科学家发现巨大的古老星系隐藏在我们的视野中

科学家发现巨大的古老星系隐藏在我们的视野中

If you don't want to be found, the universe is a good place to hide.

如果你不想被发现，宇宙是一个隐藏的好地方。

But as prying Earthling eyes scan the heavens, could entire galaxies remain on the lam?

但是，当好奇的地球人的眼睛扫视天空时，整个星系是否还在运行?

According to research published in the journal Nature, they've been hiding from us for eons.

根据发表在《自然》(Nature)杂志上的一项研究，它们已经对我们隐藏了上亿年。

Ancient galaxies from the study are visible to ALMA (right) but not to Hubble (left). (Photo: Wang et al)

Ancient, secret galaxies, they say, have always been among us. We just had to look for them from a different perspective.

他们说，古老而神秘的星系一直就在我们身边。我们只需要从不同的角度来寻找它们。

For scientists at the University of Tokyo, that perspective came from stepping away from our faithful eye in the sky — the Hubble Space Telescope — and using an innovative combination of modern observatories to squint at the stars.

对于东京大学的科学家们来说，这种观点来自于远离我们在天空中忠实的眼睛——哈勃太空望远镜——并使用现代天文台的创新组合来眯着眼睛看星星。

And suddenly, there are 39 shiny new galaxies — all hiding in plain sight, and all offering fresh clues to solve the longstanding mysteries of dark matter and black holes.

突然间，39个闪亮的新星系出现了——它们都隐藏在我们的视野之中，所有这些都为解开暗物质和黑洞的长期之谜提供了新的线索。

Not only do these new galaxies represent vast new tracts of the universe for us to ponder, they may also offer key insight into how the universe evolved. For one thing, since they're not exactly the new kids on the block — but likely existed when the universe itself was still young — they've had billions of years to sprawl across space.

这些新星系不仅代表了宇宙中广阔的新领域，值得我们去思考，它们还可能为我们了解宇宙是如何演化的提供关键线索。首先，由于它们并不完全是新出现的孩子——但很可能在宇宙本身还年轻的时候就已经存在了——它们有数十亿年的时间可以在太空中蔓延。

And where there are massive galaxies, there are supermassive black holes — and all the dark matter trimmings we can sink our scientific teeth into.

哪里有巨大的星系，哪里就有超大质量的黑洞——以及所有我们可以用科学的牙齿咬进去的暗物质碎片。

Since its launch in 1990, Hubble has given us an unprecedented view of the cosmos. But it's not without its blindspots. (Photo: NASA)

To reveal these galaxies, researchers had to step away from Hubble, an optical telescope that can only respond to visual cues.

为了揭示这些星系，研究人员不得不远离哈勃望远镜，这是一架只能对视觉信号做出反应的光学望远镜。

"The light from these galaxies is very faint with long wavelengths invisible to our eyes and undetectable by Hubble," Kohno notes.

Kohno指出:“这些星系发出的光线非常微弱，我们的眼睛看不见长波，哈勃无法探测到。”

Instead, researchers collected data from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope, a space-based observatory that sees space in infrared. In all, Spitzer sniffed out 63 objects that we never knew were there. Researchers winnowed down their findings with the Chile-based Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (mercifully shortened to ALMA).

相反，研究人员从NASA的斯皮策太空望远镜上收集数据。斯皮策总共探测出63个我们从未知晓存在的物体。研究人员用基于辣椒的Atacama大毫米/亚毫米阵列(幸运的是缩写为ALMA)筛选了他们的发现。

But the best is likely yet to come, as NASA prepares the James Webb Space Telescope, described as "the biggest, most powerful telescope ever to be put in space."

但最好的可能还会到来，因为美国宇航局正在准备詹姆斯韦伯太空望远镜，描述为“有史以来最大、最强大的太空望远镜。”

Set for a March 2021 launch, this landmark bundle of technology will leave even fewer stones unturned in the universe.

这一具有里程碑意义的技术组合将于2021年3月发射，届时宇宙中未开发的石头将会更少。

Fugitive galaxies, consider yourselves on notice.

转瞬即逝的星系，请注意。