万岁哥斯拉，所有星系之王

万岁哥斯拉，所有星系之王

Behold the heavyweight champion of the universe, a galaxy of such epic proportions that astronomers are dubbing it "Godzilla."

看看这个重量级的宇宙冠军，这个史诗般的星系被天文学家们称为“哥斯拉”。

About 232 million light-years from Earth, UGC 2885 is located in the northern constellation of Perseus. (Photo: NASA, ESA, and B. Holwerda (University of Louisville))

Only this galaxy doesn't seem particularly ferocious. The supermassive black hole at its center is strangely sleepy. And it isn't even churning out fresh stars at a feverish rate.

只是这个星系看起来不是特别凶猛。位于其中心的超大质量黑洞异常沉寂。而且它甚至没有以狂热的速度产生出新的恒星。

The galaxy was imaged this month by a team led by Benne Holwerda of the University of Louisville, Kentucky using NASA's Hubble Space Telescope. It was given the technical designation UGC 2885, although Holwerda has nicknamed it "Rubin's galaxy" after the late astronomer Vera Rubin.

这个月，由肯塔基州路易斯维尔大学的Benne Holwerda领导的研究小组利用美国宇航局的哈勃太空望远镜拍摄了这幅星系的图像。它被赋予了技术名称UGC 2885，尽管霍尔维达以已故天文学家维拉·鲁宾的名字给它起了个绰号“鲁宾星系”。

"My research was in large part inspired by Vera Rubin's work in 1980 on the size of this galaxy," Holwerda explains in a press release. "We consider this a commemorative image. The goal of citing Dr. Rubin in our observation was very much part of our original Hubble proposal."

“我的研究很大程度上受到了Vera Rubin 1980年关于银河系大小的研究的启发，”Holwerda在一次新闻发布会上解释道。“我们认为这是一张纪念照。在我们的观测中引用鲁宾博士的话是我们最初的哈勃计划的一部分。”

Still, it's hard not to go with the much more monstrous nickname given to UGC 2885. After all, it may be the biggest galaxy ever recorded in our neck of the universe by a long shot.

然而，很难不去用UGC 2885这个更可怕的绰号。毕竟，它可能是我们所知的宇宙中最大的星系。

Consider our very own Milky Way, which is no slouch when it comes to size. From our terrestrial vantage — about 165 quadrillion miles from our home galaxy's central black hole — the Milky Way seems downright endless. Among the more than 50 galaxies comprising the local universe, it's long been considered second in size to the Andromeda galaxy.

想想我们自己的银河系，它在大小方面也不逊色。从我们地球上的有利位置——距离我们的银河系中心黑洞大约165千万亿英里——来看，银河系似乎是无边无际的。在组成当地宇宙的50多个星系中，它的大小一直被认为仅次于仙女座星系。

Astronomers peg the Milky Way's width at somewhere between 170,000 and 200,000 light-years. As writer David Freeman notes in NBC's Mach, "If you could drive across [it] and averaged 60 miles an hour, it would take more than 2 trillion years."

天文学家认为银河系的宽度在17万到20万光年之间。正如美国全国广播公司(NBC)的作家大卫·弗里曼在《马赫》节目中指出的那样，“如果你能开车穿越它，平均时速达到60英里，那将需要2万亿多年的时间。”

Now, take that mind-boggling girth and multiply it by 2.5. That would be around the ballpark of Godzilla, which clocks in at an estimated 463,000 light-years across. You wouldn't be able to take your Chevy to UGC 2885's levy in any less than 5 trillion light-years.

现在，把那令人难以置信的距离乘以2.5。这大约是哥斯拉的大公园，它的直径约为46.3万光年。你不可能在不到5万亿光年的时间内开着你的雪佛兰去UGC 2885's levy。

And did we mention that the newly discovered galaxy also boasts at least 10 times the number of stars as the Milky Way?

我们提到过新发现的星系的恒星数量至少是银河系的10倍吗?

Yes, Godzilla is a monster.

是的，哥斯拉是个怪物。

But the real question for astronomers is how UGC 2885 gained those epic proportions. Especially since it's characterized as a "gentle giant" that sits apart from the rest of the galactic pack. Located around the northern constellation Perseus in our night sky, UGC 2885 is modestly birthing stars and nourishing itself on hydrogen from intergalactic space.

但对天文学家来说，真正的问题是UGC 2885是如何获得如此巨大的成功的。特别是因为它被描述为一个“温和的巨人”，与其他星系群分开。UGC 2885位于我们夜空中英仙座的北部，它正在适度地生成恒星，并以星系间空间的氢气为养身之用。

"How it got so big is something we don't quite know yet," Holwerda notes. "It's as big as you can make a disk galaxy without hitting anything else in space."

“我们还不太清楚它是如何变得这么大的，”Holwerda说。“它就像你可以在不撞击任何其他空间的情况下制造一个圆盘星系那样大。”

Maybe it's sitting where smaller galaxies used to be — before they got Godzilla'ed? The trouble with that idea is that Gozilla doesn't seem to be particularly hungry. Even the supermassive black hole at its heart isn't very active, and possibly downright dormant.

也许它就在小星系曾经存在的地方——在哥斯拉被消灭之前?这个想法的问题是，Gozilla似乎并不是特别饿。即使是位于其中心的超大质量黑洞也不是很活跃，甚至可能完全处于休眠状态。

"It seems like it's been puttering along, slowly growing," Holwerda notes.

“它似乎一直在缓慢地前进，慢慢地成长，”霍尔维达指出。

A wide-field view of the night sky shows the region in which the giant galaxy resides. (Photo: ESA/Digitized Sky Survey)

Holwerda is presenting the results of his investigation at this month's American Astronomical Society meeting in Honolulu. But the real reasons for Godzilla's gargantuan dimensions may have to wait until NASA gets bigger, more powerful eyes in the sky. Equipment like the soon-to-launch James Webb Space Telescope and the Wide Field Infrared Survey Telescope (WFIRST) could go a long way toward toward solving the mystery of the monster galaxy.

Holwerda在本月火奴鲁鲁召开的美国天文学会会议上公布了他的研究结果。但是哥斯拉巨大的尺寸的真正原因可能要等到NASA在天空中发现更大更强大的眼睛。即将发射的詹姆斯·韦伯太空望远镜和宽视场红外巡天望远镜(WFIRST)等设备可能会在解决这个巨型星系之谜方面大有帮助。

"The infrared capability of both space telescopes would give us a more unimpeded view of the underlying stellar populations," Holwerda explains.

Holwerda解释说:“两架太空望远镜的红外线能力将使我们更清楚地看到底层的恒星群。”

But even if we aren't quite ready for this monster's close-up, we can still soak up it sprawling spectacle from afar.

但是，即使我们还没有完全准备好这个怪物的特写镜头，我们仍然可以从远处欣赏它庞大的奇观。