一架老旧的美国国家航空航天局（NASA）望远镜在一次失败的救援行动后摇摇欲坠，高度不断降低，仅勉强维持在太空中。
A NASA telescope is barely clinging to space after a failed rescue effort left it tottering lower and lower.
美联社记者 马西娅·邓恩 佛罗里达州卡纳维拉尔角 报道 —— 一架老旧的美国国家航空航天局（NASA）望远镜在一次失败的救援行动后摇摇欲坠，高度不断降低，仅勉强维持在太空中。美国太空军预测，“斯威夫特”天文台将于周五前后坠落。
The U.S. MARCIA DUNN CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — An aging NASA telescope is barely clinging to space after a failed rescue effort left it tottering lower and lower.
据该任务首席科学家、美国国家航空航天局的布拉德·岑科称，这架重达1.5吨的望远镜大部分预计将在大气层中烧毁。但少量由比铅更致密的钨制成的部件以及一些镜面部件可能在再入大气层时幸存下来。
U.S. Space Force predicts the Swift Observatory will come crashing down on or around Friday. Most of the 1 ½-ton telescope is expected to burn up in the atmosphere.
任何幸存的残骸极有可能坠入海洋。但非洲、澳大利亚、印度、东南亚以及中美洲和南美洲的大片地区均在再入区域范围内。太空军正在追踪望远镜不断下降的轨道。
But a handful of pieces made of denser-than-lead tungsten and some mirror parts could survive reentry, according to NASA’s Brad Cenko, the mission’s chief scientist. Any surviving wreckage will most likely plunge into the ocean. But swaths of Africa, Australia, India, Southeast Asia, and Central and South America are within the reentry zone.
这场“宇宙火葬”让“斯威夫特”团队悲伤不已，但也对该望远镜在轨22年间完成的观测心存感激。“斯威夫特”于2004年11月20日发射升空，旨在寻找宇宙中一些最大的爆炸：伽马射线暴和超新星。
The Space Force is tracking the telescope’s dwindling path. Its cosmic cremation has the Swift team mourning yet full of gratitude for the observations the telescope made during its 22 years in orbit.
宾夕法尼亚州立大学天文学家、曾领导控制团队的约翰·努塞克表示：“自‘斯威夫特’发射前我们就知道这一天会到来。至少在近地轨道上，上去的终究要下来。而结局是毁灭性的。”
Swift blasted off on Nov. 20, 2004, to search for some of the biggest explosions in the universe: gamma ray bursts and supernovas.
过去几年强烈的太阳活动使“斯威夫特”下降速度比平常更快。美国国家航空航天局一年前聘请Katalyst Space公司实施紧急救援。但该公司名为“Link”的三臂机器人在7月发射后遇到麻烦，最近也只接近了望远镜7英里至9英里（12公里至15公里）处。“Link”于9月坠回地球。
“We’ve known this day would come since before Swift was launched. At least in low-Earth orbit, what goes up must come down. And that end is catastrophic,” said Pennsylvania State University’s John Nousek, an astronomer who led the control team. Intense solar activity over the past few years dragged Swift down faster than usual. NASA hired Katalyst Space a year ago to mount a rush rescue But the company’s three-armed robot named Link ran into trouble after launching in July and got no closer than 7 miles to 9 miles (12 kilometers to 15 kilometers) to the telescope. Link plunged back to Earth in September.
救援尝试终止后，“斯威夫特”恢复了观测，发现了更多伽马射线暴和其他超高能事件。但到10月下旬，望远镜高度已太低，无法保持稳定进行观测，其系统被迫关闭。
Swift resumed observations once the rescue attempt was called off, discovering even more gamma ray bursts and other ultrahigh-energy events. But by late October, the telescope was too low to remain steady for observations, and its systems were shut down.
其最终战果：探测到2000多次伽马射线暴和1400颗爆发恒星，更不用说大量彗星、小行星和撕裂恒星的黑洞。这台望远镜的“超能力”在于能迅速转向——这也是其名称的由来——捕捉突发的天体事件。
Its final tally: more than 2,000 gamma ray bursts and 1,400 exploding stars, not to mention a slew of comets, asteroids and star-shredding black holes. The telescope’s superpower was its ability to swivel swiftly — thus its name — toward erupting celestial events.
美国国家航空航天局（NASA）视“雨燕”为哈勃和韦伯太空望远镜等后续观测设备的“首批响应者”，后者会跟进其预警并开展更深入的研究。科学家们仍在设法填补这一空白。
NASA considered Swift a first responder for the Hubble and Webb space telescopes and others that would follow its alerts and provide deeper investigations. Scientists are still figuring out how to fill the gap.
“我们衷切希望，从‘雨燕’的成功中汲取的经验教训能应用于新一代太空任务，以加速我们对宇宙的发现，”诺塞克在一份
“Our fervent hope is that the lessons learned by the successes of Swift can be applied to new generations of space missions to accelerate our discoveries about the universe,” Nousek said in an