每日一翻：Comet Reeks of Cat Crap and Rotten Eggs

What smells like rotten eggs, a used litter box, and an almond-munching mortician? The answer is one of those dirty snowballs in space, a comet. Comet Churyumov-Gerasimenko, to be exact, which is starting to thaw as it closes in on the Sun.

什么东西闻起来像臭鸡蛋？一个用过的垃圾盒还是一个嚼着扁桃仁的殡葬业者？答案是太空脏雪球之一——彗星。确切的说，是一靠近太阳就会开始融化的丘留莫夫-格拉西缅科彗星。

Since August, the European Space Agency’s Rosetta spacecraft has been monitoring the comet. Right now, Churyumov-Gerasimenko is between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter, some 300 million miles from Earth. It’s so chilly out there that scientists expected Rosetta’s instruments to detect scarcely more than odorless carbon dioxide from the comet.

从八月起，欧洲航天局的罗斯塔飞船就一直在监测该彗星。现在，丘留莫夫-格拉西缅科彗星已进入了火星和木星之间，离地球约3亿英里。那里非常寒冷，因此科学家希望罗斯塔能够从该彗星上探测出几乎无味的二氧化碳。

But instead Rosetta has also detected hydrogen sulphide—with its rotten egg odor—as well as ammonia, with a smell familiar to anyone who has changed a cat pan. Also in the mix: formaldehyde and methanol, found in embalming fluid, mixed with faint traces of poisonous hydrogen cyanide, which has an almond-like aroma.

但取而代之的是，罗斯塔探测出了带有臭鸡蛋气味的硫化氢和带有任何一个给猫喂过食的人都再的猫屎味的氨气。罗斯塔还在防腐剂中发现了混合在一起的甲醛和甲醇以及微量含杏仁气味的有毒氰化氢。

Rosetta will deploy a probe to land on the comet this November, and will soon gather more pungent whiffs of the comet’s appalling perfume. But by studying this Eau de Comet, researchers hope to better understand the deep—and apparently smelly—chemical origins of our solar system.

罗斯塔将于今年11月份部署一个探测器着陆在彗星上。很快它将从该彗星那可怕的“香水”中收集更多的刺鼻气体。但是通过研究该彗星上的液体，科学家们希望能对太阳系中的这个具有明显臭味的、深奥的化学起源有更好的理解。

—Lee Billings