NASA永遠deep space

Astronomers, in 1996, attempted something extraordinary. They pointed the Hubble Space Telescope into a part of the sky that seemed utterly empty, a patch devoid of any planets, stars and galaxies, this area was close to the Big Dipper, a very familiar constellation. 
天文學家於1996年嘗試了一項驚為天人的研究。 他們將哈伯太空望遠鏡指向了一片看似空洞的天空。 沒有行星，沒有恆星也沒有銀河系的一小片天。 

The patch of sky was no bigger than a grain of sand held out at arms length. This was a somewhat risky move by the scientists. After all, observing time on this telescope is in very high demand and some questioned whether it would be wasted trying to look at nothing. 
這小片天就在我們耳熟能詳的北斗七星附近。 向天空舉起一粒沙所遮住的範圍就是這片天的大小。 對科學家來說這是非常冒險的。 畢竟太空望遠鏡的觀測時間是大家爭相搶著要的。 有人就執疑觀測時間會不會浪費在虛無上面。 很有可能拍攝回來的畫面就跟肉眼看到的一樣黑黑一片。 

There was a real risk that the images returned would be as black as the space at which it was being pointed. Nevertheless, they opened the telescope and slowly, over the course of 10 full days, photons that had been travelling for over 13 billion years finally ended their journey on the detector of humanities most powerful telescope, their feeble signal collected almost one by one. 11. 一點一滴的在這十天之內。 12. 歷經了超過130億年旅程光子。 13. 終於落在人類最強大的望遠鏡的感應器上。 14. 它們脆弱的訊息一個一個的蒐集起來。 

But when the telescope was finally closed, the light from over 3,000 galaxies had covered the detector, producing one of the most profound and humbling images in all of human history-every single spot, smear, and dot was an entire galaxy, each one containing hundreds of billions of stars. 
15. 望遠鏡終於闔上。 照片顯示出來的是來自超過3000個銀河系的光子。 18. 這是人類史上最深奧最感到謙虛的影像。 19. 每一個小點每一個雜訊都是一座完整的銀河系。 20. 每一座都包含著數千億顆恆星。 

Later, in 2004, they did it again, this time pointing the telescope towards an area near the constellation Orion. They opened the shutter for over 11 days and 400 complete orbits around the Earth. Using detectors with increased sensitivity and filters that allowed more light through than ever before, over 10,000 galaxies appeared in what became known as the Ultra Deep Field, an image that represented the farthest we've ever seen into the universe. 
21. 2004年他們又做了一遍這次他們找了一片位於獵戶座旁的天空。 23. 他們將快門開啟了11天，期間哈伯繞行地球400次。 24. 他們採用了感光度更高的感應器。 25. 能接收更多光子的濾鏡。 26. 拍攝出了有上萬個銀河系的深領域 27. 它代表的是人類深入宇宙最遠的眼界。 

The photons from these galaxies left when the universe was only 500 million years old, and 13 billion years later, they end their long journey as a small blip on a telescope’s CCD. These galaxies, while standing absolutely still, are racing from us, in some cases, faster than the speed of light. The spacetime between us and everything else grows larger by the minute, pushing the galaxies in this image to a distance of over 47 billion light years. Because of universal expansion, the farther something is away from us, the more it’s light is shifted toward the red and the faster it appears to be moving. 
28.這些來自銀河的光子在宇宙才五億歲時啟程。 29. 130億年後他們在望遠鏡的感應器上留下了一小點，結束了旅程 30. 這些銀河看似靜止。 31. 實際上以極快的速度遠離我們。 32. 有些甚至速度超越了光速 33. 我們周圍的時間，空間不斷地在擴張。 34. 將這圖片上銀河系空間撑開了470億光年。 35. 因為宇宙不斷地在膨脹。 36. 離我們越遠的星體，他的光就會越接近紅色。 37. 看起來也會移動的較快。 

Edwin Hubble himself discovered this by measuring the redshift of many galaxies. Redshift is a measure of the amount of shift in a galaxy’s spectrum toward the red and measures not only speed, but distance as well. 
38. 籍著觀察這些銀河系的紅移，不但能得知它們移動的速度。 39. 也可得知它們離我們的距離。 

Recently, hubble scientists put the icing on the cake. Using the measured redshifts of all the galaxies inside the image, they made a 3D model of the Ultra Deep Field. This is how it looks when we apply the distances of the galaxies in the most important image ever taken. There are over 100 billion galaxies in the universe. Simply saying that number doesn't really mean much to us because it doesn't provide any context. Our brains have no way to accurately put that in any meaningful perspective. When we look at this image however, and think about the context of how it was made, and really understand what it means, we instantly gain the perspective and cannot help but be forever changed by it. We pointed the most powerful telescope ever built by human beings at absolutely nothing, for no other reason than because we were curious, and discovered that we occupy a very tiny place in the heavens. 
40. 最近哈伯科學家更錦上添花的 41. 利用紅移的數據，他們建造了一個3D版的深領域。 42. 當我們將這史上最重要的照片加上了深度。 43. 宇宙中有超過了一千億座的銀河系。 44. 這數字對我們可能一點意義也沒有。 45. 因為我們無法身歷其境地去體會。 46. 我們的大腦無法將這數據構成一個有意義的情境 47. 然而當我們看著這個影像，而試著去想這是如何形成的 48. 知道了他所代表的意義 49. 我們終於能夠稍微感悟到它的浩瀚 50. 情不自禁地被他所改變了 51. 我們將人類史上最強大的望遠鏡指向一片虛無 52. 僅僅因為我們很好奇 53. 發現了我們在這大千世界裡身處的居所有多麼渺小