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The mirror of the Hubble Space Telescope that gaveus the stunning pictures of deep space is only about4.5 square meters.

The primary mirror of the James Webb SpaceTelescope will be 25 square meters, so a strongemergence expect for even higher-quality results.

But both will be dwarfed by the Giant MagellanTelescope, under construction in Chile's Atacama Desert.

Its mirror array covers about 368 square meters.

By looking at different parts of the visible and infrared spectrums, the two new telescopes willcomplement each other, says Magellan Telescope director Patrick McCarthy.

“The two working together, I think, will give us a complete picture,whether we are looking atplanets around nearby stars, black holes in the centers of other galaxies, or back to that earlyuniverse that we call the First Light, when we see the first stars in the first galaxies. ”

带给我们外太空惊艳绝人照片的哈勃太空望远镜反射镜只有约4.5平方米。

而其接班人詹姆斯•韦伯太空望远镜将达到25平方米，因此呈现给人们的是更高质量的照片。

但这两架望远镜在智利阿塔卡马沙漠正在建造的巨型麦哲伦望远镜前就显得相形见绌。

这架望远镜的反射镜阵列约为368平方米。

该望远镜的负责人帕特里克•麦卡锡表示通过观测可见光及红外线的不同部分，这两架新望远镜将进行优势互补。

“两架望远镜会一起协作，我认为这会为我们带来一张完整的图片，无论我们在附近的星系中观察行星，亦或是探究其它星系中心的黑洞，还是找寻我们所称的宇宙第一缕曙光。”

To isolate it from vibrations, the 1,200-ton telescope will rest on an oil flotation bearingsystem, completely free of any friction.

A range of cameras and spectrographs will record and dissect the received light, looking forsignatures of atoms and molecules.

And the light coming from billions of kilometers away may be impossibly faint.

“The photons come in one every 15 to 20 minutes, so it takes a long time to collect that light.

In our case, we think we'll get a few photons a minute, but you need hundreds to get a goodsignal, so it just takes patience. ”

McCarthy says with a telescope sensitive enough to detect a birthday candle on the moon,nobody knows what to expect.

“The most important is the unexpected, the new discoveries, the unanticipatedbreakthroughs.

That's always been the story of astronomy.

When you build a new capability, young people find things that either no one expected, orthey prove that their elders were wrong. ”

The 1 billion joint project of the U.S., Australia, Brazil, South Korea and Chile is expected toopen for the first observations by 2022 and be fully operational by 2026.

这架重达1200吨的望远镜将安置在全油浮选支撑的系统上以防止震动，完全免除任何摩擦。

一系列配套的摄像头及光谱仪将会对接收到的光线进行记录及分析，寻找原子，分子的蛛丝马迹。

而这些来自数十亿千米之外的光不可能是微弱光。

“这些光子每15至20分钟就会到来，因此要收集需要花很长时间。

而在我们这里，我们认为1分钟内就能收集一些，但是你需要数百个才能得到一个很好的信号，因此要有耐心。”

麦卡锡表示有了这样一架敏锐到足以观测到月球上一支生日蜡烛的望远镜，没有人知道接下来会发生什么。

“最为至关重要的就是对未知的探究，新的发现，前所未有的突破。

这一直是天文学的课题。

当你创造出新技术，年轻一辈会发现一些前所未见的事物，要么证明前人是错的。”

这项由美国、澳大利亚、巴西、韩国及智利携手合资10亿美元打造的联合项目预计将在2020年前进行第一次观测，并于2026年前完全投入使用。

词汇解释

1.work together 共同努力;一起

例句:They live and work together in complete equalityand brotherhood.

他们完全平等和兄弟般地在一起生活和工作。

2.free of 免费

例句:I have a vision of a society that is free ofexploitation and injustice.

我希望建立一个没有剥削和不公的社会。

3.enough to 足以

例句:You've got enough to think about for the moment.

目前你要考虑的事情够多了。

4.look for 寻找

例句:I was just going to look for you and here you are.

我正要找你，恰好你来了。