Artemis 2 and Tiangong space station astronauts set record for farthest distance between humans

阿耳忒弥斯2号与中国天宫空间站宇航员创下“人类之间最远距离”纪录

Here's another record that Artemis 2 broke.

阿耳忒弥斯2号（Artemis 2）任务又创造了一项新纪录。

For a few moments on April 6, the four Artemis 2 moon astronauts and the three crewmates aboard China's Tiangong space station were farther away from each other than any other humans had ever been.

4月6日，在短短一段时间内，执行阿耳忒弥斯2号绕月任务的四名宇航员，与中国天宫空间站上的三名航天员之间的距离，达到了有史以来人类彼此相隔最远的程度。

Astrophysicist and satellite tracker Jonathan McDowell noted the occasion in a series of X posts, in which he calculated the distances between Artemis 2's Orion capsule, named "Integrity," and Tiangong.

天体物理学家兼卫星追踪专家乔纳森·麦克道尔（Jonathan McDowell）在社交平台X上发布了一系列帖子，计算了阿耳忒弥斯2号“猎户座”飞船诚信号（Integrity）与天宫空间站之间的距离。

At first, McDowell highlighted the astronauts aboard the International Space Station (ISS) as contenders for the farthest folks from the Artemis 2 quartet. But he amended that statement in a later post, noting that Tiangong was actually slightly more distant.

起初，麦克道尔认为国际空间站（ISS）上的宇航员可能才是距离阿耳忒弥斯2号乘组最远的人类。但他随后在另一篇帖子中修正了这一说法，指出实际上天宫空间站距离更远一些。

On April 6, as Integrity flew around the moon's far side, it got a maximum of 260,754 miles (419,643 kilometers) from Tiangong, according to McDowell. The max Integrity-to-ISS distance, meanwhile, was 260,715.5 miles (419,581 km).

根据麦克道尔的计算，4月6日当天，当“诚信号”飞越月球背面时，它与天宫空间站之间的最远距离达到260,754英里（约419,643公里）。相比之下，“诚信号”与国际空间站之间的最大距离为260,715.5英里（约419,581公里）。

Space.com asked McDowell what made him think to calculate these distances in the first place. "When NASA announced the distance-from-Earth record, I immediately wondered if the ISS distance was even further," he said via email.

Space.com询问麦克道尔，是什么让他想到去计算这些距离。他在电子邮件中表示：“当NASA宣布刷新‘距离地球最远载人飞行’纪录时，我立刻想到，与国际空间站之间的距离会不会更远。”

"I was going to be too lazy to calculate it, but several people soon after asked the same thing, on social media and in emails to me. So, I went ahead and did it," he said, adding that NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston — Mission Control for Artemis 2 and other crewed NASA spaceflights — may be interested in verifying his work.

他表示：“本来我懒得去算，但随后很多人在社交媒体和邮件里也问了同样的问题，所以我还是进行了计算。”他还补充称，美国国家航空航天局（NASA）位于休斯敦的约翰逊航天中心（阿耳忒弥斯2号及其他NASA载人任务的任务控制中心—）或许会有兴趣核实他的计算结果。

The previous record was set in April 1970 during NASA's near-disastrous Apollo 13 mission, whose astronauts pulled off a daring maneuver that used lunar gravity to slingshot them back toward Earth after suffering an explosion en route to the moon.

此前的纪录诞生于1970年4月NASA执行的“阿波罗13号”任务。当时，由于飞往月球途中发生爆炸事故，宇航员不得不进行一次大胆的操作，利用月球引力弹弓效应返回地球。这次任务虽然险些酿成灾难，却因此创下了当时人类距离地球最远的纪录。

There were no space stations orbiting Earth back then, so the greatest potential distance between humans and crewed moon missions has been extended by a few hundred miles.

而在那个年代，地球轨道上还没有空间站，因此如今载人登月任务与地球轨道航天员之间的最大可能距离，又被进一步扩大了数百英里。

Space.com also asked McDowell if he thought this new Artemis 2 record would be significant when future historians look back on it hundreds of years from now.

Space.com还问麦克道尔，未来数百年后，历史学家是否会认为这项新纪录具有重要意义。

"To some extent," McDowell said.

麦克道尔回答说：“某种程度上会的。”

"I think the significance is that it's the beginning of a shift from 'How far from Earth are our most distant people' to 'How spread out is human civilization?'" he added. "There may come a day when it's Mercury to the moons of Saturn."

他补充道：“我认为，这项纪录的意义在于，它标志着一种转变的开始——人们关注的不再只是‘离地球最远的人类在哪里’，而是‘人类文明已经扩展得多么分散’。未来也许会有这样一天：人类最遥远的距离将从水星一直延伸到土星的卫星。”