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This is Scientific American’s 60-Second Science. I’m Christopher Intagliata.[qh]
這里是科學美國人——60秒科學系列，我是克里斯托弗·因塔利亞塔。[qh]
If you’ve ever looked up at the Milky Way, you’ve seen what’s known as cosmic dust.[qh]
如果你曾經仰望過銀河系，你就會看到所謂的宇宙塵埃。 [qh]
When you see this band of the Milky Way, you can see these dark patches. [qh]
當你觀察銀河系的光帶時，你可以看到這些深色的斑塊。 [qh]
So that’s really just dust that is obscuring the stars behind it.[qh]
所以這些塵埃掩蓋了它后邊的恒星。 [qh]
Pascal Oesch is an associate professor at the University of Geneva. [qh]
帕斯卡·奧什是日內瓦大學的副教授。 [qh]
He points out that cosmic dust isn’t exactly the kind of dust you or I might be familiar with.[qh]
他指出宇宙塵埃并不是你我所熟悉的那種塵埃。 [qh]
Cosmic dust is not quite the same as dust we know from the apartment here. [qh]
宇宙塵埃和我們在這間公寓里看到的塵埃并不完全一樣。 [qh]
Cosmic dust is really just very small particles in the universe that are consisting of just a few molecules, often containing carbon or silicate.[qh]
宇宙塵埃實際上是宇宙中非常小的粒子，僅由幾個微粒組成，通常含有碳或硅酸鹽。 [qh]
And—as in that Milky Way example—that cosmic dust absorbs the light of stars behind it, making it harder for us to see those stars with instruments like the Hubble Space Telescope.[qh]
而且，就和銀河系的例子一樣，宇宙塵埃吸收了它背后恒星的光，使我們很難用哈勃空間望遠鏡等儀器看到這些恒星。 [qh]
But there is one way around that: Astronomers can observe the sky with longer wavelengths—using telescopes like the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array in Chile, or ALMA. [qh]
但有一種方法可以解決這個問題:天文學家可以用更長的波長來觀測天空——使用像智利阿塔卡馬大型毫米波天線陣(ALMA)這樣的望遠鏡。 [qh]
With ALMA, astronomers can see even the dust bunnies hiding up in the sky—because as the dust absorbs photons from the stars behind it, it heats up.[qh]
使用ALMA，天文學家甚至可以觀察到隱藏在天空中的塵埃，因為當塵埃從它后面的恒星吸收光子時，它會升溫。 [qh]
And so then, with ALMA, we can directly see the emission of this heated up dust even in the very early universe.[qh]
因此，通過ALMA，我們可以直接觀察到這些升溫塵埃發熱，即使是在宇宙早期。 [qh]
Oesch and his team have now stumbled upon two previously obscured galaxies using ALMA observations. [qh]
現在，奧什和他的團隊使用ALMA觀測偶然發現了兩個之前被遮擋的星系。 [qh]
The galaxies date back to the very earliest days of the universe, 13 billion years ago.[qh]
這些星系可以追溯到宇宙最早期，即130億年前。 [qh]
So those are the first building blocks, right, of the galaxies that we see around us in the universe today.[qh]
所以這些是我們今天在宇宙中看到的星系的第一個組成部分。 [qh]
So these are the first kind of Lego stones. And apparently we have been missing some of those Lego stones.[qh]
這些是第一批樂高積木。很明顯，我們已經缺失了一些樂高積木。 [qh]
In fact, the scientists estimate that up to one in five galaxies may be missing from our current census of the early universe. [qh]
事實上，科學家們估計，多達五分之一的星系可能從我們當前的早期宇宙普查中消失。 [qh]
The results appeared recently in the journal Nature. [qh]
研究結果最近發表在《自然》期刊上。 [qh]
Hubble's successor, the James Webb Space Telescope, is set to sail off the planet later this month.[qh]
哈勃望遠鏡的繼任者，詹姆斯·韋伯空間望遠鏡，將于本月晚些時候駛離地球。 [qh]
And with its more powerful ability to probe long wavelengths, Oesch is hoping it might bring our galactic census a little closer to completion. [qh]
詹姆斯·韋伯空間望遠鏡擁有更強大的探測長波的能力，奧什希望它能讓完成銀河系普查更進一步。 [qh]
Thanks for listening for Scientific American's 60-second Science. I'm Christopher Intagliata.[qh]
謝謝大家收聽科學美國人——60秒科學。我是克里斯托弗·因塔利亞塔。[qh]
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