the downwind side of Namib Dune, which stands about 13 feet (4 meters) high. The site is part of Bagnold Dunes, a band of dark sand dunes along the northwestern flank of Mars's Mount Sharp. The component images stitched together into this scene were taken with Curiosity's navcam on December 17, 2015, during Sol 1196.

上圖是納米布沙丘的順風側(cè)，大約4米高。這兒屬于巴格諾爾德沙丘群，夏普山西北側(cè)的暗沙丘一帶。成分照（不明白何為成分照，可能這張圖是很多原圖合成的）拍攝于2015.12.17，第1196個火星日。

The dark, smooth-surfaced object at the center of this October 30, 2016, image from the mastcam on Curiosity was examined with laser pulses and confirmed to be an iron-nickel meteorite. The grid of shiny points visible on the object resulted from that laser zapping by Curiosity's Chemistry and Camera (ChemCam) instrument. The meteorite is about the size of a golf ball. It is informally named 'Egg Rock,' after a site in Maine. Locations around Bar Harbor, Maine, are the naming theme for an area on Mars' Mount Sharp that Curiosity reached in October. Iron-nickel meteorites are a common class of space rocks found on Earth, and previous examples have been found on Mars, but Egg Rock is the first on Mars to be examined with a laser-firing spectrometer. The scene is presented with a color adjustment that approximates white balancing, to resemble how the rocks and sand would appear under daytime lighting conditions on Earth. Figure one includes a scale bar of five centimeters (about two inches). 這個黑色的、表面光滑的物體，經(jīng)激光脈沖檢查，確認是鎳鐵隕石，火星車的桅桿相機拍攝于2016.10中旬。隕石上亮點點是激光留下的痕跡，然后用化學分析相機設(shè)備掃描。隕石有高爾夫球那樣大小，它被正式命名為“緬因雞蛋石”。在夏普山附近，好奇號10月份那段時間去過的地方，命名都是以緬因Bar Harbor附近的地名為主題。地球上發(fā)現(xiàn)的隕石中，鎳鐵隕石是常見的一類，之前在火星上也發(fā)現(xiàn)過。但雞蛋石是第一個被激光發(fā)射頻譜儀分析檢測的。這個照片經(jīng)過近似白平衡色彩處理，使之看起來與在地球上差不多。

This view from the Mastcam shows a hillside outcrop with layered rocks within the Murray Buttes region on lower Mount Sharp. The buttes and mesas rising above the surface in this area are eroded remnants of ancient sandstone that originated when winds deposited sand after lower Mount Sharp had formed. Curiosity closely examined that layer—called the 'Stimson formation'—during the first half of 2016, while crossing a feature called 'Naukluft Plateau' between two exposures of the Murray formation. The layering within the sandstone is called 'cross-bedding,' and indicates that the sandstone was deposited by wind as migrating sand dunes. The image was taken on September 8, 2016, during Sol 1454.  夏普山Murray Buttes區(qū)域，山腰上的巖層。這些石頭是古代砂石被腐蝕的殘渣，當時夏普山下方剛剛形成，風把沙子堆積起來（關(guān)于這一點，我很迷惑，風為什么能把沙子堆積起來？我去NASA網(wǎng)站上查了相關(guān)資料，其中有一段可以解釋：火星上的風很稀薄，只有地球上的1%，但時間這個變量給了風以主宰的力量，它刻畫了山峰地形，直到今天仍然在繼續(xù)。在地球上，水、地殼移動、火山是地貌形成的主要力量。下面這個小視頻從NASA網(wǎng)站上下載的，可以看到很詭異的、被風吹的塵土）。好奇號仔細檢查了那個巖層，當時它正在跨越Naukluft高地。砂巖中間的一層叫做“跨越床”，表明砂石被風沉積于此（對于風沉積沙子這事，地球人不好理解，但如果說，水沉積沙子，我們都好理解。風對于火星地貌就是這樣重要。這些描述不好翻譯，必須查背景資料才能理解深一點，對于平時不太關(guān)心的人來說，直接翻譯是很難理解的。）

小視頻：火星上的風，來自NASA官網(wǎng)。

A view of the two moons of Mars comes from a set of images taken by Curiosity as the larger moon, Phobos, passed in front of the smaller one, Deimos, from Curiosity's perspective, on August 1, 2013. Curiosity used the telephoto-lens camera of its two-camera mastcam instrument to catch a series of images of the moons before, during, and after the occultation of Deimos by Phobos. This processed image stacks information from several images of each moon to enhance the visibility of smaller features. The two moons's positions relative to each other are taken from one of the frames from just before the occultation. On Phobos, Stickney Crater is visible on the top. It is on the leading hemisphere of Phobos. Hall Crater, in the south, is the prominent feature on the left hand side. 這是好奇號拍攝的火衛(wèi)一快要（大）遮住火衛(wèi)二（?。┑恼掌?，這張照片是經(jīng)過合成處理的。在這圖上可以看到火衛(wèi)一上的火山坑。（我還是講一下大意吧，直譯不僅拗口，而且困難，我盡量吧信息講全。下面以講大意和點評為主吧。）

A view from above. This image from NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter on April 8, 2015, catches sight of NASA's Curiosity Mars rover passing through a valley called Artist's Drive on the lower slope of Mount Sharp. The image is from the orbiter's High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera. It shows the rover's position after a drive of about 75 feet (23 meters) during Sol 949. North is toward the top, and the rover's shadow extends toward the right.  這張圖是火星勘測軌道飛行器在夏普山上空拍攝的照片，火星車在中間的山谷中，一個小點，仔細看才能看到。這個飛行器的樣子，我查了一下它的信息如下，看來它是唯一陪伴好奇號的小伙伴了。

