Newly released images captured by the James Webb Space Telescope show 19 spiral galaxies relatively close to our Milky Way. The images offer new information on star formation, galaxy structure and evolution.
詹姆斯·韦伯太空望远镜最新发布的图像显示了距离我们银河系相对较近的19个螺旋星系。这些图像提供了关于恒星形成、星系结构和演化的新信息。
The images were made public on Monday by a team of scientists involved in a project called Physics at High Angular resolution in Nearby GalaxieS (PHANGS). The project operates across several major astronomical observatories.
周一，一个名为“邻近星系高角分辨率物理学”的项目下的科学家团队公开了这些图像。该项目在几个主要的天文台运行。
The closest of the 19 galaxies is called NGC5068. It is about 15 million light years from Earth. The most distant is NGC1365, about 60 million light years from Earth. A light year is the distance light travels in a year, which is equal to about 9.5 trillion kilometers.
19个星系中距离最近的一个被称为NGC50068。它距离地球大约1500万光年。最遥远的是NGC1365，距离地球约6000万光年。一光年是光在一年中传播的距离，约等于9.5万亿公里。
The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) was launched in 2021 and began collecting data in 2022. It has shaped understanding of the early universe while taking pictures of space.
詹姆斯·韦伯太空望远镜于2021年发射，并于2022年开始收集数据。它在拍摄太空照片的同时，塑造了人们对早期宇宙的理解。
The orbiting telescope looks at the universe mainly in the infrared. The Hubble Space Telescope, which was launched in 1990 and is still in use, has examined the universe mostly at optical and ultraviolet wavelengths.
轨道望远镜主要在红外波段观察宇宙。哈勃太空望远镜于1990年发射，目前仍在使用中，主要在光学和紫外线波长下对宇宙进行了探测。
Spiral galaxies are a common galaxy type. Our Milky Way is one.
螺旋星系是一种常见的星系类型。我们的银河系就是其中之一。
The new observations came from Webb's Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam) and Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI). They show about 100,000 star clusters and millions, or even billions, of individual stars.
这一新的观测结果来自于韦伯太空望远镜的近红外相机和中红外仪器。它们展示了大约10万个星团和数百万甚至数十亿颗恒星。
"These data are important as they give us a new view on the earliest phase of star formation," said University of Oxford astronomer Thomas Williams. He led the team's data processing on the images.
牛津大学天文学家托马斯·威廉姆斯说：“这些数据很重要，它们让我们对恒星形成的最早阶段有了新的认识。”他领导团队对图像进行数据处理。
Williams added, "Stars are born deep within dusty clouds that completely block out the light at visible wavelengths - what the Hubble Space Telescope is sensitive to - but these clouds light up at the JWST wavelengths. We don't know a lot about this phase."
威廉姆斯补充道，“恒星诞生在尘土飞扬的云层深处，这些云层完全阻挡了可见光波长的光线——哈勃太空望远镜对此很敏感——但这些云层以JWST波长发光。我们对这个阶段了解不多。”
About half of spiral galaxies have a straight structure, called a bar, coming out from the center. The spiral arms attach to this structure.
大约一半的螺旋星系有一个直的结构，称为棒，从中心出来。螺旋臂连接到该结构上。
Williams said the commonly held thought is that galaxies form from the inside out. That way, they "get bigger and bigger over their lifetimes."
威廉姆斯说，人们普遍认为星系是由内而外形成的。这样，它们“在生命中变得越来越大”。
The images let scientists for the first time determine the structure of the clouds of dust and gas from which stars and planets form at a high level of detail.
这些图像使科学家首次能够以高水平的细节确定恒星和行星形成的尘埃和气体云的结构。
The images are in galaxies beyond the Large Magellanic Cloud and Small Magellanic Cloud. Those two galaxies are near the Milky Way.
这些图像属于大麦哲伦星系和小麦哲伦星系之外的星系。那两个星系在银河系附近。
Webb's observations build on Hubble's.
韦伯太空望远镜的观测建立在哈勃望远镜的基础上。
Erik Rosolowsky is an astronomer at Canada's University of Alberta. He said, "Using Hubble, we would see the starlight from galaxies, but some of the light was blocked by the dust of galaxies."
Erik Rosolowsky是加拿大阿尔伯塔大学的天文学家。他说：“使用哈勃望远镜，我们可以看到来自星系的星光，但有些光被星系的尘埃阻挡了。”
Rosolowsky added, "This limitation made it hard to understand parts of how a galaxy operates as a system. With Webb's view in the infrared, we can see through this dust to see stars behind and within the enshrouding dust."
Rosolowsky补充道，“这种限制使得人们很难理解星系作为一个系统是如何运作的。根据韦伯太空望远镜在红外波段的观测，我们可以透过这些尘埃，看到尘埃背后和内部的恒星。”
I'm Dan Novak.
我是丹·诺瓦克。(51VOA.COM原创翻译，请勿转载，违者必究！)