VOA慢速英语2021 澳大利亚打造超级望远镜（在线收听）

Australian scientists are leading an international project to build an extremely powerful ground-based telescope. The scientists say the machine will provide a deeper and clearer look into space than the Hubble Space Telescope.

澳大利亚科学家正在领导一个国际项目，打造一台极其强大的地面望远镜。科学家们表示，与哈勃太空望远镜相比，该机器能够更远、更清晰地观测太空。

The telescope's short name is MAVIS. That stands for Multi-conjugate-adaptive-optics Assisted Visible Imager and Spectrograph.

这台望远镜的简称是MAVIS。它是指多层共轭自适应光学辅助可见光成像仪和光谱仪。

It is designed to correct a problem common to Earth based telescopes: image blurring caused by atmospheric conditions.

它旨在纠正地球望远镜一个常见问题：由大气状况引发的图像模糊。

Scientists in Australia say the new technology will help them explore how the first stars formed 13 billion years ago. The telescope will also examine changes in the weather on planets and moons in our solar system.

澳大利亚科学家表示，这项新技术将帮助他们探索第一批恒星在130亿年前是如何形成的。这台望远镜还将考察太阳系中行星和卫星的天气变化。

Images produced by MAVIS are expected to be three times clearer than the Hubble Space Telescope. Launched in 1990, Hubble orbits Earth from about 550 kilometers away, well outside the planet's atmosphere.

MAVIS产生的图像预计比哈勃太空望远镜要清晰3倍。哈勃望远镜于1990年发射升空，围绕地球以外大约550公里的轨道运行，远离地球的大气层。

Richard McDermid of Macquarie University in Sydney says the new telescope will change the way we explore space.

悉尼麦考瑞大学的理查德·麦克德米德表示，这台新望远镜将改变我们探索太空的方式。

He said the telescope will permit scientists "to push into a new frontier of the furthest and faintest things we can see."

他说，这台望远镜能让科学家“进入我们能够看到的更深远、更微小事物的新领域。”

The new view will include the universe's earliest galaxies. This also means an exploration of the past, McDermid explained, "because when we look far away in astronomy we are also looking far back in time because it takes time for the light to reach us."

新视野将包括宇宙中最早的星系。麦克德米德解释说，这也意味着对过去的探索，“因为当我们在天文学中遥望远方时，我们也是在回望过去，因为光线需以时日才能到达我们身边。”

The telescope will be placed in Chile and run by the European Southern Observatory, a research organization based in Germany. It is expected to take seven years to build and cost $44 million.

这台望远镜将安放在智利，由位于德国的研究机构欧洲南方天文台运营。预计建造时间为7年，耗资4400万美元。

The MAVIS team is led by The Australian National University. The team also includes scientists from Macquarie University, Italy's National Institute for Astrophysics and France's Laboratoire d'Astrophysique.

MAVIS团队由澳大利亚国立大学领导。这个团队还包括来自麦考瑞大学、意大利国家天体物理学研究所和法国天体物理学实验室的科学家。