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This is Scientific American’s 60-Second Science. I’m Christopher Intagliata.[qh]
这里是科学美国人——60秒科学系列，我是克里斯托弗·因塔利亚塔。[qh]
If you’ve ever looked up at the Milky Way, you’ve seen what’s known as cosmic dust.[qh]
如果你曾经仰望过银河系，你就会看到所谓的宇宙尘埃。 [qh]
When you see this band of the Milky Way, you can see these dark patches. [qh]
当你观察银河系的光带时，你可以看到这些深色的斑块。 [qh]
So that’s really just dust that is obscuring the stars behind it.[qh]
所以这些尘埃掩盖了它后边的恒星。 [qh]
Pascal Oesch is an associate professor at the University of Geneva. [qh]
帕斯卡·奥什是日内瓦大学的副教授。 [qh]
He points out that cosmic dust isn’t exactly the kind of dust you or I might be familiar with.[qh]
他指出宇宙尘埃并不是你我所熟悉的那种尘埃。 [qh]
Cosmic dust is not quite the same as dust we know from the apartment here. [qh]
宇宙尘埃和我们在这间公寓里看到的尘埃并不完全一样。 [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]
宇宙尘埃实际上是宇宙中非常小的粒子，仅由几个微粒组成，通常含有碳或硅酸盐。 [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，就和银河系的例子一样，宇宙尘埃吸收了它背后恒星的光，使我们很难用哈勃空间望远镜等仪器看到这些恒星。 [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]
但有一种方法可以解决这个问题:天文学家可以用更长的波长来观测天空——使用像智利阿塔卡马大型毫米波天线阵(ALMA)这样的望远镜。 [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，天文学家甚至可以观察到隐藏在天空中的尘埃，因为当尘埃从它后面的恒星吸收光子时，它会升温。 [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，通过ALMA，我们可以直接观察到这些升温尘埃发热，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]
现在，奥什和他的团队使用ALMA观测偶然发现了两个之前被遮挡的星系。 [qh]
The galaxies date back to the very earliest days of the universe, 13 billion years ago.[qh]
这些星系可以追溯到宇宙最早期，即130亿年前。 [qh]
So those are the first building blocks, right, of the galaxies that we see around us in the universe today.[qh]
所以这些是我们今天在宇宙中看到的星系的第一个组成部分。 [qh]
So these are the first kind of Lego stones. And apparently we have been missing some of those Lego stones.[qh]
这些是第一批乐高积木。很明显，我们已经缺失了一些乐高积木。 [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]
事实上，科学家们估计，多达五分之一的星系可能从我们当前的早期宇宙普查中消失。 [qh]
The results appeared recently in the journal Nature. [qh]
研究结果最近发表在《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]
哈勃望远镜的继任者，詹姆斯·韦伯空间望远镜，将于本月晚些时候驶离地球。 [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·韦伯空间望远镜拥有更强大的探测长波的能力，奥什希望它能让完成银河系普查更进一步。 [qh]
Thanks for listening for Scientific American's 60-second Science. I'm Christopher Intagliata.[qh]
谢谢大家收听科学美国人——60秒科学。我是克里斯托弗·因塔利亚塔。[qh]
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