他们在猎户座发现一条“龙”？ / 四六文摘

喜欢我，就给我一个“好看”

Scientists are using modern technology to peer heavenward.

科学家们正用现代技术仰望天空。

Since ancient times, people gazing up at the night sky have seen animals, gods and goddesses, and other entities in the patterns of stars.

从远古时代起，人们就开始凝视着夜空，从星星排布的图案中看出动物，神灵，女神等。

Now scientists, using modern technology to peer heavenward, have spotted a new celestial object: a somewhat pudgy dragon lurking in the clouds of the Orion Nebula.

现在，科学家们利用现代技术观测天空，发现了一个新的天体:猎户座星云的云层中潜伏着一条胖乎乎的龙。

The dragon's fat shape holds clues about how stars form -- and how the process stops.

龙胖胖的形状为恒星是如何形成的—以及这个过程如何停止提供了线索。

Orion's Nebula is an enormous cloud of gas and dust about 1,300 light-years from Earth.

猎户座星云是一团巨大的气体和尘埃云，距离地球约1300光年。

It's the closest so-called stellar nursery to Earth -- its fuzzy light is even visible to the unaided eye as one of the points marking the hunter's sword in the constellation of Orion.

它是离地球最近的所谓恒星孕育地——在猎户座的星座中，作为猎户之剑的标记之一，它的模糊光线甚至可以用肉眼看到。

Scientists from the SOFIA program, a collaboration between NASA and the German Aerospace Center, recently examined the nebula's gas clouds in a new way.

索非亚计划是美国国家航空航天局和德国航空航天中心的合作项目，来自索非亚计划的科学家最近以一种新的方式研究了星云的气团。

SOFIA uses a modified Boeing 747SP airliner to carry a telescope that makes observations of the cosmos.

索非亚使用一架改装过的波音747SP客机来携带一架可以观测宇宙的望远镜。

A recent upgrade to one of the instruments aboard the plane allowed the researchers to record millions of light patterns, called emission spectra, that mark spots in the Orion Nebula where a positively charged form of carbon gas is being heated and cooled.

最近对飞机上的一种仪器的升级使得研究人员能够记录数以百万计的被称为发射光谱的光模式，这些光模式标记了猎户座星云中一个带正电荷的碳气体被加热和冷却的位置。

Such heating and cooling usually happens in the presence of young stars, so the data gives hints about where new stars are forming, how they form, and how many there are.

这种加热和冷却通常发生在年轻恒星存在的情况下，因此这些数据提供了关于新恒星在哪里形成、如何形成以及有多少恒星的线索。

When the researchers assigned colors to represent the brightness of the emission spectra and gave the image depth by representing the velocity of the glowing gas, they created a unique 3D view of the nebula and its star-forming engine.

当研究人员分配颜色来表示发射光谱的亮度，并通过表示发光气体的速度给出图像的深度时，他们创建了一个独特的星云及其恒星形成引擎的3D视图。

It was while exploring the data in this way that the scientists discovered a structure they nicknamed "Orion's dragon."

正是在以这种方式探索数据的过程中，科学家们发现了一种被他们戏称为“猎户座之龙”的结构。

They presented the new data at a meeting of the American Astronomical Society in Seattle in January.

今年1月，他们在西雅图举行的美国天文学会会议上展示了这些新数据。

The dragon's blue body represents an area where the spectra are brightest.

龙的蓝色身体代表了光谱最亮的区域。

Its large belly is formed by high velocity gas being expelled outward from a star at the center.

它的大肚子是由中心恒星向外喷出的高速气体形成的。

The "dragon" is one of two bubbles of rapidly expanding gas the researchers found surrounding young stars in Orion's Nebula.

研究人员在猎户座星云的年轻恒星周围发现了两个快速膨胀的气泡，“龙”是其中之一。

"The expanding molecular gas in the bubbles will no longer be available for star formation for several tens of millions of years," said Hal Yorke, director of the SOFIA Science Center in Moffett Field, California, in an email to Inside Science.

加州莫菲特场索非亚科学中心主任哈尔约克在给《科学内幕》的一封电子邮件中说，“气泡中不断膨胀的分子气体在数千万年内将不再适合恒星的形成。”

"The data set thus points to the smoking gun of how star formation is being regulated (i.e. "turned off") in galaxies," he wrote.

因此，该数据集指出了恒星形成在星系中是如何被调控（即“关闭”)的确凿证据“他写道。

This isn't the first time a dragon has been spotted in Orion's gas clouds.

这还不是第一次在猎户座气体云中发现龙。

In 2011, commenters on the internet site Reddit spotted a celestial battle between a man and a fitter looking dragon in a Hubble space telescope picture of the Orion Nebula.

2011年，Reddit网站上的评论者在哈勃太空望远镜拍摄的猎户座星云照片中，发现了一场一名男子和一名看起来更健康的龙之间的天体大战。

Still, Yorke expressed his personal preference for the new, pudgy dragon.

尽管如此，约克还是表达了他个人对这条胖乎乎的新龙的偏爱。

"Actually, this is my favorite。" he wrote.

“事实上，这条龙才是我的最爱。”他写道。