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开场白：

Happy Weekend, my listeners.

各位朋友，周末愉快!

Even though the spring has finally arrived, we are facing some tough challenges as the pandemic is re-surging in our communities and may have inconveniently affected our daily lives. However, we all know that we are going to win the battle. It has a been a marathon and we are just a few miles away from the finish line. Please stay positive, be vigilant, and act cautiously.

今天又是我们的周末特辑了。本期节目想和大家分享一片有关探险发现的文章。

Today’s piece is from the New York Times

• At the Bottom of an Icy Sea, One of History’s Great Wrecks Is Found

Explorers and researchers, battling freezing temperatures, have located Endurance, Ernest Shackleton’s ship that sank in the Antarctic in 1915.

• About the Ship

Endurance, a 144-foot, three-masted wooden ship, holds a revered place in polar history because it spawned one of the greatest survival stories in the annals of exploration. Its location, nearly 10,000 feet down in waters that are among the iciest on Earth, placed it among the most celebrated shipwrecks that had not been found.

The first images of the ship since those taken by Shackleton’s photographer, Frank Hurley, revealed parts of the vessel in astonishing detail. An image of the stern showed the name “ENDURANCE” above a five-pointed star, a holdover from before Shackleton bought the ship, when it was named Polaris. Another showed the rear deck and the ship’s wheel.

• How is it Discovered

The ship was found about four miles south of the last location recorded by Shackleton’s captain and navigator, Frank Worsley. The search had been conducted over a wide area to account for errors in Worsley’s navigation equipment.

The battery-powered submersibles combed the seafloor twice a day, for about six hours at a time. They used sonar to scan a swath of the smooth seabed, looking for anything that rose above it. Once the wreck was located several days ago, the equipment was swapped for high-resolution cameras and other instruments to make detailed images and scans.

• The Endeavor 

Shackleton left England aboard Endurance with a crew of 27 in 1914, bound for a bay on the Wendell Sea that was meant to be the starting point for an attempt by him and a small party to be the first to cross Antarctica. This was close to the end of what has become known as the heroic age of Antarctic exploration, which included treks by the Norwegian Roald Amundsen, who in 1911 was the first to reach the pole, and by Robert Falcon Scott, a Briton who died after reaching it a month later.

Shackleton never made it to the pole or beyond, but his leadership in rescuing all his crew and his exploits, which included an 800-mile open-boat journey across the treacherous Southern Ocean to the island of South Georgia, made him a hero in Britain.