《那些古怪又讓人憂心的問題》第54期:星級塞斯納(3)
The acid's no fun, but it turns out the area right above the clouds is a great environment for an airplane, as long as it has no exposed metal to be corroded away by the sulfuric acid. And is capable of flight in constant category-5-hurricane-level winds, which are another thing I forgot to mention earlier.
Venus is a terrible place.
金星不是個好地方。Jupiter: Our Cessna wouldn't be able to fly on Jupiter; the gravity is just too strong. The power needed to maintain level flight under Jupiter's gravity is three times greater than that on Earth. Starting from a friendly sea-level pressure, we'd accelerate through the tumbling winds into a 275 m/s (600 mph) downward glide deeper and deeper through the layers of ammonia ice and water ice until we and the aircraft were crushed. There's no surface to hit; Jupiter transitions smoothly from gas to liquid as you sink deeper and deeper.
木星：我們的塞斯納沒法在木星上飛行，因爲那裏的重力太強了，維持飛行所需的動力是在地球上的4倍。如果從還說得過去的海平面氣壓開始，我們將在顛簸的大風中開始絕望地向深處滑翔，速度可達每秒275米（每小時990千米），我們將穿過一層又一層的氨冰和水冰，最後的結局仍將是墜毀。不過木星上沒有墜毀表面，因爲隨着你越飛越深，木星將從氣體平滑地變成液體。
Saturn: The picture here is a little friendlier than on Jupiter. The weaker gravity-close to Earth's, actually-and slightly denser (but still thin) atmosphere mean that we'd be able to struggle along a bit further before we gave in to either the cold or high winds and descended to the same fate as on Jupiter.
土星：這裏的場景比木星要好一點兒。這裏重力弱一些——事實上和地球上差不多——大氣層也更濃密一些（但仍然很稀薄），我們可以苟延殘喘更長的時間，不過最終還是會要麼被嚴寒幹掉，要麼被大風乾掉，在不斷下墜的過程中落得和在木星上一樣的下場。Uranus: Uranus is a strange, uniform bluish orb. There are high winds and it's bitterly cold. It's the friendliest of the gas giants to our Cessna, and you could probably fly for a little while. But given that it seems to be an almost completely featureless planet, why would you want to?
天王星：天王星是一個詭異的勻質藍色星球。這裏風速很快，而且冷得刺骨，但在幾大氣體巨行星中，這裏的環境可以說是最好的了，你估計可以飛上那麼一會兒。但這裏真的是什麼都沒有，你來這裏幹嘛？Neptune: If you're going to fly around one of the ice giants, I would probably recommend Neptune over Uranus. It at least has some clouds to look at before you freeze to death or break apart from the turbulence.
海王星：如果你準備去冰巨行星逛一圈，我建議去海王星要比去天王星要好。雖然你最後不是被凍死就是在湍流裏身體散架，但好歹死前這裏還有幾片雲可以瞻仰一下。Titan: We've saved the best for last. When it comes to flying, Titan might be better than Earth. Its atmosphere is thick but its gravity is light, giving it a surface pressure only 50 percent higher than Earth's with air four times as dense. Its gravity-lower than that of the Moon-means that flying is easy. Our Cessna could get into the air under pedal power.
泰坦：最好的總要留到最後。就飛行而言，在泰坦上飛行可能要比在地球上還好。這裏的大氣濃密，重力又小，表面氣壓只比地球多50％，空氣密度是地球的4倍。這裏的重力比月球還弱，這意味着在這裏很容易飛起來，你甚至可以通過踩腳踏板的方式讓塞斯納飛起來。
