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History of the Telescope
The telescope was invented in the beginning of the 17th century. Since that time, it has changed the way we perceive Universe. Before the use of the telescope people thought that Earth lay inside a glass ball and that the stars were simply holes in that ball through which light from the heavens could pass.
This belief fell down in 1610 when a scientist named Galileo （伽俐略） first peered through his small home made telescope at the stars. He saw numberless stars, not all at the same distance, some were nearer, and some were further. He discovered moons around Jupiter, and many other new things.
Since that time humans have raced to build bigger and better telescopes, the bigger a telescope is, the more details it reveals in distant objects, and thus the more we can learn about them.
Scientists can take two or more telescopes and use them together acting like one giant telescope to get a better image. This is called an interferometer （干涉计）. An interferometer has the same power as would a telescope the size of the distance between the telescopes being used.
Early on Wednesday morning, the two astronauts, Fei Junlong and Nie Haisheng, bade farewell to their commander as they boarded the Shenzhou 6 spacecraft. Two hours and forty minutes later, they were on their way into space. With the countdown at 9 am, the Shenzhou 6 lifted off on a Long March 2F rocket. Ten minutes later, it separated from the rocket and entered the earth’s orbit at an altitude of over 300 kilometres. China has successfully launched its second manned spacecraft from Northwest China’s Jiuquan Satellite Launch Centre.
The Shenzhou 6 is being tracked and directed from 10 land monitoring centres and 4 monitoring vessels deployed in the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian oceans. During their voyage, the two astronauts will be able to take off their 10-kilogramme spacesuits and travel between the re-entry capsule （大空舱） and the orbital capsule. The astronauts have sleeping bags for greater comfort, and will be able to heat up their food and take rests. It will also be the first time that Chinese astronauts will conduct scientific experiments on board. If everything goes smoothly, the Shenzhou 6 mission will go a long way to realising China’s ambition of having space walks and space stations some time in the future.
The craft is designed for the astronauts to stay in space for up to 7 days. The re-entry module is expected to touch down in Inner Mongolia, and a standby landing spot at Jiuquan is also ready for use in the event of an
emergency.
Millions of stars are travelling about in space. A few form groups which travel together, but most of them travel alone. And they travel through a universe so large that one star seldom comes near another. For the most part each star makes its journey in complete loneliness, like a ship on an empty ocean. The ship will be well over a million miles from its nearest neighbour. From this it is easy to understand why a star seldom finds another anywhere near it.
We believe, however, that some two thousand million years ago, another star moving through space, happened to come near our sun. Just like the sun and the moon raise tides (潮汐) on the earth, so this star must have raised tides on the surface of the sun. But they were very different from the small tides that are raised in our oceans. A large tidal wave must have travelled over the surface of the sun, at last forming a mountain so high that we can not imagine it. As the cause of the disturbance (干扰) came nearer, so the mountain rose higher and higher. And before the star began to move away again, its tidal pull had become so powerful that this mountain was torn to pieces and threw off small parts of itself into space. These small pieces have been going round the sun ever since. They are the planets.
Scientists in the UK have expressed their strong feeling for China’s plans to explore the moon with robotic spacecraft, and are keen to take part in the adventure. British scientists are seeking to cooperate with their Chinese counterparts (同仁) on the Chang’e Programme. This four-phase programme could see the return of astronauts to the moon’s surface for the first time since the Apollo 17 mission in 1972.
Ties between the Chinese and UK space community have been strengthened since a visit to China made by a team of British academics, agency officials, and space scientists earlier this year. At that time discussions took place regarding the UK building scientific instruments for the second phase of China’s lunar missions.
One British academic who participated in the discussions, Professor John Zarnecki of the Open University said, “I think they are looking for important cooperation. They have got good technology themselves but they will admit that they are fairly new in space science...”
China has already established itself as the third space superpower, having successfully launched two manned spaceflights─last year two Chinese astronauts spent five days in orbit before safely returning to Earth. But China’s space ambitions don’t stop there. As well as a lunar landing, plans are being made to set up a permanent space station.
The UK, on the other hand, has had a more modest space programme. Only a handful of Britons have broken free of the Earth’s atmosphere. Most recently, UK-born astronaut, Piers Sellers, spent thirteen days on board the American space shuttle discovery.

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