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Decades in the making, these missions collectively cost billions of dollars.
这些任务历经几十年策划，花费了几十亿美元。
To prepare for astrobiological exploration so far afield, scientists are testing their instruments and techniques in the cold, dark corners of our own backyard.
为了准备在离地球很远的地方进行太空生物学的探索，科学家正在地球的黑暗与寒冷角落测试仪器和技术。
Even though Titan's surface chemistry is hard to replicate in the field, the seas in the innards of these three moons may not be so unlike our watery environments.
尽管土卫六表面的化学成分很难复制，但这三颗卫星内部的海洋跟我们的水环境可能没有那么不同。
From Earth's surface to its subterranean caverns, these investigations study some of the most alien creatures on our planet.
从地表到地下洞穴，有许多调查研究了地球上最像外星生命的一些生物。
Their discoveries could even write the story of life's beginnings here, and maybe elsewhere.
这些调查的发现甚至可能证明地球或其他星球的生命起源。
I first pressed a boot print into the Svalbard snow four years ago, as I prepared to board the Norwegian icebreaker Kronprins Haakon -- a shiny new vessel back then -- along with three dozen scientists and engineers.
四年前，我第一次踏上斯瓦巴群岛，我和三十几名科学家和工程师准备登上挪威破冰船哈康王子号。
We launched from Longyearbyen and sailed toward a fractured patch of seafloor north of Greenland.
我们从隆雅市出发，前往格陵兰北方一处破碎的海床。
There, some two and a half miles down, the Earth heaves searing dark fluids into the sea, forming what is known as the Aurora hydrothermal vent field.
在那个地点的海面下半英里处，地球将炙热的黑色液体喷入海中，形成了奥洛拉海底热泉区。
Salt water mingling with hot rocks beneath the seafloor powers these eruptions, which produce the heat and chemistry needed for organisms to thrive.
咸水与海床下炙热的岩石交互作用，驱动了喷发，进而产生生物繁衍所需的热量与化学物质。
"They can host all kinds of weird and wonderful life-forms," said Chris German, a marine geochemist from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution who has spent nearly four decades hunting hydrothermal vents, as we cruised north.
任职于伍兹霍尔海洋学研究院的海洋地球化学家克里斯·杰尔曼花了将近40年寻找海底热泉，在我们向北航行时，他说：“那里可能栖息各种奇怪又奇妙的生命形式。”
Under permanent ice cover, the field could be a superlative earthly analogue for the seafloors of Europa and Enceladus.
在永冻的冰层底下，这个海底热泉区可能是地球上与木卫二和土卫二的海床最类似的地方了。
To explore Aurora, German and his colleagues brought one of the most advanced uncrewed submersibles on Earth: an orange, minivan-size vehicle called NUI, short for Nereid Under Ice.
为了探索奥洛拉海底热泉，杰尔曼和同事用上了地球上最先进的无人潜水器：橘色、厢式休旅车大小的“冰下海女神”（NUI）。
Festooned with stickers, some reflecting a recent collaboration between Woods Hole and NASA, the three-million-dollar machine is designed to explore under-ice ecosystems.
这台要价300万美元的机器，专门用来探索冰下的生态系统，上面贴满了贴纸，其中一些反映了伍兹霍尔海洋学研究院和美国宇航局最近的合作。
It can dive three miles down, swim more than 25 miles, and operate for half a day without recharging.
它可以下潜到3英里深，航行超过25英里，续航力可达12小时。
NUI functions autonomously, but it can also be remotely piloted; scientists watching live feeds from its cameras can direct it to collect particular sediments or organisms.
NUI可以自主运作，也可远端遥控，科学家能够看着摄影机传来的即时画面，指示它采集特定的沉积物或生物。
"Our hope is that NUI is kind of like the Australopithecus or Homo habilis to the robotic spacecraft that would one day go to Europa," Kevin Hand, a National Geographic Explorer and astrobiologist at JPL, told the team as the ship plowed through our planet's frozen crust.
当破冰船划过海面的冰层时，喷射推进实验室的太空生物学家、也是国家地理探险家的凯文·汉德告诉团队：“我们希望NUI是未来可前往木卫二的太空船原型，有点像自动太空船界的南方古猿或能人。”
For him, Europa is a tantalizing target in the quest to know whether we are alone in the universe.
对他来说，木卫二是一个诱人的目标，他想知道我们是否在宇宙中是孤独的。
For days, thick ice -- too bulky for the ship to break -- had slowed our journey to the vents.
连日来的厚冰让破冰船难以前进，拖慢了我们前往海底热泉的行程。
Although the going was tricky, the Arctic Ocean's relatively thin icy rind is a friendlier version of the crusts encasing alien oceans.
尽管旅程艰辛，但北冰洋的冰层比包覆外星海洋的冰壳来得薄，已经比较可亲了。
The shell at Enceladus may be less than a mile thick at the south pole, where the geysers erupt, but estimates for Europa's rind suggest it's considerably thicker.
土卫二的外壳在间歇泉喷发的南极可能不到1英里厚，但是根据估计，木卫二的外壳显然厚多了。
Characterizing Europa's frozen shell and the compounds on its surface is one of the highest priorities for both the Europa Clipper and JUICE missions.
木卫二独特的冰冻外壳及其表面的化合物是木卫二快艇号和JUICE任务的最高优先事项之一。
Those spacecraft will make multiple flybys of Europa to measure the ice shell's thickness and study its layers and ocean beneath, in hopes that with more information, future missions can get through the rind and access the water.
这些航天器将多次飞越木卫二，测量冰壳的厚度，并研究冰层和底下的海洋，希望透过更多的资讯让未来的任务能够穿过冰壳取水。
When NASA's Cassini spacecraft zoomed around the Saturn system from 2004 to 2017, it sampled the Enceladian plume multiple times and found salts, silica, organic molecules, and molecular hydrogen, all telltale signs of seafloor activity.
从2004到2017年，NASA的卡西尼号太空船在绕行土星系统时，对土卫二的羽流进行了多次探样，发现了盐、二氧化硅、有机分子和氢分子，全都是有海底活动的明显迹象。
It also detected phosphorus, an element that's crucial for life on Earth.
卡西尼号也侦测到磷这种对地球生命很重要的元素。
NUI's job on this cruise was to get the first good look at the Aurora vent field and help figure out whether it's fueling chemical reactions that can support abyssal life-forms—perhaps the kind of life that might evolve in dark, permanently ice-covered alien seas.
在这次航行中，NUI的任务是对奥洛拉海底热泉区进行首次详细观察，设法弄清它是否促成了能支持深海生命形式的化学反应，而这些生命形式或许能在黑暗且永久被冰层覆盖的外星海洋里演化。
