慶祝哈勃望遠(yuǎn)鏡20周年生日

        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.

　　上周末，世界各地的天文學(xué)家慶祝哈勃太空望遠(yuǎn)鏡發(fā)射升空20周年。這一由美國(guó)宇航局發(fā)射的首架標(biāo)志性軌道太空望遠(yuǎn)鏡讓人類對(duì)宇宙的認(rèn)識(shí)發(fā)生了革命性改變。

　　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.

　　哈勃望遠(yuǎn)鏡超越了之前的其它各種天文觀測(cè)設(shè)備，激發(fā)了現(xiàn)代人探索外太空的興趣。哈勃望遠(yuǎn)鏡在服役期間向地球傳回迄今所拍攝到的最為壯觀的遙遠(yuǎn)星系的畫(huà)面以及星星的誕生和隕滅等圖像。它還幫助科學(xué)家做出了當(dāng)今最重要的一些發(fā)現(xiàn)。

　　Hubble was launched aboard space shuttle Discovery on April 24, 1990 and deployed into orbit the following day.

　　哈勃望遠(yuǎn)鏡于1990年4月24日由”發(fā)現(xiàn)號(hào)“航天飛機(jī)攜載發(fā)射升空，并在第二天進(jìn)入軌道運(yùn)行。

　　Piloting the shuttle on that historic mission was astronaut Charles Bolden, who went on to become the US space agency's administrator last year.

　　駕駛航天飛機(jī)完成這次歷史性任務(wù)的宇航員名叫查爾斯?博爾登，此人于去年出任美國(guó)宇航局局長(zhǎng)。

　　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.

　　20年來(lái)，天文學(xué)家憑借哈勃望遠(yuǎn)鏡提供的天體觀測(cè)數(shù)據(jù)，測(cè)算出宇宙的年齡為137億年。