James Webb: Nasa space telescope delivers spectacular pictures
圖片來源，美國宇航局/歐空局/南航局/科技戰略 NASA/ESA/CSA/STSCI
上圖：韋伯的中紅外儀器觀察到的五個星系的宇宙舞蹈
The cosmic dance of five galaxies viewed by Webb's Mid-Infrared Instrument
「恆星託兒所」和「宇宙舞蹈」的驚人圖像已被美國宇航局新的100億美元太空望遠鏡捕獲。
Stunning images of a "stellar nursery" and a "cosmic dance" have been acquired by Nasa's new $10bn space telescope.
這兩張照片和其他照片於周二向全世界展示，標誌着詹姆斯韋伯天文台已經準備就緒開始科學運作。
The two pictures, and others, were presented to the world on Tuesday to mark the James Webb observatory's readiness to begin science operations.
自推出以來，該設施已經在過去六個月中進行了測試。
The facility has spent the past six months since launch undergoing testing.
作為著名的哈勃望遠鏡的繼任者，韋伯預計至少在未來20年內將成為天文探索的主導力量。
Viewed as the successor to the famous Hubble telescope, Webb is expected to be a dominant force for discovery for at least the next 20 years.
新的天文台是美國，歐洲和加拿大航天機構的一個聯合項目 - 由NASA牽頭。
The new observatory is a joint project of the US, European and Canadian space agencies - with Nasa in the lead.
韋伯經過專門調整，可以通過紅外線觀察天空 - 這些光的波長比我們肉眼可以感知到的更長。
Webb has been specially tuned to see the sky in the infrared - that's light at longer wavelengths than can be sensed by our eyes.
這將使它能夠比其前身（哈勃）更深入地觀察宇宙，並因此能夠檢測更久遠的天文現象 - 超過135億年前發生的事情。
This will give it the ability to look deeper into the Universe than its predecessor and, as a consequence, detect events occurring further back in time - more than 13.5 billion years ago.
天文學家還將利用其更先進的技術來研究我們銀河系中行星的大氣層，希望能夠檢測到生命的跡象。
Astronomers will also use its more advanced technologies to study the atmospheres of planets in our Milky Way Galaxy in the hope that signs of life can be detected.
最初的一批圖像只是對接下來的工作的嘗試，英國研究員Gillian Wright教授說，他是韋伯四種紅外儀器之一的聯合首席研究員。
The initial batch of images were just a taster of what would follow, said Prof Gillian Wright, the British researcher who's co-principal investigator on one of Webb's four infrared instruments.
「每當你以一種新的方式看待天空時，你都會看到你意想不到的東西。"Whenever you look at the sky in a new way, you see things that you didn't expect.
「事實上，這些新數據是如此之好，它們的質量如此之好，以至於它們在短短几個小時的觀測中就被捕獲 - 這告訴你，這些發現只是坐在那裡等待被做出，」英國天文技術中心主任告訴BBC新聞。
"The fact that these new data are so good, that they're of such good quality, that they've been obtained in just a few hours of observations - that's telling you that the discoveries are just sitting out there waiting to be made," the director of the UK Astronomy Technology Centre told BBC News.
卡里納星雲 Carina Nebula
圖片來源，美國宇航局/歐空局/南航局/科技戰略 IMAGE SOURCE,NASA/ESA/CSA/STSCI
Carina星雲是哈勃望遠鏡的經典目標 - 韋伯的前身 - 儘管在這個韋伯版本中，我們得到了一個非常不同的渲染。
The Carina Nebula was a classic target of the Hubble telescope - Webb's predecessor - although in this Webb version we get a very different rendering.
Carina是天空中最大和最亮的星雲之一，距離地球約7，600光年。
Carina is one of the largest and brightest nebulae in the sky, located roughly 7,600 light-years from Earth.
星雲是恆星的苗圃。它們是一個巨大的氣體和塵埃雲，從中正在孕育新的恆星。
Nebulae are stellar nurseries. They are a massive clouds of gas and dust in which new stars are forming.
除了這張韋伯的圖像，我們不僅看到了星星 - 我們的眼睛被所有的氣體和塵埃所吸引。天文學家在這裡指的是「宇宙礁」或「宇宙懸崖」 - 下半部分的塵埃和上半部分的氣體之間的一種寬闊的分界線。
Except in this Webb image, we not only see the stars - our eyes are drawn to all that gas and the dust. Astronomers refer here to a "cosmic reef", or "cosmic cliff" - a kind of broad demarcation between dust in the bottom half, and then gas in the top half.
韋伯的主要科學目標之一是研究恆星是如何形成的，而Carina是一個理想的研究對象。
One of Webb's key scientific goals is to study how stars form, and Carina is an excellent place to do that.
SMACS 0723
SMACS 0723是一個巨大的星系團。它被天文學家稱為「引力透鏡」，因為星團的質量彎曲並放大了更遠的物體的光。
SMACS 0723 is a huge cluster of galaxies. It's known to astronomers as a "gravitational lens" because the mass of the cluster bends and magnifies the light of objects that are much further away.
你在各處都能看到一個紅色的弧狀結構 - 那是一個星系 -在非常遙遠的地方，和更久遠的時間。其中一些弧中的光已經花了超過130億年的時間才到達我們的星球。
Everywhere you see a red arc-like structure - that's something - a galaxy - way off in the distance and far further back in time. The light in some of those arcs has taken over 13 billion years to reach us.
