繞著地球轉的車

一輛由人類與機器人共同建造的汽車在上個星期繞地球軌道環行。這款汽車，由SpaceX公司發射，以展示其獵鷹重型火箭在太陽系中放置航天器的能力。一個人體模型靜坐於駕駛座，身著宇航服，美其名曰星俠。與水泥塊相比，這奇異怪誕的造型顯然更適合作為有效載荷的模擬對象。車上共設三部攝影機，由汽車電箱供電，目前電量已耗盡。這張特寫便是從此前所得的錄像中截取的一幀。這輛汽車附屬於第二級助推器，不出意外，它即將離開地球軌道，然後無限期地在地球與小行星帶之間繞著太陽轉，或許要到數十億年以後太陽膨脹成一個紅巨星方止。如果未來其殘骸被發現，必將成為窺探20世紀至21世紀初地球科技發展的獨特窗口。

Car Orbiting Earth

Credit: SpaceX

Explanation: Last week, a car orbited the Earth. The car, created by humans and robots on the Earth, was launched by the SpaceX Company to demonstrate the ability of its Falcon Heavy Rocket to place spacecraft out in the Solar System. Purposely fashioned to be whimsical, the iconic car was thought a better demonstration object than concrete blocks. A mannequin clad in a spacesuit—dubbed the Starman—sits in the driver』s seat. The featured image is a frame from a video taken by one of three cameras mounted on the car. These cameras, connected to the car』s battery, are now out of power. The car, attached to a second stage booster, soon left Earthorbit and will orbit the Sun between Earth and the asteroid belt indefinitely—perhaps until billions of years from now when our Sun expands into a Red Giant. If ever recovered, what』s left of the car may become a unique window into technologies developed on Earth in the 20th and early 21st centuries.

語音：cc

翻譯：俞天麗

審核：一米

編輯：彈冠振衣

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