Editor's Note: In 2021, China will embark on a new journey and the struggling Communist Party of China will celebrate its centennial birthday. In order to record the great historical achievements and show the glory of a century, People's Daily Online and the China Association for Science and Technology jointly launched the "The Same Open Class - A Dream of a Century Powerful Nation through Science and Technology", a series of media interviews, to tell the public about the scientists' scientific research dreams, the process of tackling key problems, and their family and country feelings, so as to show the unremitting struggle and brilliant achievements of a century old party.
The program recording of 86 year old "lunar exploration academician" Ouyang Ziyuan welcomed many children, who were all looking forward to listening to Ouyang's grandfather and asking him questions.
The silver haired academician Ouyang Ziyuan was enthusiastic, and the program was recorded for more than two hours, far exceeding the original schedule. The writer asked him, "Do you need a rest after you have talked for so long?" Ouyang Ziyuan smiled and said, "You look down upon me too much."
"Which launch of Chang'e impressed you the most?" "How to distinguish science fiction from science popularization?" The on-site interaction was warm.
Ouyang Ziyuan is a famous astrochemistry and geochemistry scientist, chief scientist of China's lunar exploration project, and academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, known as the "father of Chang'e". At the recording scene, he told the story of the journey from "looking for minerals for the country" to "Chang'e flying to the moon".
Encountered "visitors from outside" and wrote more than 100 papers
"Young students, you should wake up the sleeping mountains and let them offer endless treasures." In the 1950s, this sentence repeated on the radio touched young Ouyang Ziyuan, who responded to the national call: "I want to find mines for my country, learn geology, and climb mountains."
In September 1952, Ouyang Ziyuan was admitted to the Exploration Department of Beijing Institute of Geology. After graduation in 1956, he was admitted to the Institute of Geology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences as an associate doctoral candidate in mineral deposits, studying the genesis and prospecting direction of iron and copper deposits in the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River. Since 1957, Ouyang Ziyuan has taken a pot of water and two steamed buns every day before dawn, carrying a geological backpack, and went down to the uneven tunnels to observe the veins, describe the rock strata, and collect samples. The geological exploration work is a joy in pain: "It's very hard, but very pleasant, because I'm trying to figure out these mines for the country."
In 1957, the former Soviet Union successfully launched the first man-made earth satellite in human history and opened the curtain of the human space era, which brought Ouyang Ziyuan great impact and thought: "crawling" on the ground to find minerals, just like a small ant. If there are advanced equipment like artificial satellites to help the prospecting around the earth, it will greatly improve the efficiency of prospecting and exploration.
Ouyang is determined to make contributions to the arrival of China's space age. What we can learn is geology. How can we contribute to the exploration of the solar system?
At this time, the "visitor from the outside" meteorite attracted his attention. Meteorites are the initial materials of planets and satellites in the solar system, just like bricks and tiles for building high-rise buildings, which contain the most basic information of various celestial bodies in the solar system. "Meteorites come from the moon, Mars and other planets, asteroids and comets. We always have the chance to pick them up."
In 1976, a rare meteorite rain fell in Jilin Province. The local people described it as "three big fireballs fell from the sky, and they were extremely frightened!" Ouyang Ziyuan thought it was a rare opportunity
Ouyang Ziyuan led a team to the field to study "visitors from outside" and completed more than 100 papers, laying a solid foundation for China's celestial research.
In December 2020, China's Chang'e-5 probe successfully returned to Earth with fresh lunar rocks and soil samples after rapid exploration of the moon. This is of great significance to Ouyang Ziyuan, who can only use meteorites and Apollo 17 moon samples for research at the beginning.
It's winding up! They embraced tightly
The heart has no boundary, and the boundary is far away.
China's lunar exploration project has been demonstrated for ten years. The demonstration began in 1993 and was approved in 2004. At last, the State approved the Chang'e Project (China's Lunar Exploration Project).
