美国宇航局的太空望远镜完美地发现了星系的侧面

美国宇航局的太空望远镜完美地发现了星系的侧面

NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope has spotted a perfectly sideways galaxy 44 million light-years from Earth, known as NGC 5866.

美国宇航局的斯皮策太空望远镜，近日发现了一个距离地球4400万光年的完美横星系，名为NGC 5866。

According to the space agency, NGC 5866 has a “diameter of roughly 60,000 light-years” and appears differently than most galaxies (either spiral-shaped or thick disks of dust) because of our vantage point.

据美国宇航局称，NGC 5866“直径约为6万光年”，由于我们的有利位置，它与大多数星系(无论是螺旋形的还是盘状的)的外观不同。

“Spitzer detects infrared light, and the red color here corresponds to an infrared wavelength typically emitted by dust,” NASA said in a statement on its website. “With a consistency similar to soot or thick smoke, the dust absorbs light from stars, then reemits light at longer wavelengths, including in infrared.”

NASA在其网站上的一份声明中说:“斯皮策探测红外光，这里的红色对应的是通常由尘埃发出的红外波长。”“这种尘埃的浓度类似于烟灰或浓烟，它吸收来自恒星的光，然后重新发出波长更长的光，包括红外线。”

NASA added that the dust emission from NGC 5866 indicates “that there is a very flat ring or disk of dust circling the outer region of the galaxy.”

美国国家航空航天局补充说，NGC 5866的尘埃发射表明“银河系外区域有一个非常扁平的尘埃环或尘埃盘”。

NGC 5866 may be intriguing to researchers because of the way it looks from our viewpoint, but its orientation also makes it challenging to learn more about it.

从我们的角度来看，NGC 5866可能对研究人员很有吸引力，但它的定位也让想了解它更多的工作更具挑战性。

“Our view of this galaxy is somewhat like our view of the Milky Way galaxy: Because Earth lies inside the Milky Way, we can see it only edge-on rather than face-on,” NASA added in the statement. “But our proximity to the rest of the Milky Way has allowed astronomers to reconstruct what our galaxy would look like viewed face-on.”

NASA在声明中补充说:“我们对这个星系的看法有点像我们对银河系的看法:因为地球位于银河系内部，我们只能看到它的侧面，而不是正面。”“但我们与银河系其他部分的距离，让天文学家得以重建我们的星系的面貌。”

The Spitzer telescope took the image during its “cold” mission, which ended in 2009.

斯皮策望远镜在2009年结束的“寒冷”任务中拍摄了这张照片。