9 A Year of Discovery and Promise in Space【DOC精选】.docVIP

VOICE ONE: Im Mario Ritter. VOICE TWO: And Im Steve Ember with EXPLORATIONS in VOA Special English. This week, we tell about some of the biggest space stories of two thousand nine. First, there was the American space agencys discovery of water on the moon. We also talk to a NASA expert about the discovery of methane gas on Mars. And we hear about the test flight of NASAs newest rocket. (MUSIC) VOICE ONE: An artists picture of LCROSS Possibly the biggest space story this year was the discovery of water on the moon. The best evidence was provided by a dramatic experiment carried out on October ninth. NASA used its Lunar Crater Observing and Sensing Satellite, or LCROSS, to look for water deep beneath the lunar surface. To get below the ancient lunar rocks, NASA crashed a rocket into the moons south pole. The crash caused soil to be expelled many kilometers above the lunar surface. LCROSS studied the soil before it too crashed into the moon. The experiment pushed the search for water several meters below the lunar surface much deeper than had been possible before. VOICE TWO: LCROSS scientists Anthony Colaprete and Kim Ennico study early results from the lunar impact experiment In November, Anthony Colaprete, a leading scientist with the LCROSS project, spoke about information gathered by the spacecraft. He said about one hundred kilograms of water had been found in the material ejected by the moon crash. Water has now been confirmed in amounts much greater than had been thought. In September, NASA scientists had announced the discovery of water molecules mainly in the moons extreme northern and southern areas. They noted, however, that they could also be seeing evidence of another molecule, hydroxyl. VOICE ONE: Instruments on three separate spacecraft gathered that evidence of lunar water. NASAs Moon Mineralogy Mapper made the most recent observations. It was one of eleven scientific devices carried by the Chandrayaan-One spacecraft of the Indian Spa