[00:00.00]如果您也喜欢 恒星英语学习网 www.hxen.com 请与您的朋友分享 This is the VOA Special English [00:02.99]Technology Report. [00:05.15]The Hubble Space Telescope [00:07.50]continues to make valuable discoveries [00:10.50]after more than twenty years [00:13.00]in orbit around Earth. [00:15.48]Hubble recently showed [00:17.42]a fourth moon orbiting Pluto. [00:20.56]Astronomers temporarily named it P4. [00:24.64]The moon is the smallest [00:26.93]to be discovered [00:28.47]around the icy dwarf planet. [00:31.26]Astronomers estimate that the moon [00:34.36]is from thirteen [00:35.71]to thirty-four kilometers across. [00:39.39]They first saw it in a Hubble photo [00:42.68]taken on June twenty-eighth. [00:45.11]The American space agency NASA [00:48.51]launched the Hubble Space Telescope [00:51.56]in nineteen ninety. [00:53.50]Reaching that day took years of work. [00:57.73]Ed Weiler is NASA's chief astronomer. [01:01.77]Mr. Weiler has worked closely [01:04.46]with the Hubble program [01:06.01]since nineteen seventy-nine. [01:08.62]ED WEILER: "The Hubble, [01:09.47]when it was launched, [01:10.71]represented an increase [01:11.91]in capability of other telescopes [01:13.77]on the ground by a factor of ten. [01:16.46]The last time in human history [01:22.64]in astronomy that we leaped [01:25.04]a factor of ten, in one step, [01:27.62]was when Galileo stopped [01:30.26]using his eye and put [01:31.95]the first telescope to his eye." [01:33.36]NASA's first chief of astronomy [01:36.44]was Nancy Grace Roman. [01:38.23]Ms. Roman joined NASA [01:40.82]in nineteen fifty-nine. [01:42.66]She led the effort [01:44.66]that resulted in the creation [01:46.51]of the Hubble Space Telescope. [01:48.84]NANCY GRACE ROMAN: "Astronomers [01:49.86]had been wanting to get observations [01:53.09]from above the atmosphere [01:54.59]for a long time. [01:55.58]Looking through the atmosphere [01:57.57]is somewhat like looking through [01:59.27]a piece of old, stained glass. [02:01.60]The glass has defects in it, [02:04.24]so the image is blurred from that." [02:06.38]The Hubble telescope orbits [02:09.09]about five hundred fifty [02:11.74]kilometers above Earth. [02:13.90]Ms. Roman says she still remembers [02:16.48]the first images that it captured. [02:19.32]NANCY GRACE ROMAN: "I think the image [02:20.91]that to me was most striking [02:23.70]was the center of a globular cluster. [02:25.69]You could see each star individually, [02:28.35]and see their color, [02:29.66]and it was just a fantastic sight." [02:31.90]The Hubble Space Telescope has helped [02:34.94]expand our knowledge of the universe. [02:37.77]It helped scientists estimate [02:40.33]that the universe began about [02:42.82]fourteen billion years ago. [02:45.26]Earlier estimates had placed it [02:48.19]between ten and twenty billion years old. [02:51.39]Ed Weiler says [02:53.78]the Hubble telescope also confirmed [02:56.80]the existence of black holes. [02:59.45]These are extremely dense masses [03:03.08]believed to exist at the center [03:05.98]of most galaxies. [03:08.42]Their gravitational pull is so strong, [03:11.65]they absorb light. [03:13.64]ED WEILER: "Black holes [03:14.95]were science fiction. [03:15.89]'Star Trek,' 'Star Wars.' [03:17.65]'Black holes -- nice theory [03:19.44]but nobody believes in them, right?' [03:21.18]Hubble proved they exist." [03:22.47]The Hubble Space Telescope [03:24.71]completed its one millionth [03:26.95]scientific observation in July. [03:29.94]NASA is building a new space telescope [03:34.12]to look even deeper [03:35.96]into the beginnings of the universe. [03:38.75]And that's the VOA Special English [03:42.63]Technology Report, [03:44.27]written by June Simms and Julie Taboh. [03:47.51]You can watch a video [03:49.60]about the Hubble Space Telescope [03:52.14]at www.hxen.com. [03:55.98]I'm Steve Ember.如果您也喜欢 恒星英语学习网 www.hxen.com 请与您的朋友分享