庆祝哈勃望远镜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，世界各地的天文学家庆祝哈勃太空望远镜发射升空20周年。这一由美国宇航局发射的首架标志性轨道太空望远镜让人类对宇宙的认识发生了革命性改变。

　　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.

　　哈勃望远镜超越了之前的其它各种天文观测设备，激发了现代人探索外太空的兴趣。哈勃望远镜在服役期间向地球传回迄今所拍摄到的最为壮观的遥远星系的画面以及星星的诞生和陨灭等图像。它还帮助科学家做出了当今最重要的一些发现。

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

　　哈勃望远镜于1990年4月24日由”发现号“航天飞机携载发射升空，并在第二天进入轨道运行。

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

　　驾驶航天飞机完成这次历史性任务的宇航员名叫查尔斯?博尔登，此人于去年出任美国宇航局局长。

　　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年来，天文学家凭借哈勃望远镜提供的天体观测数据，测算出宇宙的年龄为137亿年。