Divers looking for the wreckage of a World War II airplane last spring actually found part of the destroyed space shuttle Challenger.
去年春天寻找二战飞机残骸的潜水员实际上发现了被毁坏的挑战者号航天飞机的一部分。
 
A large piece of the spacecraft was discovered at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Florida. The site is not far from the U.S. space agency NASA's Cape Canaveral launch area. NASA confirmed the discovery on November 10.
A航天器的一大块是在佛罗里达海岸附近的大西洋底部被发现的。该地点距离美国航天局NASA的卡纳维拉尔角发射区不远。 NASA 于 11 月 10 日证实了这一发现。
 
The piece is from the space shuttle that exploded shortly after liftoff from Cape Canaveral on January 28, 1986. The last time anyone found part of the Challenger was in 1996.
这件作品来自 1986 年 1 月 28 日从卡纳维拉尔角升空后不久爆炸的航天飞机。上一次有人发现挑战者的一部分是在 1996 年。
 
Seven people died when the Challenger exploded. Christa McAuliffe, a school teacher from New Hampshire, was part of the crew. An investigation of the accident found a faulty part in the right rocket booster caused the Challenger explosion.
挑战者爆炸时有七人死亡。来自新罕布什尔州的学校教师克里斯塔·麦考利夫 (Christa McAuliffe) 是剧组成员之一。事故调查发现，右侧火箭助推器存在故障，导致挑战者号爆炸。
 
Michael Ciannilli is a NASA official who confirmed that the newly discovered piece was real.
迈克尔·钱尼利 (Michael Ciannilli) 是美国国家航空航天局 (NASA) 的一名官员，他证实新发现的碎片是真实的。
 
He told The Associated Press when he first saw video of the space shuttle piece, "my heart skipped a beat … and it brought me right back to 1986 … and what we all went through as a nation."
当他第一次看到航天飞机碎片的视频时，他告诉美联社，“我的心跳了一下……它带来了我马上回到 1986 年……以及我们作为一个国家所经历的一切。”
 
Ciannilli said the piece appears to be at least 4.5 meters long and 4.5 meters wide. It could be larger, though, because some of it was covered by sand. He said he thinks the piece may have been from the underside, or belly, of the shuttle.
Ciannilli 说这件作品看起来至少有 4.5 米长和 4.5 米宽。不过，它可能更大，因为其中一些被沙子覆盖了。他说他认为这块碎片可能来自航天飞机的底部或腹部。
 
NASA said it is still thinking about whether to launch a recovery operation to get the shuttle piece or to leave it in the ocean. "We want to make sure … we do the right thing for the legacy of the crew," Ciannilli said.
美国宇航局表示，它仍在考虑是否启动回收行动以获取航天飞机或将其留在海洋中。 “我们希望确保……我们为机组人员的遗产做正确的事情，”Ciannilli 说。
 
About 47 percent of the Challenger shuttle has been recovered since the accident. Much of it is buried in unused sites at Cape Canaveral. Some of it is shown at a NASA visitor's center, next to a piece from the Columbia space shuttle. Columbia broke apart on its way back to Earth over Texas in 2003, killing all seven astronauts on board.
自事故发生以来，挑战者号航天飞机的大约 47% 已被回收。其中大部分被埋在卡纳维拉尔角的未使用地点。其中一些展示在美国宇航局游客中心，旁边是哥伦比亚航天飞机的一件作品。哥伦比亚号于 2003 年在德克萨斯州返回地球的途中解体，机上七名宇航员全部遇难。