14.The Moon-Riddle¹ from the Past(月球—来自远古之谜)

　　1. Spacecraft from the United States and from Russia have been to the moon, and men have walked
upon its surface. Rock and soil samples and information of many other kinds have become available in recent years.
Yet with all we know about the moon, there is even more that we don't know.

　　1、美国和俄国的宇宙飞船都已经到达过月球，而且人类也在它的表面上行走过。月球上的岩石和土壤的样本，以及许多其它类型的信息，近些年来已经为人们所知所用了。然而除了我们所知道的关于月球的那些外，还有更多是我们不知道的。

　　2. Following the end of the Apollo space program, the National Geographic² Society published an excellent set of articles
about the moon. Here, in shorter form, are some questions and answers from one of these articles. For the full story,
see the September, 1973, issue of National Geographic.

　　2、在阿波罗太空计划结束后，国家地理协会出版了一组有关月球的极好文章。这里，以简短的形式截取了其中一篇文章重的部分问答。完整的内容，请见1973年九月发行的《国家地理》。

　　Were scientists right about what the moon would be like?

　　科学家关于“月球外貌”的描述是正确的吗？

　　3. Many were, of course, but many were mistaken. One said there was no lava³ on the moon. Another said that the
moon material would explode as soon as an astronaut's boot touched it. One said there would certainly be water on the
moon. Many felt there was a chance that the astronauts could bring back to earth some strange infection.
These ideas are now known to be incorrect, and no doubt we are still wrong about many other things, also.

　　3、大多数是正确的，当然，也有相当部分是错误的。一个说法是月球上没有熔岩。另外一个说法是宇航员的靴子一旦碰上月球物质就会爆炸。有人说月球确实存在水。许多人还认为宇航员有可能把某些奇怪的传染病菌带回地球。这些说法现在被证明都是不正确的，无疑，我们关于月球的许多其它的看法是错误的。

　　Is the moon like the earth?

　　月球像地球吗？

　　4. Yes and no. It is more like it than many scientists thought before Apollo. Like the earth, the moon is in layers, with a crust⁴ on the outside and a deep mantle⁵ below. It may also have a core⁶, as the earth does. However, the crust is almost four times thicker than the earth's crust. We do not know much yet about the moon's mantle, that section of superheated rock which goes down hundreds of miles below the crust. We think-but we are not sure-that the moon has a center core which includes molten rock, as the earth does.

　　4、答案是，像也不像。月球比科学家在阿波罗计划之前想象的还要像地球。如同地球一样，月球上有地层，表面是一层地壳，其下是很深的地幔。月球也可能如同地球一样有一个地核。然而，月球地壳几乎是地球地壳厚度的四倍。我们对月球地幔所知不多，那些过热的岩石在外壳几百英里以下。我们预料，但是我们不能确定，月球有一个由熔岩构成的地核，如同地球。

　　5. In other ways, of course, the moon is very different. There is no life, and there is no water. The makeup⁷ of its atmosphere is very different; the earth creatures cannot breathe in it.

　　5、在其它的方面，当然，月球非常不同。它没有生命，没有水。它的大气的构成也非常不同，地球生物在那里不能呼吸。

　　Of what is the moon made?

　　月球是由什么构成的？

　　6. Definitely⁸ not green cheese. It has the same chemical elements as have the earth and the rest of the
solar system but in very different amounts-more of some, less of others. Carbon, which is a very important
part of living things on the earth, is rare on the moon.

　　6、很明显不是绿色奶酪。月球有如同地球和其余太阳系行星一样的化学元素，但是其比率非常不同，某些多一点，其它少一些。碳是地球上生物的一个非常重要组成部分，在月球上非常稀少。

　　Is the moon hot or cold?

　　月球是酷热的还是寒冷的？

　　7. Most scientists agree that some of the moon was hot for at least a time. Rocks from the moon show that they
were once melted. Right now there seems to be heat someplace inside the moon, possibly a great deal of it. On the
surface, however, there is no sign of heat-no volcano⁹, for example. The surface itself ranges from heat of 230℉ to
cold of minus 290℉,depending upon where the sun is.

　　7、大多数的科学家认为月球的一部分至少在一个时期是热的。来自月球的岩石表明它们曾经被融化。现在，似乎在月球内部的某些地方仍处于高温，也可能它是很大的一片地方，然而在表面上，没有高温的特征，例如没有火山。月球表面温度范围从华氏正230度到华氏负290度，取决于太阳在什么地方。

　　Where did the moon come from?

　　月球来自哪里呢？

　　8. We don't know. The three main theories (ideas) are (1) that the moon was born from the earth, (2) that the earth
and the moon were born together at the same time from the same cloud of gas and dust, and (3) that the moon was
born someplace else in the solar system and then captured¹⁰ by the earth's gravity. So far, none of these theories has
been proved to be either right or wrong. Professor George W.Wetherill of the University of California in Los Angeles
says that he would give the first two theories each a 10 percent chance and the third theory a 20 percent chance.
The other 60 percent he would give to "things we haven't thought of yet."

　　8、我们不知道。主要存在着三个理论：（1）月球产生自地球，（2）地球和月球在同一时间从同一气云和尘埃里同时产生，（3）月球是产生在太阳系的其它某个地方，而后被地球的地心引力所捕获。到现在为止，这些理论中没有任何一个已经被证明正确或错误。洛杉矶加州大学的乔治教授说，他认为前两个理论有百分之十的正确性，第三个理论有百分之二十的正确性，另外的百分之六十他将给“至今我们都还没想到的事物”。

　　9. In spite¹¹ of all we have learned¹² from space flights, the moon is still a riddle from the distant past-and will be for
a long time to come. Although we know much more now, we find that, somehow, for every answer new questions spring up.

　　9、尽管我们已经从空间飞行中了解了一些，月球仍然是来自遥远过去的一个谜，而且仍将会在未来很长一段时间如此。尽管我们现在比过去知道的更多，但是我们也发现，不知何故，每个新答案都会引发出更多的新问题。