天文突破! 科學(xué)家發(fā)現(xiàn)最遙遠的恒星

Astronomers using the Hubble Space Telescope have found the farthest star ever observed.

近日，天文學(xué)家用哈勃太空望遠鏡發(fā)現(xiàn)了迄今最遙遠的恒星。

The discovery required the fortuitous alignment of a massive galactic cluster. The cluster warped the starlight, bending it toward Earth while magnifying the star 2,000 times.

這一發(fā)現(xiàn)需要一個大規(guī)模星系團的偶然對齊。該星團使恒星的星光偏離了原本的方向，照向地球，將這顆恒星放大了2000倍。

Officially, the star's name is MACS J1149+2223 Lensed Star 1. But the astronomers call it Icarus.

這顆恒星的正式名稱為MACS J1149+2223 Lensed Star 1。但是天文學(xué)家們則稱其為“伊卡洛斯”

It was a hundredfold more distant than any other star previously detected, according to Patrick Kelly, an astrophysicist at the University of Minnesota.

明尼蘇達大學(xué)的天文物理學(xué)家帕特里克·凱利稱，該恒星比此前發(fā)現(xiàn)的任何其他恒星都要遠一百倍。

"The discovery of Icarus allows us to gather new insights into the constituents of the galaxy cluster," explains Steven Rodney, an astrophysicist at the University of South Carolina.

南卡羅來納大學(xué)的天文物理學(xué)家史蒂芬·羅德尼解釋稱：“伊卡洛斯的發(fā)現(xiàn)，使我們能夠?qū)π窍等旱慕M成部分有新的認識。”

Normally only phenomena like supernovas -- catastrophic stellar explosions -- or entiregalaxies are detectable at such vast distances.

一般而言，只有超新星等現(xiàn)象(災(zāi)難性的恒星爆炸)或整個星系才能在如此遠的距離下被觀測到。