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Sky Map Satellite Becomes Asteroid Hunter
星云地圖衛星成為小行星探尋者。
Last week we told you about the end of an era: NASA ended the Kepler spacecraft's exoplanet-hunting mission, following an irreparable mechanical failure.
上周我們報道了一個時代的結束，由于無法修復的機械故障，NASA結束了開普勒太空飛船的行星探索任務。
This week, news of rebirth. NASA's WISE satellite is a space telescope that carefully surveyed the universe in infrared light. In 2010 it ran out of the cryogenic coolant that enabled its primary mission of mapping the skies. But WISE still found work, scanning for asteroids near Earth. Finally in 2011 NASA put the orbiting observatory into hibernation.
本周，是關于重生的新聞。NASA的智慧號衛星是探尋宇宙的紅外線太空望遠鏡。2010年其低溫冷卻劑消耗殆盡，而低溫冷卻劑是其繪制星云地圖的必備。但是智慧號仍在運轉，尋找近地小行星。最終，在2011年，NASA讓智慧號長眠。
Now NASA is planning to reboot WISE to find more asteroids. The space agency will fire it up in September for a three-year run. WISE should be able to find some 150 new near-Earth asteroids and get a better handle on another 2,000.
現在，NASA準備重啟智慧號，讓其發現更多的小行星。航天局將在9月份發動智慧號，讓其運行三年。智慧號應該能發現大約150顆近地小行星，并且能再發現2000顆左右。
Altogether more than 10,000 near-Earth asteroids, and almost 100 near-Earth comets, have been discovered by astronomers. That census includes most of the really big ones, but the vast majority of smaller asteroids remain to be discovered. And as we saw in February—when a small asteroid exploded over Russia, breaking windows in thousands of buildings—even the little ones can still do big damage.
天文學家一共發現了超過10000顆近地小行星，大約100顆近地彗星。上述統計包括一些大型的小行星，但是大量的小型小行星亟待發現。正如我們在2月看到的，一顆在俄羅斯爆炸的小行星毀壞了數千棟建筑的川子，即使是小型小行星也能制造大損失。
—John Matson
