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Most things in the universe happen too slowly for us to see them happening.
宇宙中的大多数事物发生得太慢，以至于我们无法看到它们的发生过程。
Stars like the sun take tens of millions of years to form, and hundreds of millions of years to orbit their galaxies;
像太阳这样的恒星需要数千万年的时间来形成，然后围绕着它们的星系公转几亿年。
and colliding galaxies take billions of years to merge.
相互碰撞的星系需要数十亿年才能融合。
And yet we have a pretty decent understanding of how all these things happen,
然而，我们对这些事情是如何发生的有一个相当不错的理解，
because there are so many of them in the observable universe that we can look out and see different versions of similar events happening in different places,
因为在可观测的宇宙中有如此之多的黑洞，我们可以观察到类似事件在不同地方发生的不同版本，
and because light takes time to get here we see places at different distances at different times thoughout the history of the universe,
因为光需要一些时间才能到达这里，我们可以在不同的距离和时间看到不同的地方，贯穿整个宇宙历史，
and from all that we can piece together an understanding of how stars are born and how they die, how galaxies develop and interact, and so on.
从所有这些片段中，我们可以拼凑出一些理解，比如，恒星如何诞生和消亡，星系如何发展和相互作用，等等。
It’s kind of like if you only had ten minutes to study how humans grow: you couldn’t see any one person grow very much in that time,
这有点像，你只有十分钟的时间来研究人是如何成长的:你无法看出一个人在这段时间里成长了多少，
but by looking at humans of different ages all around the world, you can get a pretty good picture of what a human life looks like.
但是通过观察世界各地不同年龄的人，你可以很好地了解到人类生活的全貌。
However, the very first galaxies to ever form were so small and dim
然而，最早形成的星系是如此的渺小与模糊，
that we don't have nearly as good an idea of how baby galaxies are born as we do about how they behave and interact later in life.
以至于我们对初生星系是如何诞生的并不太了解，远不如我们对它们在后期的行为和相互作用了解得多。
Our current understanding is that in the early universe, before any stars had formed, everything was just spread-out gas and a lot of dark matter.
我们目前的理解是，在早期的宇宙中，在还没有形成任何恒星之前，一切都只是分散的气体和大量的暗物质。
Dark matter is matter that doesn't interact with things other than by gravity. So, we call it dark because we can't see it.
暗物质是一种除了引力之外不与其他物质相互作用的物质。之所以我们称它黑暗，是因为我们看不见它。
Gravity would have caused slightly denser areas of dark matter to attract into clumps,
引力会导致密度稍大的暗物质区域被吸引成团，
pulling in bits of gas until they were dense enough on their own to gravitationally collapse and start thermonuclear fusion.
吸入少量气体，直到它们自身的密度足够大，可以通过引力坍缩并开始热核融合。
A star. Many stars. Clusters of stars and their associated dark matter attracted together and merged,
一颗星。许多颗星。星团和它们相关的暗物质相互吸引并融合，
and then those clustered-clusters clustered together, eventually forming the most distant (and longest-ago) galaxies we see today.
然后这些星系团聚集在一起，最终形成了我们今天看到的距离最远的(和时间最久远的)星系。
But we don’t know exactly how soon after the big bang the clumps of dark matter and gas formed;
但我们不知道大爆炸后暗物质和气体团形成的确切时间;
or when during the process of clumping and clustering the first stars ignited;
不知道是在什么时候，凝聚和聚集的过程中，第一批恒星出现;
or if there was a minimum dark-matter-clump size necessary to attract enough gas to form stars;
不知道是否存在一个最小暗物质团簇，有了这个团簇才能吸引足够的气体以形成恒星;
or if the very first star clusters came together to form galaxies at all –
甚至不知道，最早的星团聚集在一起是否形成了星系——
they might have been so small and fragile they were blown apart when their own stars went supernova
它们可能非常的小而脆弱，当它们自己的恒星变成超新星时，就被吹向四方，
and the first galaxies may have actually formed from a second round of clumping of gas and dark matter as well as dust from the explosions.
第一个星系实际上可能是由第二轮气体、暗物质以及爆炸产生的尘埃聚集形成的。
To be honest, we don't even have a good enough definition of what a galaxy is
老实说，我们甚至还没有一个足够好的星系定义
to know when to stop calling something a cluster of stars and when to start calling it a galaxy.
以至于我们不知道什么时候该停止叫它恒星群，什么时候应该开始称它为星系。
What we do know is that today we have bajillions of galaxies in our universe,
我们所知道的是，今天宇宙中有无数个星系，
none of which existed 13.8 billion years ago, so somewhere in between they must all have been babies.
138亿年前它们都不存在，所以在这期间，一定有一段时期星系诞生。
Big gassy babies surrounded by clumps of dark matter.
这个巨大的充满气体的初生星系被一团团暗物质包围着。
