太阳轨道飞行器正在飞往太阳的途中

太阳轨道飞行器正在飞往太阳的途中

In the late hours of Sunday (US time), the European Space Agency’s Solar Orbiter officially lifted off from Cape Canaveral in Florida. It is now on its way to the Sun, which it will study like no other spacecraft or telescope has before.

周日晚些时候(美国时间)，欧洲航天局的太阳能轨道飞行器正式从佛罗里达州卡纳维拉尔角发射升空。它现在正在飞往太阳的途中，它将像以往任何航天器或望远镜一样研究太阳。

Alfredo Carpineti

Solar Orbiter is now on a 20-month journey to its operational orbit, which will take it as close as 42 million kilometers (26 million miles) from our star. But it's not its closeness that will provide us with new views of the Sun, it's how its orbit will change over the course of the mission.

太阳轨道飞行器现在正在进行一段20个月的旅程，到达运行轨道，这将使它距离我们的恒星4200万公里(2600万英里)。但它的近距离并不能给我们提供对太阳的新看法，而是它的轨道在执行任务的过程中会发生怎样的变化。

The spacecraft will regularly come close to the planet Venus, and the team will use these encounters to give Solar Orbiter a “kick.” As time goes by, the orbit of the spacecraft will become more and more inclined with respect to the plane of the Solar System, and this will allow the first observation ever of the Sun's poles.

航天器将定期接近金星，该团队将利用这些接触给太阳轨道器一个“踢力”。“随着时间的推移，航天器的轨道将越来越倾向于太阳系的平面，这将使首次观测太阳两极成为可能。

But this is just one piece of incredible science that we can expect from Solar Orbiter. Its suite of instruments will be used to better understand the solar wind, the stream of electrically charged particles coming from the Sun. It will also study the many magnetic mysteries of our star, uncovering how the Sun changes, and how it affects the space around it.

但这只是我们可以从太阳轨道飞行器中期待的一项不可思议的科学。这套设备将被用来更好地理解太阳风，太阳风是来自太阳的带电粒子流。它还将研究我们的恒星的许多磁之谜，揭示太阳如何变化，以及它如何影响它周围的空间。

“As humans, we have always been familiar with the importance of the Sun to life on Earth, observing it and investigating how it works in detail, but we have also long known it has the potential to disrupt everyday life should we be in the firing line of a powerful solar storm,” Günther Hasinger, ESA director of science, said in a statement. “By the end of our Solar Orbiter mission, we will know more about the hidden force responsible for the Sun’s changing behaviour and its influence on our home planet than ever before.”

“作为人类,我们一直熟悉太阳到地球上的生命的重要性,详细观察它,研究它是如何工作的,但我们也知道它有可能扰乱日常生活我们应该在最前线的一个强大的太阳风暴,”冈瑟马普,ESA科学主任,在一份声明中说。“到我们的太阳轨道飞行器任务结束时，我们将比以往任何时候都更了解导致太阳行为变化及其对地球影响的隐藏力量。”

The mission has a nominal duration of seven years, and the team hopes it will be extended for three more. The mission will involve collaboration with NASA, with particularly strong links to the Parker Solar Probe, the American space agency’s flagship mission around our Sun.

这次任务的名义期限为7年，该小组希望再延长3年。这项任务将与美国国家航空航天局合作，与帕克太阳探测器有特别紧密的联系，帕克太阳探测器是美国宇航局围绕太阳的旗舰任务。