2011.12.22

正在轨道上运行的哈勃太空望远镜（Hubble Space Telescope）使天文学家观察到了以前从未有人看到过的景象，在距离地球将近130亿光年以外处发现了一个新的星系。对于这个星系来说，宇宙大爆炸（Big Bang）只是昨天的事，每隔几天就有新星出现。

这个遥远的星系正在以美国国家航空航天局所说的“令人震惊的速度”产生新星，迄今为止，被命名为GN-108036的星系是人类观察到的最为明亮的星系，而且距离遥远，离地球129亿光年，目前正以相当于每年100个的速度产生新的太阳。相比之下，我们的银河系（Milky Way galaxy）比GN-108036的规模大约100倍，但每年只产生大约3个新星。

由日本东京大学（University of Tokyo）天文学家大内正己（Masami Ouchi）率领的团队通过仔细观察在轨道上运行的哈勃和史匹哲（Spitzer）太空望远镜发回的图像，首先发现了这个遥远的星系，其它天文台审核了该团队的发现并确认了该行星的距离。

据美国国家航空航天局喷气推进实验室（NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory）发布的一份新闻稿，我们所看到的GN-108036非常接近时间的起点。137亿光年前宇宙随急剧发生的“宇宙大爆炸”诞生，GN-108036与之相距7.5亿光年。这个星系的光经129亿光年才到达地球，因此，现在天文学家见到的GN-108036只是非常遥远的过去形态。

哈伯太空望远镜在距地球约575公里的轨道上以每小时29,000公里的速度绕着地球运行，每96分钟绕地球一周。

The orbiting Hubble Space Telescope is allowing astronomers to see what no one has seen before. Almost 13 billion light years away, they’ve spied a galaxy where the Big Bang was just yesterday, and new stars are forming every few days.

A galaxy far, far away is churning out stars at what NASA calls a “shockingly high rate.” Called GN-108036, the galaxy is the brightest ever detected so far away, 12.9 billion light years, and it is producing new suns at the equivalent of about 100 a year. In comparison, our Milky Way galaxy is about 100 times more massive than GN-108036, but produces only about three new stars per year.

Examining images sent back by the orbiting telescopes Hubble and Spitzer, an international team of astronomers, led by Masami Ouchi of the University of Tokyo, Japan, first spotted the remote galaxy, and other observatories have reviewed the team’s findings to confirm the galaxy’s distance.

According to a news release from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, our view of GN-108036 lies near the very beginning of time, 750 million years after our universe was created 13.7 billion years ago in an explosive “Big Bang.” The galaxy’s light has taken 12.9 billion years to reach us, so what the astronomers see is how GN-108036 existed in the very distant past.

Orbiting approximately 575 kilometers above the Earth, the Hubble Space Telescope whirls around Earth at 29,000 kph, completing one full orbit every 96 minutes.