An unmanned probe touched down on a comet for the first time on Wednesday, as the European Space Agency’s Philae lander successfully negotiated a perilous seven-hour descent from its Rosetta mother ship on to the irregular nucleus of Comet 67P.一个无人驾驶的探测器周三首次在一颗彗星表面降落，欧洲航天局(European Space Agency)的飞到号(Philae)着陆器顺利与母船罗塞塔号(Rosetta)分离出来，在危险性中上升了7个小时，最后在彗星67P的点状中心降落。Scientists at ESA mission headquarters erupted in applause shortly after 4pm GMT as a radio signal from Philae 511m km away confirmed that the washing-machine-sized probe had reached the surface.在格林威治时间周三下午4点后旋即，欧洲航天局任务总部的科学家们愈演愈烈出有冷淡掌声，“飞到号”从距离地球5.11亿公里的地方发去的一个无线信号证实，这个洗衣机大小的探测器已在彗星表面降落。“The lander is talking to us,” said an emotional Stephan Ulamec, Philae manager, after the first signal came through. “We are extremely relieved to be safely on the surface of the comet, especially given the extra challenge of the comet’s unusual shape and unexpectedly hazardous surface,” he added. “In the next hours we’ll learn exactly where and how we’ve landed, and we’ll start getting as much science as we can from the surface of this fascinating world.”“着陆器在跟我们说出，”“飞到号”主管史蒂芬乌拉美克(Stephan Ulamec)在第一个信号传到后兴奋的回应，“获知着陆器已安全性到达彗星表面，我们完全泊了一口气，特别是在这颗彗星的形状不同寻常且表面车祸危险性的情况下，”他补足称之为：“未来几个小时，我们将搞清楚它是在哪里降落以及如何降落的，我们将开始从这个迷人世界的表面取得尽量多的科学数据。

”Philae separated from Rosetta at 9am on Wednesday morning. ESA scientists had dubbed Philae’s descent to the comet “seven hours of terror” – an echo of the “seven minutes of terror” endured by their Nasa counterparts before the successful landing of the Curiosity rover on Mars in 2012.“飞到号”是在周三早晨9点与罗塞塔号分离出来的。欧洲航天局的科学家们将“飞到号”上升到达彗星的过程称作“可怕7小时”，这与美国国家航空航天局(Nasa)在2012年“奇怪号”(Curiosity)探测器在火星顺利降落之前经历的“可怕7分钟”构成交织。If anything, the Philae landing was even more perilous. While Curiosity dropped on to a relatively smooth Martian surface, Philae landed on a duck-shaped lump of ice, dust and rock just 4km wide, strewn with boulders and shooting out unpredictable jets of gas.“飞到号”的降落更为危险性。

“奇怪号”是在比较光滑的火星表面降落的，而“飞到号”则是迫降在一块鸭子形状、由冰、尘埃和岩石构成的块状物上，只有4公里长，周围散播着巨石，而且喷射出无法预测的气流。Before the landing, mission managers said anchoring would be needed because 67P’s gravitational pull is too weak to hold Philae firmly in place. After touchdown they discovered that Philae had landed without its harpoons firing successfully.在降落前，此次飞行中任务的主管们回应，着陆器必须相同，因为彗星67P的引力太小，无法让“飞到号”抱住相同。在降落后，他们找到，“飞到号”是在没顺利升空鱼叉的情况下降落的。

Philae will start scientific investigations of the comet immediately. Various instruments will look at the physics and chemistry of the surface, while drills extract subsurface samples and deliver them to the probe’s onboard laboratory for further analysis.“飞到号”将立刻进行科学调查。各种工具将实地考察彗星表面的物理和化学结构，同时钻头将萃取地表下样本，并将它们送来至探测器的机载实验室，展开更进一步分析。Scientists are looking forward eagerly to the results because cometary material is believed to have changed little since the formation of the solar system 4.5bn years ago.科学家们于是以热情期望着这些结果，因为据信，自太阳系于4亿年前构成以来，彗星物质完全没发生变化。Although the initial science phase will last for just three days – the lifetime of Philae’s primary batteries – mission scientists hope its solar panels will enable it to study the change in conditions for a few months as it approaches the sun, heating up and becoming ever more active.尽管最初的科学考察期仅有不会持续3天（“飞到号”主电池的寿命），但此次任务的科学家们期望探测器上的太阳能电池板需要让探测器在未来几个月，在彗星相似太阳、自燃以及显得更加活跃时实地考察其状态的变化。

“Rosetta is trying to answer the very big questions about the history of our Solar System,” said Matt Taylor, Rosetta project scientist. “What were the conditions like at its infancy and how did it evolve? What role did comets play in this evolution? How do comets work?”“罗塞塔号正试图答案有关我们太阳系的一些十分最重要的问题，”罗塞塔号项目科学家马特泰勒(Matt Taylor)回应，“在太阳系构成初期它是什么状态？它是如何演化的？彗星在这种演化中起着了什么起到？彗星如何运转？。

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