美國宇航局的太空望遠鏡完美地發(fā)現(xiàn)了星系的側(cè)面

美國宇航局的太空望遠鏡完美地發(fā)現(xiàn)了星系的側(cè)面

NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope has spotted a perfectly sideways galaxy 44 million light-years from Earth, known as NGC 5866.

美國宇航局的斯皮策太空望遠鏡，近日發(fā)現(xiàn)了一個距離地球4400萬光年的完美橫星系，名為NGC 5866。

According to the space agency, NGC 5866 has a “diameter of roughly 60,000 light-years” and appears differently than most galaxies (either spiral-shaped or thick disks of dust) because of our vantage point.

據(jù)美國宇航局稱，NGC 5866“直徑約為6萬光年”，由于我們的有利位置，它與大多數(shù)星系(無論是螺旋形的還是盤狀的)的外觀不同。

“Spitzer detects infrared light, and the red color here corresponds to an infrared wavelength typically emitted by dust,” NASA said in a statement on its website. “With a consistency similar to soot or thick smoke, the dust absorbs light from stars, then reemits light at longer wavelengths, including in infrared.”

NASA在其網(wǎng)站上的一份聲明中說:“斯皮策探測紅外光，這里的紅色對應(yīng)的是通常由塵埃發(fā)出的紅外波長。”“這種塵埃的濃度類似于煙灰或濃煙，它吸收來自恒星的光，然后重新發(fā)出波長更長的光，包括紅外線。”

NASA added that the dust emission from NGC 5866 indicates “that there is a very flat ring or disk of dust circling the outer region of the galaxy.”

美國國家航空航天局補充說，NGC 5866的塵埃發(fā)射表明“銀河系外區(qū)域有一個非常扁平的塵埃環(huán)或塵埃盤”。

NGC 5866 may be intriguing to researchers because of the way it looks from our viewpoint, but its orientation also makes it challenging to learn more about it.

從我們的角度來看，NGC 5866可能對研究人員很有吸引力，但它的定位也讓想了解它更多的工作更具挑戰(zhàn)性。

“Our view of this galaxy is somewhat like our view of the Milky Way galaxy: Because Earth lies inside the Milky Way, we can see it only edge-on rather than face-on,” NASA added in the statement. “But our proximity to the rest of the Milky Way has allowed astronomers to reconstruct what our galaxy would look like viewed face-on.”

NASA在聲明中補充說:“我們對這個星系的看法有點像我們對銀河系的看法:因為地球位于銀河系內(nèi)部，我們只能看到它的側(cè)面，而不是正面。”“但我們與銀河系其他部分的距離，讓天文學家得以重建我們的星系的面貌。”

The Spitzer telescope took the image during its “cold” mission, which ended in 2009.

斯皮策望遠鏡在2009年結(jié)束的“寒冷”任務(wù)中拍攝了這張照片。