萬歲哥斯拉，所有星系之王

萬歲哥斯拉，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."

看看這個重量級的宇宙冠軍，這個史詩般的星系被天文學(xué)家們稱為“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.

只是這個星系看起來不是特別兇猛。位于其中心的超大質(zhì)量黑洞異常沉寂。而且它甚至沒有以狂熱的速度產(chǎn)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.

這個月，由肯塔基州路易斯維爾大學(xué)的Benne Holwerda領(lǐng)導(dǎo)的研究小組利用美國宇航局的哈勃太空望遠鏡拍攝了這幅星系的圖像。它被賦予了技術(shù)名稱UGC 2885，盡管霍爾維達以已故天文學(xué)家維拉·魯賓的名字給它起了個綽號“魯賓星系”。

"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年關(guān)于銀河系大小的研究的啟發(fā)，”Holwerda在一次新聞發(fā)布會上解釋道。“我們認(rèn)為這是一張紀(jì)念照。在我們的觀測中引用魯賓博士的話是我們最初的哈勃計劃的一部分。”

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，很難不去用UGC 2885這個更可怕的綽號。畢竟，它可能是我們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.

想想我們自己的銀河系，它在大小方面也不遜色。從我們地球上的有利位置——距離我們的銀河系中心黑洞大約165千萬億英里——來看，銀河系似乎是無邊無際的。在組成當(dāng)?shù)赜钪娴?0多個星系中，它的大小一直被認(rèn)為僅次于仙女座星系。

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."

天文學(xué)家認(rèn)為銀河系的寬度在17萬到20萬光年之間。正如美國全國廣播公司(NBC)的作家大衛(wèi)·弗里曼在《馬赫》節(jié)目中指出的那樣，“如果你能開車穿越它，平均時速達到60英里，那將需要2萬億多年的時間。”

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.

現(xiàn)在，把那令人難以置信的距離乘以2.5。這大約是哥斯拉的大公園，它的直徑約為46.3萬光年。你不可能在不到5萬億光年的時間內(nèi)開著你的雪佛蘭去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?

我們提到過新發(fā)現(xiàn)的星系的恒星數(shù)量至少是銀河系的10倍嗎?

Yes, Godzilla is a monster.

是的，哥斯拉是個怪物。

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.

但對天文學(xué)家來說，真正的問題是UGC 2885是如何獲得如此巨大的成功的。特別是因為它被描述為一個“溫和的巨人”，與其他星系群分開。UGC 2885位于我們夜空中英仙座的北部，它正在適度地生成恒星，并以星系間空間的氫氣為養(yǎng)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."

“我們還不太清楚它是如何變得這么大的，”Holwerda說。“它就像你可以在不撞擊任何其他空間的情況下制造一個圓盤星系那樣大。”

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.

也許它就在小星系曾經(jīng)存在的地方——在哥斯拉被消滅之前?這個想法的問題是，Gozilla似乎并不是特別餓。即使是位于其中心的超大質(zhì)量黑洞也不是很活躍，甚至可能完全處于休眠狀態(tài)。

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

“它似乎一直在緩慢地前進，慢慢地成長，”霍爾維達指出。

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在本月火奴魯魯召開的美國天文學(xué)會會議上公布了他的研究結(jié)果。但是哥斯拉巨大的尺寸的真正原因可能要等到NASA在天空中發(fā)現(xiàn)更大更強大的眼睛。即將發(fā)射的詹姆斯·韋伯太空望遠鏡和寬視場紅外巡天望遠鏡(WFIRST)等設(shè)備可能會在解決這個巨型星系之謎方面大有幫助。

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

Holwerda解釋說:“兩架太空望遠鏡的紅外線能力將使我們更清楚地看到底層的恒星群。”

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，即使我們還沒有完全準(zhǔn)備好這個怪物的特寫鏡頭，我們?nèi)匀豢梢詮倪h處欣賞它龐大的奇觀。