An undated artists concept provided by NASA shows the Keplar Spacecraft moving through space.
美国航天局展示了一张未注日期的理想定义照片,其展示了开普勒宇宙飞船在宇宙中翱翔。
NASA’s Kepler Space Telescope is almost out of fuel and has been forced to take a nap.
美国宇航局的开普勒太空望远镜因其燃料马上耗尽被迫进入休眠状况。
Flight controllers placed the planet|hunting spacecraft into hibernation last week to save energy. It will remain asleep until early August, when controllers attempt to send down the data collected before observations were interrupted.
上周，为节省燃料，飞行控制器让该行星捕捉探测器进入休眠状况。直到8月初，它才会退出休眠，这时控制器将在观测被中断前，试着将它采集的数据传回。
Kepler has been searching for planets outside our solar system for nearly a decade. Considered the pioneer of planet hunting, it’s discovered nearly 3,000 confirmed worlds and as many potential candidates.
开普勒近10年一直从事探索系外行星。它已发现近3000个星球和同样数目的潜在地球替代行星，它被视为行星捕捉器的先锋。
Launched in 2009, Kepler has endured mechanical failures and other mishaps. But there’s no getting around an empty fuel tank. The fuel is needed for pointing the telescope.
开普勒于2009年发射，历程过机械问题和其他事故,最后却没能防止油箱的耗尽。瞄准望远镜是需要燃料的。
Kepler’s antenna must be pointed toward Earth to get the most recent observations back. For now, that’s the team’s highest priority.
现在，整个团队的当务之急是把开普勒的天线指向地球，如此才能获得最新的观测结果。
