【推荐2】On Dec. 25, 2021, a new age of space science started when NASA set up the James Webb Space Telescope (望远镜) . It will change our understanding of space.

According to NASA, Webb is the world’s largest and most powerful telescope.The old Hubble Space Telescope mostly sees what we see-light, But Webb sees infrared (红外线的) light, which is invisible to the human eye. It can make new discoveries by examining stars inside those dust clouds. It will be able to“look at’”the first light after the Big Bang (宇宙大爆炸) which created our universe, as well as how young stars grow.

Webb “sees” by using mirrors to collect infrared light from the universe. The bigger the mirror is, the more details it can see. The telescope is as tall as a three-story building and as big as a tennis court. is so big that it has to fold its mirrors to fit inside the rocket, Once in orbit (轨道), they will unfold, creating one large mirror.

The telescope flew 29 days to reach its orbit, which is more than one million kilometers away from the earth. After six months, it sent back its first picture.

The building of the telescope started in 2004. About 40 million hours of work, thousands of scientists from 14 countries, 10 billion dollars and 1 heavy-lift rocket made it all possible.

Now it’s ready to help us answer key questions, such as where we came from and whether we’re alone in the universe.

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Have you ever looked out of the window of a passenger plane from 30,000 feet and wondered how people can have any major effect on the Earth? I have. But it is now becoming pretty clear that we are causing a great deal of damage (破坏) to the natural environment. And the planes that rush us in comfort to destinations (目的地) around the globe lead to one of the biggest environmental problems that we face today—global warming.

For those of us lucky enough to have money and time to spend, there are a huge number of attractive places to explore. The cost of air transport has decreased (减少) rapidly over the years, and for many people, especially in rich countries, it is now possible to fly around the world for less money.

Unfortunately, planes produce far more carbon dioxide (CO₂ ) than any other form of public transport, and CO₂ is now known to be a greenhouse gas causing the temperature of the Earth to rise. Scientists predict that in the near future the climate in Britain will follow that of the Mediterranean (地中海), a popular destination for British holidaymakers flying off to enjoy the sun. If global warming continues, we may also find that many tourist destinations such as the Maldives (马尔代夫) have disappeared under water because of rising sea levels.

So what can be done to solve the problem? Well, although engineers are making more efficient engines and researching other fuels (燃料) such as hydrogen, it will be a long time before air travel is not damaging to the environment. Governments don’t seem to be taking the problem seriously, so it is up to travelers to do what they can to help.

The most obvious way of dealing with the problem is to not travel by plane at all. Environmental groups such as Friends of the Earth encourage people to travel by train and plan holidays nearer home. However, with prices of flights at an all-time low, and exotic destinations more popular than ever, it is hard to ask British tourists to choose London instead of Beijing or Tokyo.

However, there is a way of offsetting (抵消) the carbon dioxide we produce when we travel by plane. A company called Future Forests offers a service that can reduce CO₂. The Future Forest website finds the amount of CO₂ you are responsible for producing on your flight. Then you will pay a small fee (费用) to the company. And it can help you plant the number of trees that will absorb this CO₂.

Yesterday I returned to Japan from England, and was happy to pay Futured Forests £25 to plant the three trees which balance my share of the CO₂ produced by my return flight. Now the only thing making me lose sleep is jet lag (时差效应).