As the chief scientist of China's lunar exploration project, Ouyang Ziyuan said: "I have a requirement that we should also do the basic scientific exploration projects that others have already done, and I should do better than them; every lunar exploration in China, there are several innovative major scientific exploration tasks that others have not done."
He was very excited to introduce that five probes of the Chang'e series had been launched, each of which was excellent: Chang'e-1 artificial lunar satellite realized lunar exploration; Chang'e-2 has drawn the best and clearest topographic map and three-dimensional map of the moon surface; Chang'e-3 lander and lunar rover landed on the front of the moon and carried out long-term observation of the sun and monitoring of the Earth's environment; Chang'e-4 even landed on the mysterious back of the moon, making innovative contributions to the evolution history of the moon 4 billion years ago; Chang'e V has "grabbed a lot of earth" back on the moon, which can at least give people new knowledge of the evolution history of the moon since 3 billion years ago.
"What impressed me most was the time when Chang'e-1 successfully orbited the moon." Ouyang Ziyuan said that Chang'e-1 was the first moon orbiting satellite in China, and everyone felt like "sending children to school on the first day". The lunar probes launched by the Soviet Union and the United States often crashed at this location, either hitting the moon or flying out of lunar orbit.
In 2007, the commander reported that Chang'e-1 was "captured" by the moon. Ouyang Ziyuan couldn't believe it and asked for confirmation again. It doesn't take a long time to reconfirm, but every second is very painful for him
"Once again, Chang'e-1 was really 'captured' by the moon!" The whole audience was excited. Luan Enjie, Sun Jiadong and Ouyang Ziyuan, known as the "Iron Triangle" of Chang'e, were very excited and hugged each other and cried. "At that time, a reporter came to interview me, and I was so excited that I didn't know what to say, so I kept repeating the words in my heart, 'Wrapped up! Wrapped up!'"
"Russian scientists later said to me, 'Ouyang, I didn't expect that your Chinese Chang'e-1 has done such a big thing!'" After analyzing the exploration data of Chang'e-1 satellite, scientists concluded that the rare helium 3 isotope gas on the earth has a stock of up to 1 million tons on the moon. If it can be fully utilized one day, it can at least meet the energy needs of mankind for 10000 years.
There are 30 versions of the 60 year report on popular science
"I hope it's on you, children," Ouyang Ziyuan said to the children who participated in the recording. He regards the "dream of a century of science and technology power" as a good science popularization channel.
As early as the 1960s, Ouyang began to make science popularization from afar, such as the legend and reality of extraterrestrial visitors and human interaction, small celestial bodies hitting the earth and species extinction. However, "it was sporadic at that time, and there was no strong awareness of science popularization." "The longer science popularization was done, the more science popularization was done, and the more people felt that science popularization in China was not enough."
Every science popularization report, Ouyang Ziyuan has to adjust the content of the report according to the object. "Every PPT has been thought over and over again, where the picture should be, and how the text should be expressed. There are 30 versions of science popularization reports with various contents, each for different objects."
As an "old science popularization", Ouyang, from afar, answers the questions raised by the audience one by one.
A child asked, "Is there a UFO? Is there an alien?" Ouyang Ziyuan patiently explained to her that there are many statements about aliens and UFOs, but nothing can prove that it is really a detector launched by aliens. "For example, someone said that there were aliens on the back of the moon, but our detection results confirmed that it was false, or we should talk about the evidence."
"There are hundreds of billions of stars like the sun in the Milky Way, and there are tens of millions of Milky Way in the universe. At present, human ability cannot even fly out of the solar system, let alone explore the entire universe." Ouyang Ziyuan has "poured cold water on everyone". The basis of "looking up at the stars" is "down to earth". We should respect scientific facts, set goals, and adhere to them for a long time.
"Compared with developed countries, we still have a long way to go." Ouyang Ziyuan showed the unique calm of an old scientist. "Admitting the inadequacy and catching up is the right attitude to be realistic, which is a sign of self-confidence and self-improvement."
(Editor in charge: Fang Jinglun, He Yingchun)
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