哈勃太空望遠鏡升空20週年
Astronomers around the world last weekend marked the 20th anniversary of the launching of the iconic Hubble, NASA's first orbiting space telescope that has revolutionized human understanding of the universe.
More than any other instrument, the Hubble has stimulated a modern-day infatuation with deep space, beaming to Earth the most spectacular images ever taken of faraway galaxies and the births and deaths of stars -- and along the way helping scientists make some of the most important discoveries of our time.
Hubble was launched aboard space shuttle Discovery on April 24, 1990 and deployed into orbit the following day.
Piloting the shuttle on that historic mission was astronaut Charles Bolden, who went on to become the US space agency's administrator last year.
In the two decades since, Hubble has enabled astronomers to peer through the celestial curtain to set the age of the universe at 13.7 billion years old.
"Hubble is undoubtedly one of the most recognized and successful scientific projects in history," said Ed Weiler, associate administrator for NASA's Science Mission Directorate.
From its unique perch some 570 kilometers (353 miles) above Earth, the telescope is our eye on the cosmos, snapping pictures of more than 30,000 celestial objects, some of them located on the far ends of the universe.
The quality of Hubble images is 10 times clearer than pictures from the most powerful ground-based telescopes, because it is beyond the Earth's atmosphere, which distorts the view of ground telescopes.
"It's that extreme clarity that gives us the feeling we've traveled out into space to see these objects," said Jon Grunsfeld, an astronaut who did repair work on Hubble during two shuttle missions.
"It really is our time machine."
Its successor is the James Webb Space Telescope, an infrared optimized space observatory scheduled to be deployed in 2014.
上週末，世界各地的天文學家慶祝哈勃太空望遠鏡發射升空20週年。這一由美國宇航局發射的首架標誌性軌道太空望遠鏡讓人類對宇宙的認識發生了革命性改變。
哈勃望遠鏡超越了之前的其它各種天文觀測設備，激發了現代人探索外太空的興趣。哈勃望遠鏡在服役期間向地球傳回迄今所拍攝到的最爲壯觀的遙遠星系的畫面以及星星的誕生和隕滅等圖像。它還幫助科學家做出了當今最重要的一些發現。
哈勃望遠鏡於1990年4月24日由”發現號“航天飛機攜載發射升空，並在第二天進入軌道運行。
駕駛航天飛機完成這次歷史性任務的宇航員名叫查爾斯•博爾登，此人於去年出任美國宇航局局長。
20年來，天文學家憑藉哈勃望遠鏡提供的天體觀測數據，測算出宇宙的年齡爲137億年。
美國宇航局科學任務委員會副主席艾德·維勒說：“哈勃太空望遠鏡無疑是史上最受認可、最爲成功的科學項目之一。
哈勃望遠鏡地處地球上空約570公里（353英里）處，被視爲人類探測宇宙的“眼睛”。目前，它已拍攝到三萬多個天體的照片，其中一些天體遠在宇宙盡頭。
哈勃望遠鏡所拍攝照片的質量比功能最強大的地面望遠鏡所拍攝的照片還要清晰十倍，這是因爲它處在地球大氣層以外，而大氣層會使地面望遠鏡拍攝的圖像失真。
曾兩次前往太空對哈勃望遠鏡進行維修的宇航員喬恩•格倫斯菲爾德說：“正是由於圖像超級清晰，才使我們有種親臨太空的感覺。”
“它堪稱我們的時間機器。”
哈勃望遠鏡的”接班人“將是一架詹姆斯•韋伯太空望遠鏡。這架望遠鏡計劃於2014年發射，是一套紅外線優化太空觀測系統。
Vocabulary:
infatuation：a foolish, unreasoning, or extravagant passion or attraction（醉心，着迷）
deep space：space beyond the limits of the solar system（外太空，指太陽系以外的空間）
