本帖最后由 未名 于 2009-11-25 09:38 编辑
NASA's Wise Gets Ready to Survey the Whole Sky
NASA的广角红外探测器Wise已做好探空准备
PASADENA, Calif. -- NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, or Wise, is chilled out, sporting a sunshade and getting ready to roll. NASA's newest spacecraft is scheduled to roll to the pad on Friday, Nov. 20, its last stop before launching into space to survey the entire sky in infrared light.
来自帕萨迪纳市加州理工学院的报道——NASA的广角地球红外空间探测器Wise已经完成冷却过程（Wise需要冷却到超低温度，才能避免在红外成像时受到自身红外辐射的影响），被充满期待的人们保护在遮光罩下，等待着发射。这台NASA的最新的航天器将于11月20日星期五被运到发射台，来到它发射升空、红外探索全天空之前的最后一站。
Wise is scheduled to launch no earlier than 6:09 a.m. PST (9:09 a.m. EST) on Dec. 9 from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. It will circle Earth over the poles, scanning the entire sky one-and-a-half times in nine months. The mission will uncover hidden cosmic objects, including the coolest stars, dark asteroids and the most luminous galaxies.
Wise计划于美国西部时间12月9日清晨6：09之后，从加州的范登堡空军基地发射。它将从两极上空环绕地球，在九个月的时间里勘查探测全天空1.5次。它的任务将是发现之前不为人知的宇宙天体，包括那些最低温的恒星，暗淡的小行星以及最明亮的星系。
"The eyes of Wise are a vast improvement over those of past infrared surveys," said Edward "Ned" Wright, the principal investigator for the mission at UCLA. "We will find millions of objects that have never been seen before."
“Wise的探测能力与之前的红外探测器相比是巨大的飞跃。”来自加州大学洛杉矶分校，本次探空工程的首席研究者爱德华说到，“我们将新发现数百万颗之前未被发现的星体。”
The mission will map the entire sky at four infrared wavelengths with sensitivity hundreds to hundreds of thousands of times greater than its predecessors, cataloging hundreds of millions of objects. The data will serve as navigation charts for other missions, pointing them to the most interesting targets. NASA's Hubble and Spitzer Space Telescopes, the European Space Agency's Herschel Space Observatory, and NASA's upcoming Sofia and James Webb Space Telescope will follow up on Wise finds.
本次探空将以四种不同红外波长绘制全天空星图。其探查敏感度将成千上万倍的高于之前的探测器，并收录上亿颗新发现的星际物质。这些将被绘制成航天图表的数据将服务于更多其它的工作，并让它们对那些最让人兴奋的课题有所帮助。NASA的Hubble和Spitzer太空望远镜、欧洲航天局的Herschel太空天文台以及NASA即将投入使用的Sofia 和James Webb空间望远镜都将共同关注Wise的新发现。
"This is an exciting time for space telescopes," said Jon Morse, NASA's Astrophysics Division director at NASA Headquarters in Washington. "Many of the telescopes will work together, each contributing different pieces to some of the most intriguing puzzles in our universe."
“对于空间望远镜来说，这是一个激动人心的时刻”，在NASA华盛顿总部，NASA天体物理学部门负责人Jon Morse这样说到，“诸多望远镜通力协作，每台望远镜都为探索宇宙中最令人着迷的谜题做着各自不同的贡献”
Visible light is just one slice of the universe's electromagnetic rainbow. Infrared light, which humans can't see, has longer wavelengths and is good for seeing objects that are cold, dusty or far away. In our solar system, Wise is expected to find hundreds of thousands of cool asteroids, including hundreds that pass relatively close to Earth's path. Wise's infrared measurements will provide better estimates of asteroid sizes and compositions -- important information for understanding more about potentially hazardous impacts on Earth.
可见光只是宇宙中电磁光谱的七彩虹上的一种色彩（可见光只是众多的电磁光谱的一小部分）。不可见的红外线，比可见光波长更长，这使得利用它更易于发现那些低温的、细小的抑或是遥远的太空物质。在我们的太阳系，Wise将新发现数以万计的低温小行星，其中的数百颗相对靠近地球轨道。Wise的红外测量将对这些小行星的大小与成分做出更精确的测定，这对掌握近地小行星可能撞击地球的情况有重大意义。
"With infrared, we can find the dark asteroids other surveys have missed and learn about the whole population. Are they mostly big, small, fluffy or hard?" said Peter Eisenhardt, the Wise project scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif.
“通过红外线，我们可以发现很多被之前的探测所忽视的不发光小行星并了解它们的数量规模。真想知道这些小行星到底是大是小，是疏松还是致密。” Peter Eisenhardt 这样说。他是Wise探空工程的科学家，工作于NASA位于加州的喷气推动实验室。
Wise also will find the coolest of the "failed" stars, or brown dwarfs. Scientists speculate it is possible that a cool star lurks right under our noses, closer to us than our nearest known star, Proxima Centauri, which is four light-years away. If so, Wise will easily pick up its glow. The mission also will spot dusty nests of stars and swirling planet-forming disks, and may find the most luminous galaxy in the universe.
Wise也将发现最低温的“失败的星球”褐矮星。科学家们认为有可能在地球和距离我们4光年的最近的恒星“比邻星”之间，潜藏着一颗距离更近的低温恒星。如果这是这样，那么Wise将通过红外光谱轻松的发现它的存在。这项工程同时能识别出巢状恒星团、行星组成的旋涡星盘以及宇宙里最明亮的星系。
To sense the infrared glow of stars and galaxies, the Wise spacecraft cannot give off any detectable infrared light of its own. This is accomplished by chilling the telescope and detectors to ultra-cold temperatures. The coldest of Wise's detectors will operate at below 8 Kelvin, or minus 445 degrees Fahrenheit.
要想准确捕获恒星或星云的红外光谱，Wise就不能发出可被自己捕获到的自身的红外辐射，因此就需要将望远镜和探测器进行超低温处理。探测器的最低运行温度低于热力学温度8度（即零下265度），华氏零下445度。
"Wise is chilled out," said William Irace, the project manager at JPL. "We've finished freezing the hydrogen that fills two tanks surrounding the science instrument. We're ready to explore the universe in infrared."
“Wise已经被冷却。”美国喷气推进实验所的部门负责人William Irace告诉我们，“我们已经成功用液态氢装满了围在科学探测器周围的两个冷却槽。我们已经做好用红外光谱探测宇宙的准备了。”
JPL manages Wise for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. The mission was competitively selected under NASA's Explorers Program managed by the Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. The science instrument was built by the Space Dynamics Laboratory in Logan, Utah, and the spacecraft was built by Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp. in Boulder, Colo. Science operations and data processing take place at the Infrared Processing and Analysis Center at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. Caltech manages JPL for NASA.
美国喷进推进研究所受NASA的科学项目理事会委托而操控Wise。这个工程在马里兰州戈达德太空中心所经营的NASA探索项目的管理之下完成竞标。科学探测器械是犹他州的航天动力学实验室所研制。航天器是Ball太空空间技术公司制造。科技操作和数据处理则在加州技术研究院的红外处理与分析中心完成。加州理工学院为NASA参与管理了美国喷气推进研究所。
资源来自：http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/WISE/news/wise20091117.html
\\初来乍到，很多天文知识都还不行，希望诸位同好斧正。 |
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