太空垃圾成隐患，宇航员进救生舱紧急避难

The crew members were scrambled into escape capsules ready to fire off for an emergency return to Earth after Nasa officials spotted a piece of space junk hurtling towards the path of the ISS.

在美国国家航天局发现一块太空垃圾正在飞向国际空间站的轨道上之后，今天国际空间站的成员们紧急撤离到了逃生舱，随时准备紧急返回地球。

The remnants of a discarded Russian satellite were picked up too late to manoeuvre the space station into a safer orbit.

这个俄罗斯废弃卫星的残骸被回收得不够及时，以至于国际空间站已经没有时间来调整进入一个安全轨道。

Instead, the three Russian, two American and Dutch astronaut were ordered by ground control to take shelter in the emergency Soyuz spacecraft early today.

取而代之的方案是今晨三名俄罗斯宇航员，两民美国宇航员和一名荷兰宇航员接到地面控制中心的命令，立即前往逃生舱Soyuz做躲避。

The debris eventually passed the ISS within an estimated nine miles.Although nine miles sounds like a long distance on Earth, but in space where both the station and the junk were travelling at 17,500 miles an hour in orbit, nobody was taking any chances.

最终这一块太空废物在预计的距离空间站9公里之外的轨道与空间站擦肩而过。虽然9公里可能听起来是一个很长的距离，但是在太空中像空间站和太空废物这一类物体都以17500公里每小时的速度在轨道中运动，没人可以承担任何风险。

The incident highlighted growing concerns about a collision in space as a growing volume of such junk, mainly from old satellites, swirls around the planet.

这起事件让人们对于类似于废弃卫星和宇宙飞船涡轮等太空垃圾撞击正常设备的担忧加重了几分。

Nasa says it is actively tracking some 22,000 pieces of space debris, but there are millions of objects left over from decades of space travel drifting in Earth's orbit.

美国国家航天局表示他们正密切追踪2.2万个太空垃圾，但是在过去的几十年里，人类在地球轨道中遗留了成千上万的物体。