NASA分享科学家测试月球岩石的罕见画面

NASA分享科学家测试月球岩石的罕见画面

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

科学家和天文学家正在庆祝阿波罗11号登月50周年，这次登月将月球地质样本带回到了地球，交到了NASA的研究人员手中。

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，为了纪念位于加州硅谷的NASA艾姆斯研究中心的化学家和生物学家们，NASA公布了科学家们在实验室里努力工作的前所未见的镜头——检查月球岩石、测试宇宙尘埃、寻找生命迹象。

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

当时，他们使用最先进的工具和实验手段。

“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.”

“我们真的很担心自己的细菌会污染样本，”研究月球物质的退休生物学家凯·约翰逊(Caye Johnson)在NASA的一份声明中说。“我们必须小心，不能在样本中引入微生物，然后误以为发现了生命。”

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.

这些样本在休斯顿的艾姆斯和约翰逊航天中心进行了分析，它们被套在多个消毒罐子里，由戴着口罩、手套、靴套和罩衫的科学家处理，以防止污染。他们还使用密封手套箱——密封的、透明的盒子，带有倒置的手套，用于处理敏感材料——来检测远道而来的样品。

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.

研究人员在许多不同的环境中用不同的化学物质测试月球物质。但是，正如我们现在所知，研究人员没有发现任何活的有机体。

“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.

“为什么我们要做300个不同的环境?因为在今天的地球上，细菌生活在各种你无法预料的奇怪环境中，”约翰逊说，他的开创性研究帮助发现了天体生物学领域，即对整个宇宙生命的研究。

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毫米胶片拍摄的这段录像，是在阿波罗11号50周年纪念前夕从艾姆斯的档案中发掘出来的，经过重新整理和数字化，供公众观看。完整的19分钟视频可以在NASA网站上观看和下载。