2022年10月31日 VOA慢速英語：科學家報告發(fā)現(xiàn)了世界上已知最古老的星圖的一部分

 

Researchers say they have discovered part of the oldest known map of the stars in an ancient document.
研究人員表示，他們在一份古代文件中發(fā)現(xiàn)了已知最古老的恒星圖的一部分。
 
The document was first found in a Christian center, called a monastery, in Egypt. It was made of a material created from animal skin, called parchment, that was commonly used for keeping records in ancient times.
該文件最初是在埃及的一個名為修道院的基督教中心發(fā)現(xiàn)的。它是由一種由動物皮制成的材料制成的，稱為羊皮紙，在古代通常用于記錄。
 
The document contained Christian writings. But scientists who examined the parchment discovered additional writings that appeared underneath on the same parchment. It was common practice at the time to keep using the same parchment to create new writings because the paper could be in short supply.
該文件包含基督教著作。但檢查羊皮紙的科學家發(fā)現(xiàn)，在同一張羊皮紙的下面還有其他文字。當時的普遍做法是繼續(xù)使用同一張羊皮紙來創(chuàng)作新作品，因為紙張可能供不應求。
 
The researchers who examined the parchment found writings related to astronomy. They identified the writings as being created by an ancient Greek astronomer named Hipparchus.
檢查羊皮紙的研究人員發(fā)現(xiàn)了與天文學有關(guān)的著作。他們確定這些文字是由一位名叫喜帕恰斯的古希臘天文學家創(chuàng)作的。
 
Hipparchus was also a mathematician and is widely considered the creator of the form of math known as trigonometry. But he is also famous for creating what is believed to be the first map of the stars more than 2,000 years ago. Researchers estimate his observations of the sky were mapped around 129 BC.
喜帕恰斯也是一位數(shù)學家，被廣泛認為是三角學數(shù)學形式的創(chuàng)造者。但他也因在 2000 多年前創(chuàng)造了據(jù)信是第一張星圖而聞名。研究人員估計，他對天空的觀測是在公元前 129 年左右繪制的。
 
Historians knew about Hipparchus' map because it was described by other astronomers in later writings. But his own star descriptions were thought to be long lost. The discovery of what is believed to be part of his long-sought star map was recently reported in a study in the Journal for the History of Astronomy.
歷史學家之所以知道喜帕恰斯的地圖，是因為其他天文學家在后來的著作中對其進行了描述。但他自己的明星描述被認為早已失傳。最近在《天文學史雜志》的一項研究中報道了他長期尋找的星圖的一部分的發(fā)現(xiàn)。
 
The researchers used a method called multispectral imaging to take pictures of the parchment. The method uses several cameras to take pictures in different colors. Then, the pictures are combined with X-ray and infrared images. In this case, the process was used to uncover past writings and additional details in the parchment.
研究人員使用一種稱為多光譜成像的方法對羊皮紙進行拍照。該方法使用多個相機拍攝不同顏色的照片。然后，這些圖片與 X 射線和紅外圖像相結(jié)合。在這種情況下，該過程用于揭示羊皮紙中過去的著作和其他細節(jié)。
 
The examined document is known as the Codex Climaci Rescriptus. It is currently part of a collection held by The Museum of the Bible in Washington D.C. Evidence of Hipparchus' star map was found by researchers who had permission to work with the museum's document.
審查的文件被稱為 Codex Climaci Rescriptus。它目前是華盛頓特區(qū)圣經(jīng)博物館收藏的一部分。 喜帕恰斯星圖的證據(jù)是由有權(quán)使用博物館文件的研究人員發(fā)現(xiàn)的。
 
One of the researchers was Jamie Klair. As a student at Britain's University of Cambridge, she first found evidence in 2012 that the parchment contained astronomical information. Then, in 2021, researcher Peter Williams first observed the presence of astronomical measurements. Williams works for the international research center Tyndale House in Cambridge, Britain. Tyndale House centers on Bible research.
其中一位研究人員是杰米·克萊爾。作為英國劍橋大學的學生，她在 2012 年首次發(fā)現(xiàn)羊皮紙包含天文信息的證據(jù)。然后，在 2021 年，研究人員彼得·威廉姆斯首次觀察到了天文測量的存在。威廉姆斯在英國劍橋的國際研究中心 Tyndale House 工作。Tyndale House 以圣經(jīng)研究為中心。
 
Those researchers then cooperated with scientists at France's Sorbonne University to study the document further. After close examinations of the document, the research team concluded it contained parts of the ancient map, known as Hipparchus' Star Catalog. The Greek astronomer's map used groups of numbers to show the positions of fixed stars, known as coordinates.
這些研究人員隨后與法國索邦大學的科學家合作，進一步研究該文件。在仔細檢查文件后，研究小組得出結(jié)論，其中包含古代地圖的部分內(nèi)容，即喜帕恰斯星表。希臘天文學家的地圖使用一組數(shù)字來顯示固定恒星的位置，稱為坐標。
 
Historians believe the map represents the first attempt to record exact positions of stars across the night sky. Before the latest discovery, scientists used a star map created by Egyptian astronomer Claudius Ptolemy. He is believed to have created his map, known as the Almagest, about 300 years after Hipparchus.
歷史學家認為，這張地圖代表了首次嘗試記錄夜空中恒星的確切位置。在最新發(fā)現(xiàn)之前，科學家們使用了埃及天文學家克勞迪烏斯·托勒密繪制的星圖。據(jù)信，在喜帕恰斯之后大約 300 年，他創(chuàng)造了他的地圖，稱為天文學大成。
 
The researchers said the document they examined provided coordinates for stars in Corona Borealis, a constellation in what is known as the Northern Celestial Hemisphere.
研究人員說，他們檢查的文件提供了北極日冕中恒星的坐標，這是一個位于北天半球的星座。
 
One of the lead researchers was Victor Gysembergh, with France's National Center for Scientific Research in Paris. He told the publication Nature he "was very excited from the beginning" about the discovery. "It was immediately clear we had star coordinates."
主要研究人員之一是位于巴黎的法國國家科學研究中心的 Victor Gysembergh。他告訴《自然》雜志，他“從一開始就對這一發(fā)現(xiàn)感到非常興奮”。“很明顯我們有星坐標。”
 
Gysembergh worked closely with Emmanuel Zingg at Sorbonne University to translate the document. A statement from the university says examinations of the map suggested the data in it was extremely accurate. The researchers said it contained more accurate descriptions of star positions than Ptolemy's map.
Gysembergh 與索邦大學的 Emmanuel Zingg 密切合作翻譯了這份文件。該大學的一份聲明說，對該地圖的檢查表明其中的數(shù)據(jù)非常準確。研究人員表示，它包含的恒星位置描述比托勒密的地圖更準確。
 
James Evans is a historian of astronomy at the University of Puget Sound in Tacoma, Washington. He told Nature he sees the find as "rare" and "remarkable." Evans added that the discovery represents an important moment in scientific research. This was a moment when astronomers progressed from simply describing patterns they saw in the sky to measuring and predicting them.
詹姆斯埃文斯是華盛頓塔科馬普吉特海灣大學的天文學歷史學家。他告訴《自然》，他認為這一發(fā)現(xiàn)是“罕見的”和“非凡的”。埃文斯補充說，這一發(fā)現(xiàn)代表了科學研究的一個重要時刻。這是天文學家從簡單地描述他們在天空中看到的模式發(fā)展到測量和預測它們的時刻。