评论
打印
It was just a tiny galaxy, minding its own business shortly after the big bang. But a chance alignment has brought this ancient galaxy into view. It just might be the most distant object that astronomers have ever seen.
银河原本很渺小，大爆炸后便开始迅速扩张。当这个古老的星系与背景星系排成一线时，银河便清晰可见了。它也许是天文学家观测到的最远的天体。
A new study using the Hubble and Spitzer space telescopes has tentatively identified the galaxy, so far away that its light has traveled for 13.3 billion years to reach us.
一项新的研究利用哈勃望远镜个和斯皮策太空望远镜来观测，初步确认了银河，它是如此遥远，以至于它发出的光要经过133亿年才能到达地球。
The galaxy itself is no shining cosmic beacon. In fact it's only about one one-hundredth the size of the Milky Way. So how did the scopes see it? Chalk it up to a cosmic conjunction.
银河本身就像一个不发光的宇宙灯塔。实际上它只有银河系的百分之一。那么如何用望眼镜看见它。这要归结为宇宙合点。
Some 5.6 billion years ago, its light passed a giant cluster of galaxies. The gravitational pull of the galaxy cluster acted like a lens. As a result, the scopes saw the tiny, distant galaxy in distorted—but greatly magnified—form. The study will appear in The Astrophysical Journal.
大约56亿年前，银河发出的光经过了一个巨大的星系团。在万有引力的作用下，星系团就相当于晶状体。因此，望远镜就看见了微小的，遥远的银河，虽然已经变形，但被极度放大了。这项研究发表在《天体物理学杂志》上。
In the cosmologist's preferred distance measure of redshift, which gauges how much light has been stretched in an expanding universe, the galaxy lies at a redshift of about 10.7. The previous record holder was found at about redshift 10. Literally far out.
宇宙学家更倾向于红移的距离测量，计算宇宙的膨胀来判断光波被拉长了多少。这个星系的红移量大约是10.7。之前的记录大约是10。确实相距甚远。
原文译文属可可原创，未经允许请勿转载！
