NASA分享科學(xué)家測試月球巖石的罕見畫面

NASA分享科學(xué)家測試月球巖石的罕見畫面

Scientists and stargazers are celebrating the 50th anniversaryof the Apollo 11 moon landing, which brought geologic samples back to NASA researchers on Earth.

科學(xué)家和天文學(xué)家正在慶祝阿波羅11號登月50周年，這次登月將月球地質(zhì)樣本帶回到了地球，交到了NASA的研究人員手中。

Now, to commemorate the work of the chemists and biologists at NASA’s Ames Research Center in California’s Silicon Valley, NASA has released never-before-seen footage of the scientists hard at work in the lab — examining moon rocks and testing cosmic dust for signs of life.

如今，為了紀念位于加州硅谷的NASA艾姆斯研究中心的化學(xué)家和生物學(xué)家們，NASA公布了科學(xué)家們在實驗室里努力工作的前所未見的鏡頭——檢查月球巖石、測試宇宙塵埃、尋找生命跡象。

At the time, they were working with the most advanced tools and practices available.

當時，他們使用最先進的工具和實驗手段。

“We were really concerned about contaminating the samples with our own bacteria,” says Caye Johnson, a retired biologist who worked with the lunar material, in a statement from NASA. “We had to be careful that we didn’t introduce a microbe into the samples and then falsely say that we’d found life.”

“我們真的很擔心自己的細菌會污染樣本，”研究月球物質(zhì)的退休生物學(xué)家凱·約翰遜(Caye Johnson)在NASA的一份聲明中說。“我們必須小心，不能在樣本中引入微生物，然后誤以為發(fā)現(xiàn)了生命。”

The samples — analyzed at both Ames and the Johnson Space Center in Houston — were nested within multiple sterilized jars to prevent contamination and handled by scientists wearing masks, gloves, boot coverings and smocks. They also used airtight glove boxes — hermetically sealed, transparent boxes with inverted gloves for handling sensitive material — to examine the far-out samples.

這些樣本在休斯頓的艾姆斯和約翰遜航天中心進行了分析，它們被套在多個消毒罐子里，由戴著口罩、手套、靴套和罩衫的科學(xué)家處理，以防止污染。他們還使用密封手套箱——密封的、透明的盒子，帶有倒置的手套，用于處理敏感材料——來檢測遠道而來的樣品。

Researchers tested the moon matter with various chemicals in many different settings. But, as we now know, researchers were unable to reveal any living organisms.

研究人員在許多不同的環(huán)境中用不同的化學(xué)物質(zhì)測試月球物質(zhì)。但是，正如我們現(xiàn)在所知，研究人員沒有發(fā)現(xiàn)任何活的有機體。

“Why were we doing 300 different environments? Because on Earth today, bacteria live in all sorts of strange environments that you wouldn’t expect,” says Johnson, whose seminal research helped found the field of astrobiology, the study of life throughout the universe.

“為什么我們要做300個不同的環(huán)境?因為在今天的地球上，細菌生活在各種你無法預(yù)料的奇怪環(huán)境中，”約翰遜說，他的開創(chuàng)性研究幫助發(fā)現(xiàn)了天體生物學(xué)領(lǐng)域，即對整個宇宙生命的研究。

The footage, produced on 16-mm film in 1969, was unearthed from Ames’ archives ahead of the Apollo 11 semicentennial, remastered and digitized for the public. The full 19-minute video can watched and downloaded on NASA’s website.

1969年16毫米膠片拍攝的這段錄像，是在阿波羅11號50周年紀念前夕從艾姆斯的檔案中發(fā)掘出來的，經(jīng)過重新整理和數(shù)字化，供公眾觀看。完整的19分鐘視頻可以在NASA網(wǎng)站上觀看和下載。