哈勃生日快樂:太空望遠鏡慶祝在軌30周年

哈勃生日快樂:太空望遠鏡慶祝在軌30周年

Today, April 24, 2020, the Hubble Space Telescope celebrates its 30th birthday in orbit, and what an incredible 30 years they have been. The observatory has peered into space like no other mission before, providing data that has changed our understanding of the universe and dazzled us with the beauty of the cosmos.

今天，2020年4月24日，哈勃太空望遠鏡在軌道上慶祝它的30歲生日，這是多么不可思議的30年啊。在此之前，天文臺從未像現(xiàn)在這樣深入太空，它提供的數(shù)據(jù)改變了我們對宇宙的理解，讓我們?yōu)橛钪嬷蓝鴥A倒。

The achievements of Hubble cannot be overstated. Its first image, snapped on May 20, 1990, was a photo of a binary star, HD96755, in the open cluster NGC 3532, also known as the Pincushion Cluster, about 1,300 light-years away from us. Over the following three decades, the telescope has delivered over 1 million observations, from planets in the Solar System to galaxies in the first billion years of the universe.

哈勃的成就怎么說都不為過。它的第一張照片拍攝于1990年5月20日，是一顆名為HD96755的雙星，位于離我們約1300光年遠的NGC 3532開放星團，也被稱為平尾星團。在接下來的30年里，該望遠鏡已經(jīng)完成了100多萬次觀測，從太陽系的行星到宇宙最初10億年的星系。

Alfredo Carpineti

Many facts we now take for granted were only discovered or confirmed thanks to the keen eye of Hubble and the incredible work of scientists across the world. The telescope confirmed the existence of supermassive black holes at the core of every galaxy and its observations of a particular type of supernova proved that the universe continues to expand faster and faster.

我們現(xiàn)在認為理所當(dāng)然的許多事實，多虧了哈勃敏銳的眼睛和世界各地科學(xué)家令人難以置信的工作，才得以發(fā)現(xiàn)或證實。該望遠鏡證實了在每個星系的中心存在超大質(zhì)量黑洞，它對一種特定類型超新星的觀測證明了宇宙繼續(xù)以越來越快的速度膨脹。

The Bubble Nebula, also known as NGC 7635, is an emission nebula located 8 000 light-years away. NASA, ESA, Hubble Heritage Team

Hubble was also instrumental in estimating crucial properties of the Milky Way, such as its mass and size. The data collected, combined with the observations of the European Space Agency’s Gaia, puts the mass of the Milky Way at about 1.5 trillion Suns and 129,000 light-years in diameter. Hubble's observations are not just about the wider mysteries of the cosmos, it has also discovered plenty within our Solar System; from observations of aurorae on Jupiter’s moon Ganymede to the discovery of the fifth moon of Pluto. It even discovered Arrokoth, the most distant world ever explored by humanity.

哈勃還幫助估算了銀河系的重要性質(zhì)，比如它的質(zhì)量和大小。根據(jù)收集到的數(shù)據(jù)，再加上歐洲航天局的蓋亞觀測結(jié)果，銀河系的質(zhì)量約為1.5萬億個太陽，直徑為12.9萬光年。哈勃的觀測不僅僅是關(guān)于宇宙的更廣泛的奧秘，它還在我們的太陽系中發(fā)現(xiàn)了很多;從觀察木星的衛(wèi)星Ganymede的極光到發(fā)現(xiàn)冥王星的第五顆衛(wèi)星。它甚至發(fā)現(xiàn)了Arrokoth，人類探索過的最遙遠的世界。

The Eagle Nebula’s Pillars of Creation. NASA, ESA/Hubble and the Hubble Heritage Team

Much of science is about predicting phenomena and making observations to see if the predictions are correct. A notable prediction that was proven to be true was the Refsdal supernova. This event took place in a galaxy over 10 billion light-years away with a large cluster of galaxies between us and this object (a crucial fact). The clusters warp space-time to such a degree that multiple images of the more distant galaxy that hosts of Refsdal supernova were captured. Since those images were not from the same time, astronomers saw the explosion several times. The last image of it taken on December 11, 2015, was snapped by Hubble. These observations allowed us to test models of how space-time is warped by gravity.

許多科學(xué)都是通過預(yù)測現(xiàn)象和觀察，以確定判斷是否正確。一個被證明是正確的著名預(yù)測是Refsdal超新星。這個事件發(fā)生在一個距離我們100億光年的星系中，在我們和這個物體之間有一個巨大的星系團(一個重要的事實)。星系團扭曲時空的程度如此之深，以至于拍攝到許多遙遠星系的圖像，這些星系是超新星的宿主。由于這些圖像不是來自同一時間，天文學(xué)家看到了幾次爆炸。它的最后一張照片由哈勃拍攝于2015年12月11日。這些觀測讓我們測試時空是如何被引力扭曲的一種模型。

Hubble’s most recent refurbishment was in 2009 and since then it has developed some problems due to its impressive age. However, thanks to the work of the Hubble team it continues to perform well, and will hopefully help us unravel the mysteries of the cosmos for a long time to come.

哈勃最近的一次翻新是在2009年，從那以后，由于它令人印象深刻的年齡，它出現(xiàn)了一些問題。然而，由于哈勃團隊的工作，它繼續(xù)表現(xiàn)良好，并有望幫助我們在未來很長一段時間內(nèi)解開宇宙之謎。

If you want to join in the celebrations, check out this tool to find out what Hubble photographed on your birthday.

如果你想?yún)⒓討c祝活動，通過這個工具，找出哈勃在生日當(dāng)天拍攝了什么。

This is the Hubble Ultra Deep Field, this galaxy-studded view represents a "deep" core sample of the universe, cutting across billions of light-years. NASA, ESA, and S. Beckwith (STScI) and the HUDF Team

The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope’s Wide Field Camera 3 observed Saturn on 20 June 2019 as the planet made its closest approach to Earth this year, at approximately 1.36 billion kilometres away. NASA, ESA, A. Simon (Goddard Space Flight Center), and M.H. Wong (University of California, Berkeley)