An Eye in the Sky 太空之眼

張祖平

Scientists are building a powerful telescope1. It will help them see deep into space.

More than 400 years ago， Galileo Galilei built a telescope. He was an Italian scientist. He used the telescope to study space. Since then， scientists have used telescopes to make big discoveries. The Hubble Space Telescope was sent to space in 1990.

Soon， a new telescope will take over for Hubble. It is the James Webb Space Telescope. It is also called JWST， and Webb.

In 2019， a rocket will take JWST into space. The new telescope will explore farther into space than Hubble. It will give scientists a better view of the universe.

“Hubble rewrote astronomy2 textbooks，” Maggie Masetti told reporters. She works on the Webb project. “Webb is going to do the same thing.”

Like Hubble， Webb will look for galaxies3 far away. The telescope will also hunt for planets that are like Earth. It will do this by looking for light. Webbs mirror will collect light from objects in space. Its special camera and tools will be able to find light that the human eye cannot see.

In the future， there will be more telescopes like Webb. “By the time kids grow up，” says Masetti， “the things they learn about the universe will be totally different from the things we think we know now.”

It has been nearly 26 years since the launch4 of the Hubble Space Telescope. It has sent back more than a million pictures. Scientists have seen stars being born. They have studied faraway planets. Hubbles powerful eye has helped us understand space. The telescope still has 10 years of life left. What more will it find？

科學家們正在建造一個強大的望遠鏡，它將幫助他們深窺太空。

400多年前，伽利略·伽利雷造了一架望遠鏡。他是一個意大利科學家。他用望遠鏡研究太空。從那時起，科學家通過望遠鏡有了許多重大發(fā)現(xiàn)。1990年，哈勃太空望遠鏡被送入了太空。

很快，一架新的望遠鏡將接替哈勃，它就是詹姆斯·韋伯太空望遠鏡，也被叫做JWST或韋伯。

2019年，一枚火箭將把韋伯送進太空。這架新望遠鏡將比哈勃探索得更遠。它將幫助科學家更好地觀測宇宙。

“哈勃重寫了天文教科書?！瘪R吉·馬賽緹告訴記者。她參與了韋伯工程?！绊f伯將做相同的事。”

像哈勃那樣，“韋伯”將搜索遙遠的星系。這架望遠鏡也會用尋找光的方式來尋找類地行星。韋伯的鏡面會搜集太空物體發(fā)出的光芒，它特制的鏡面和工具將能夠發(fā)現(xiàn)人類肉眼看不到的光線。

在未來，將會有更多像韋伯這樣的望遠鏡。馬賽緹說：“孩子們長大時，他們學到的關于宇宙的知識將和我們現(xiàn)在的認知完全不同。”

哈勃太空望遠鏡發(fā)射已近26年，它送回了一百多萬張圖片?？茖W家看到了恒星誕生，他們研究了遙遠的行星。哈勃強大的眼力幫我們了解太空。這架望遠鏡還剩下10年的使用壽命，接下來它還會發(fā)現(xiàn)些什么呢？

Notes：

1. telescope n. 望遠鏡

2. astronomy n. 天文學

3. galaxy n. 銀河；星系

4. launch n. 發(fā)射