這裡有一件有點奇怪的事情 - 圖像兩側的一些弧線實際上是同一個物體。他們的光在不只一條路徑上彎曲穿過了SMACS 0723。
And here's the slightly bizarre thing - some of those arcs on either side of the image are actually the same object. Their light has been bent through SMACS 0723 on more than one path.
南環 The Southern Ring
圖片來源，美國宇航局/歐空局/南航局/科技戰略 IMAGE SOURCE,NASA/ESA/CSA/STSCI
你會在那些擺在咖啡桌上的書里看到令人驚嘆的哈勃圖像。
You'll have seen versions of this in those coffee table books of stunning Hubble images.
南環，或「八爆」星雲，是一個巨大的膨脹的氣體和塵埃球體，被中心的一顆垂死的恆星照亮。
The Southern Ring, or "Eight-Burst" nebula, is a giant expanding sphere of gas and dust that's been lit up by a dying star in the centre.
隨着恆星的老化，它們改變了製造能量的方式並噴射出他們的外層。然後，當恆星再次變得非常熱時，它會為它以前唾棄的所有物質提供能量。
As stars age, they change the way they make energy and eject their outer layers. And then, when the star gets very hot again, it energises all that material it had previously spurned.
南環直徑近半光年，距離地球約2000光年。
The Southern Ring is nearly half a light-year in diameter and is located about 2,000 light-years from Earth.
這種類型的結構被稱為「行星狀星雲」，但它實際上與行星無關。這是望遠鏡早期的用詞不當，當時它們沒有像今天這樣的分辨率。
This type of structure is called a "planetary nebula", but it actually has nothing to do with planets. It's a misnomer from the early days of telescopes when they didn't have anything like the resolution they have today.
正如韋伯想看看恆星是如何誕生的一樣，它也想看看它們是如何死亡的。
Just as Webb wants to see how stars are born, it wants to see how they die, also.
斯蒂芬的五重奏 Stephan's Quintet
大約2.9億光年之外，斯蒂芬的五重奏位於飛馬座。
About 290 million light-years away, Stephan's Quintet is located in the constellation Pegasus.
值得注意的是，它是有史以來被發現的第一個緊湊星系群。五重星系中有四個星系被鎖定在反覆親密接觸的宇宙舞蹈中。
It's notable for being the first compact galaxy group ever discovered. Four of the five galaxies within the quintet are locked in a cosmic dance of repeated close encounters.
這張韋伯圖像乍一看與哈勃版本沒有什麼不同，但新望遠鏡的紅外靈敏度將提供不同的特徵供天文學家研究。這是最大的希望 - 我們將讓韋伯與哈勃一起工作。它們具有不同的優勢，能夠進行比較和對比將為科學家的研究提供新的維度。
This Webb image doesn't look that different from the Hubble version at first glance, but the new telescope's infrared sensitivity will pull out different features for astronomers to study. And this was the great hope - that we would have Webb working alongside Hubble. They have different strengths and being able to compare and contrast will give scientists a new dimension to their studies.
我們不知道哈勃望遠鏡將運行多久。它已有32年的歷史，容易出現技術故障。但美國宇航局負責這匹老戰馬的官員剛剛提交了一份五年預算計劃。（讓我們）祈禱好運吧。
We don't know for how much longer Hubble will operate. It's 32 years old and prone to technical glitches. But the officials at Nasa who are in charge of the old warhorse have just submitted a five-year budget plan. Keep your fingers crossed.
黃蜂-96b WASP-96b
這不是一幅漂亮的照片。這是一個頻譜。
This is not a pretty picture. This is a spectrum.
韋伯將要做的大約一半是光譜學研究。這涉及將光區分出他的組成「顏色」，以揭示目標的屬性 - 它是由什麼組成的，它移動的速度有多快，它有多熱，等等。
About a half of what Webb will do is spectroscopy. This involves splitting light into its component "colours" to reveal something about a target's properties - what it's made of, how fast it's moving, how hot it is, etc.
這是W ASP-96b大氣層獲得的光譜，WASP-96b是我們太陽系外的一顆巨型行星，距離地球約1，150光年。
This is a spectrum obtained for the atmosphere of WASP-96b, a giant planet outside our Solar System, about 1,150 light-years from Earth.
WASP-96b有點像木星;它有一個大的氣體護罩。
WASP-96b is a bit like Jupiter; it has a big gaseous shroud.
韋伯能夠以驚人的精度識別大氣中的分子。您會看到水蒸氣的清晰標記。
And Webb is able to identify with stunning precision molecules in the atmosphere. You see clear markers for water vapour.
WASP-96b不是適合容納生命的行星;它離它的母星太近了，因此太熱了。
WASP-96b is not the right kind of planet to host life; it's too close to its parent star and therefore too hot.
但韋伯將尋找大氣層與地球相似的行星。當這種情況發生時，我們將問：這些行星可以居住嗎？
But Webb will be looking for planets that have atmospheres similar to Earth. When that happens, we will be asking: could those planets be habitable?
資料來源 Jonathan Amos
BBC Science Correspondent
翻譯助理：Luzhou
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