文档介绍：2012年职称英语考试理工类A级真题阅读理解出处
第45篇 Small But Wise
On December 14, NASA1 blasted a small but mighty telescope into space. The telescope is called WISE and is about as wide around as a trashcan. Don't let its small size fool you: WISE has a powerful digital camera, and it will be taking pictures of some the wildest objects2 in the known universe, including asteroids, faint stars, blazing galaxies3 and giant clouds of dust where s and stars are born.
"I'm very excited because we're going to be seeing parts of the universe that we haven't seen before, "said Ned Wright, a scientist who directs the WISE project.
Since arriving in space, the WISE telescope has been circling the Earth, held by gravity in a polar orbit4 (this means it crosses close to the north and south poles with each lap5). Its camera is pointed outward, away from the Earth, and WISE will snap a picture of a different part of the sky every 11 minutes. After six months it will have taken pictures across the entire sky.
The pictures taken by WISE won't be like everyday digital photographs, however. WISE stands for "Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer." As its name suggests, the WISE camera takes pictures of features that give off infrared radiation6.
Radiation is energy that travels as a wave. Visible light, including the familiar spectrum of light7 that es visible in a rainbow, is an example of radiation. When