This dark mound, called 'Ireson Hill,' rises about 16 feet (5 meters) above redder layered outcrop material of the Murray formation on lower Mount Sharp, Mars, near a location where NASA's Curiosity rover examined a linear sand dune in February 2017. Researchers used the rover's mastcam on February 2, 2017, during Sol 1598 to take the multiple images combined into this scene. The faint horizon in the distance beyond Ireson Hill is part of the rim of Gale Crater.  大意：這也是一張合成照片，照片上這個小山包只有5米高。點評：我很好奇這山上黑色的東西是什么，沒有介紹。我查了一些資料，NASA官網(wǎng)上沒有解釋，在reddit上發(fā)現(xiàn)一些人在討論那些黑色的石頭，一個人說聽了NASA的公開討論會，NASA也不知道那些黑色的東西是怎么來的，大概是砂石被風腐蝕后留下的，也可能是湖水浸泡干枯以后留下的。

This image from Curiosity shows wheel tracks printed by the rover as it drove on the sandy floor of a lowland called 'Hidden Valley' on the route toward Mount Sharp. The image was taken during the 709th Martian day of the rover's work on Mars (August 4, 2014).   火星車的“足”跡。

A vantage point on Vera Rubin Ridge provided Curiosity this detailed look back over the area where it began its mission inside Gale Crater, plus more-distant features of the crater. This view toward the north-northeast combines eight images taken by the right-eye telephoto-lens camera of Curiosity's mastcam. The component images were taken on October 25, 2017, during Sol 1856. At that point, Curiosity had gained 1,073 feet (327 meters) in elevation and driven 10.95 miles (17.63 kilometers) from its landing site. 蓋爾火山坑的景象。

This self-portrait of NASA's Curiosity Mars rover shows the vehicle at Namib Dune, where the rover's activities included scuffing into the dune with a wheel and scooping samples of sand for laboratory analysis. The scene was taken on January 19, 2016, during Sol 1228. 納米布沙丘，好奇號正在工作。它拖著一只輪子進入沙丘，然后舀一些沙子樣本，進行實驗分析。

The Mars Hand Lens Imager camera on the robotic arm of Curiosity used electric lights at night to illuminate this view of Martian sand grains dumped on the ground after sorting with a sieve. The view covers an area roughly 1.1 inches by 0.8 inch (2.8 centimeters by 2.1 centimeters). The grains seen here were too large to pass through a sieve with 150-micron (0.006 inch) pores. They were part of the sand in the first scoop collected by Curiosity at Namib Dune. A different portion of that scoop—consisting of grains small enough to pass through the 150-micron sieve—was delivered to the rover's on-board laboratory instruments for analysis. The images combined into this focus-merged view were taken on January 22, 2016, after dark on Sol 1230. 這是一粒砂子的照片，大小為2.8cm*2.1cm。

This composite image looking toward the higher regions of Mount Sharp was taken on September 9, 2015, by NASA's Curiosity rover. In the foreground, about two miles (three kilometers) from the rover, is a long ridge teeming with hematite, an iron oxide. Just beyond is an undulating plane rich in clay minerals. And just beyond that are a multitude of rounded buttes, all high in sulfate minerals. The changing mineralogy in these layers of Mount Sharp suggests a changing environment in early Mars, though all involve exposure to water billions of years ago. Further back in the image are striking, light-toned cliffs in rock that may have formed in drier times and now are heavily eroded by winds. The colors are adjusted so that rocks look approximately as they would if they were on Earth, to help geologists interpret the rocks. This 'white balancing' to adjust for the lighting on Mars overly compensates for the absence of blue on Mars, making the sky appear light blue and sometimes giving dark, black rocks a blue cast. 這是夏普山稍高處的地形。山脊的赤鐵礦、富含粘土礦的起伏的地面，表明幾十億年來環(huán)境的變化。從有水到無水、風化等，不斷改變著火星的環(huán)境。值得說明的是，這些照片都是經(jīng)過“白平衡處理”，這樣才能適應(yīng)我們的眼睛。

This look back at a dune that NASA's Curiosity Mars rover drove across was taken by the rover's mastcam during Sol 538, or February 9, 2014. The rover had driven over the dune three days earlier. The dune is about three feet (one meter) tall in the middle of its span across an opening called Dingo Gap. 好奇號又一次回眸，這個沙丘大概1米高。

Curiosity drilled this hole to collect sample material from a rock target called Buckskin on July 30, 2015, during Sol 1060. The diameter is slightly smaller than a dime. Rock powder from the collected sample was subsequently delivered to a laboratory inside the rover for analysis. The rover's drill did not experience any sign during this sample collection of an intermittent short-circuiting issue that was detected earlier in 2015. The Buckskin target is in an area near Marias Pass on lower Mount Sharp where Curiosity had detected unusually high levels of silica and hydrogen.  好奇號鉆了一個洞，把石頭粉末放在車內(nèi)的實驗室進行成分分析。

A panorama of the Martin landscape made from a mosaic of images taken by Curiosity on Sol 1276, or March 9, 2016. 最后是一張火星全景照。

因材施教最重要的是了解孩子的興趣、重視孩子的興趣，從興趣切入，是最容易打開知識大門的。例如，他看了這些會問很多問題：火星車要加油嗎？激光是干什么的？火星上為什么會有風？火星上日落為什么看起來跟地球上不一樣？等等。這樣就可以順著興趣教相關(guān)的知識，他也會聽的津津有味。