哈勃望远镜已服役20周年

Hubble's unprecedented¹（空前的，无前例的） capabilities² have made it one of the most powerful science instruments ever conceived（构思，设想） by humans, and certainly the one most embraced by the public. Hubble's discoveries have revolutionised nearly all areas of current astronomical³（天文的） research, from planetary science to cosmology（宇宙论，宇宙学） . And, its pictures are unmistakably out of this world. At times Hubble's starry⁴ odyssey⁵ has played out（衰竭，结束） like a space soap opera: with broken equipment, a bleary-eyed primary mirror and even a Space Shuttle rescue/repair mission cancellation⁶. But the ingenuity⁷ and dedication⁸ of Hubble scientists, engineers, and NASA and ESA astronauts have allowed the observatory⁹（瞭望台，天文台） to rebound¹⁰（回弹） time and time again. Its crisp（脆的，新鲜的） vision continues to challenge scientists with exciting new surprises and to enthral（奴役，迷惑） the public with ever more evocative colour images.

NASA, ESA and the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) are celebrating Hubble's journey of exploration with a stunning¹¹（极好的，使人晕倒的） new picture. Another exciting component¹² of the anniversary will be the launch of the revamped（修补的，修订的） European website for Hubble, spacetelescope.org. ESA will also be sponsoring the Hubble Pop Culture Contest that calls for fans to search for examples of the observatory's presence in everyday life (http://www.spacetelescope.org/hubblepopculture).

The brand new Hubble anniversary image highlights a small portion of one of the largest observable（觉察得到的，看得见的） regions of starbirth in the galaxy¹³, the Carina Nebula¹⁴. Towers of cool hydrogen laced with（用……装饰） dust rise from the wall of the nebula（星云） . The scene is reminiscent of（令人回忆起，引起联想） Hubble's classic Pillars of Creation photo from 1995, but even more striking in appearance. The image captures the top of a pillar of gas and dust, three light-years tall, which is being eaten away by the brilliant light from nearby bright stars. The pillar is also being pushed apart from within, as infant stars buried inside it fire off jets of gas that can be seen streaming from towering peaks like arrows sailing through the air.

Hubble fans worldwide are being invited to share the ways in which the telescope has affected¹⁵ them. They can send an e-mail, post a Facebook message (to http://www.facebook/hubblespacetelescope) or use the Twitter hashtag #hst20. Or, they can visit the "Messages to Hubble" page on http://hubblesite.org, type in their entry and read selections from other messages that have been received. Fan messages will be stored in the Hubble data archive along with the telescope's many terabytes of science data. Future researchers will be able to read these messages and understand how Hubble had such an impact on the world.

To date, Hubble has looked at over 30 000 celestial¹⁶（天上的，天空的） targets and amassed¹⁷（积累，积聚） over half a million pictures in its archive. The last heroic astronaut-servicing mission to Hubble in May 2009 made the telescope 100 times more powerful than when it was launched. In addition to its irreplaceable scientific importance, Hubble brings cosmic wonders into millions of homes and schools every day. For the past 20 years the public has become co-explorers with this wondrous¹⁸ observatory.