James Webb: Nasa space telescope delivers spectacular pictures
图片来源，美国宇航局/欧空局/南航局/科技战略 NASA/ESA/CSA/STSCI
上图：韦伯的中红外仪器观察到的五个星系的宇宙舞蹈
The cosmic dance of five galaxies viewed by Webb's Mid-Infrared Instrument
“恒星托儿所”和“宇宙舞蹈”的惊人图像已被美国宇航局新的100亿美元太空望远镜捕获。
Stunning images of a "stellar nursery" and a "cosmic dance" have been acquired by Nasa's new $10bn space telescope.
这两张照片和其他照片于周二向全世界展示，标志着詹姆斯韦伯天文台已经准备就绪开始科学运作。
The two pictures, and others, were presented to the world on Tuesday to mark the James Webb observatory's readiness to begin science operations.
自推出以来，该设施已经在过去六个月中进行了测试。
The facility has spent the past six months since launch undergoing testing.
作为著名的哈勃望远镜的继任者，韦伯预计至少在未来20年内将成为天文探索的主导力量。
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.
新的天文台是美国，欧洲和加拿大航天机构的一个联合项目 - 由NASA牵头。
The new observatory is a joint project of the US, European and Canadian space agencies - with Nasa in the lead.
韦伯经过专门调整，可以通过红外线观察天空 - 这些光的波长比我们肉眼可以感知到的更长。
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.
这将使它能够比其前身（哈勃）更深入地观察宇宙，并因此能够检测更久远的天文现象 - 超过135亿年前发生的事情。
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.
天文学家还将利用其更先进的技术来研究我们银河系中行星的大气层，希望能够检测到生命的迹象。
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.
最初的一批图像只是对接下来的工作的尝试，英国研究员Gillian Wright教授说，他是韦伯四种红外仪器之一的联合首席研究员。
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.
“每当你以一种新的方式看待天空时，你都会看到你意想不到的东西。"Whenever you look at the sky in a new way, you see things that you didn't expect.
“事实上，这些新数据是如此之好，它们的质量如此之好，以至于它们在短短几个小时的观测中就被捕获 - 这告诉你，这些发现只是坐在那里等待被做出，”英国天文技术中心主任告诉BBC新闻。
"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.
卡里纳星云 Carina Nebula
图片来源，美国宇航局/欧空局/南航局/科技战略 IMAGE SOURCE,NASA/ESA/CSA/STSCI
Carina星云是哈勃望远镜的经典目标 - 韦伯的前身 - 尽管在这个韦伯版本中，我们得到了一个非常不同的渲染。
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云之一，距离地球约7，600光年。
Carina is one of the largest and brightest nebulae in the sky, located roughly 7,600 light-years from Earth.
星云是恒星的苗圃。它们是一个巨大的气体和尘埃云，从中正在孕育新的恒星。
Nebulae are stellar nurseries. They are a massive clouds of gas and dust in which new stars are forming.
除了这张韦伯的图像，我们不仅看到了星星 - 我们的眼睛被所有的气体和尘埃所吸引。天文学家在这里指的是“宇宙礁”或“宇宙悬崖” - 下半部分的尘埃和上半部分的气体之间的一种宽阔的分界线。
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.
韦伯的主要科学目标之一是研究恒星是如何形成的，而Carina是一个理想的研究对象。
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是一个巨大的星系团。它被天文学家称为“引力透镜”，因为星团的质量弯曲并放大了更远的物体的光。
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.
你在各处都能看到一个红色的弧状结构 - 那是一个星系 -在非常遥远的地方，和更久远的时间。其中一些弧中的光已经花了超过130亿年的时间才到达我们的星球。
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.
这里有一件有点奇怪的事情 - 图像两侧的一些弧线实际上是同一个物体。他们的光在不只一条路径上弯曲穿过了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.
南环 The Southern Ring
图片来源，美国宇航局/欧空局/南航局/科技战略 IMAGE SOURCE,NASA/ESA/CSA/STSCI
你会在那些摆在咖啡桌上的书里看到令人惊叹的哈勃图像。
You'll have seen versions of this in those coffee table books of stunning Hubble images.
南环，或“八爆”星云，是一个巨大的膨胀的气体和尘埃球体，被中心的一颗垂死的恒星照亮。
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.
随着恒星的老化，它们改变了制造能量的方式并喷射出他们的外层。然后，当恒星再次变得非常热时，它会为它以前唾弃的所有物质提供能量。
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.
南环直径近半光年，距离地球约2000光年。
The Southern Ring is nearly half a light-year in diameter and is located about 2,000 light-years from Earth.
这种类型的结构被称为“行星状星云”，但它实际上与行星无关。这是望远镜早期的用词不当，当时它们没有像今天这样的分辨率。
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.
正如韦伯想看看恒星是如何诞生的一样，它也想看看它们是如何死亡的。
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
大约2.9亿光年之外，斯蒂芬的五重奏位于飞马座。
About 290 million light-years away, Stephan's Quintet is located in the constellation Pegasus.
值得注意的是，它是有史以来被发现的第一个紧凑星系群。五重星系中有四个星系被锁定在反复亲密接触的宇宙舞蹈中。
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.
这张韦伯图像乍一看与哈勃版本没有什么不同，但新望远镜的红外灵敏度将提供不同的特征供天文学家研究。这是最大的希望 - 我们将让韦伯与哈勃一起工作。它们具有不同的优势，能够进行比较和对比将为科学家的研究提供新的维度。
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.
我们不知道哈勃望远镜将运行多久。它已有32年的历史，容易出现技术故障。但美国宇航局负责这匹老战马的官员刚刚提交了一份五年预算计划。（让我们）祈祷好运吧。
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.
黄蜂-96b WASP-96b
这不是一幅漂亮的照片。这是一个频谱。
This is not a pretty picture. This is a spectrum.
韦伯将要做的大约一半是光谱学研究。这涉及将光区分出他的组成“颜色”，以揭示目标的属性 - 它是由什么组成的，它移动的速度有多快，它有多热，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.
这是W ASP-96b大气层获得的光谱，WASP-96b是我们太阳系外的一颗巨型行星，距离地球约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有点像木星;它有一个大的气体护罩。
WASP-96b is a bit like Jupiter; it has a big gaseous shroud.
韦伯能够以惊人的精度识别大气中的分子。您会看到水蒸气的清晰标记。
And Webb is able to identify with stunning precision molecules in the atmosphere. You see clear markers for water vapour.
WASP-96b不是适合容纳生命的行星;它离它的母星太近了，因此太热了。
WASP-96b is not the right kind of planet to host life; it's too close to its parent star and therefore too hot.
但韦伯将寻找大气层与地球相似的行星。当这种情况发生时，我们将问：这些行星可以居住吗？
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?
资料来源 Jonathan Amos
BBC Science Correspondent
翻译助理：Luzhou
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