sun take tens of millions of years to form, and hundreds of millions of years to orbit

太陽的形成需要幾千萬年的時間，而環繞太陽運行的時間則需要幾億年。

their galaxies; colliding galaxies take billions of years to merge. And yet we have a pretty

他們的星系；碰撞的星系需要幾十億年的時間來合併。而我們卻有一個相當

decent understanding of how all these things happen, because there are so many of them

對所有這些事情是如何發生的有一個體面的理解，因為有這麼多的事情

in the observable universe that we can look out and see different versions of similar

在可觀察到的宇宙中，我們可以向外看，看到不同版本的類似

events happening in different places, and because light takes time to get here we see

在不同的地方發生的事件，由於光需要時間到達這裡，我們看到的是

places at different distances at different times thoughout the history of the universe,

在宇宙的歷史上，不同的時間，不同的距離，不同的地點。

and from all that we can piece together an understanding of how stars are born and how

從所有這些中，我們可以拼湊出一個關於恆星如何誕生以及如何

they die, how galaxies develop and interact, and so on. It's kind of like if you only

他們的死亡，星系如何發展和互動，等等。這有點像如果你只

had ten minutes to study how humans grow: you couldn't see any one person grow very much

有10分鐘的時間來研究人類如何成長：你無法看到任何一個人成長得很好

in that time, but by looking at humans of different ages all around the world, you can

在那個時代，但通過觀察世界各地不同年齡段的人類，你可以

get a pretty good picture of what a human life looks like.

得到一個相當好的人類生活的樣子。

However, the very first galaxies to ever form were so small and dim that we don't have nearly

然而，最早形成的星系是如此之小，如此之暗，以至於我們幾乎沒有任何證據來證明它的存在。

as good an idea of how baby galaxies are born as we do about how they behave and interact

我們對小星系是如何誕生的，就像我們對它們的行為和互動一樣有一個很好的概念。

later in life.

以後的生活中。

Our current understanding is that in the early universe, before any stars had formed, everything

我們目前的理解是，在早期宇宙中，在任何恆星形成之前，一切

was just spread-out gas and a lot of dark matter. Gravity would have caused slightly

只是分散的氣體和大量的暗物質。重力會造成輕微的

denser areas of dark matter to attract into clumps, pulling in bits of gas until they

在暗物質密度較高的區域吸引成團，將零星的氣體拉入，直到它們

were dense enough on their own to gravitationally collapse and start thermonuclear fusion. A

它們本身的密度足夠大，可以在重力作用下坍縮並開始熱核聚變。A

star. Many stars. Clusters of stars and their associated dark matter attracted together

明星。許多恆星。恆星群和它們相關的暗物質被吸引在一起

and merged, and then those clustered-clusters clustered together, eventually forming the

併合並，然後這些聚類的集群聚在一起，最終形成了

most distant (and longest-ago) galaxies we see today.

我們今天看到的最遙遠的（和最久遠的）星系。

But we don't know exactly how soon after the big bang the clumps of dark matter and

但我們不知道在大爆炸後多久，暗物質團塊就會出現在我們面前。

gas formed; or when during the process of clumping and clustering the first stars ignited;

氣體的形成；或者在結塊和聚集的過程中，第一批恆星被點燃。

or if there was a minimum dark-matter-clump size necessary to attract enough gas to form

或者，如果有一個最小的暗物質團塊大小，以吸引足夠的氣體來形成

stars; or if the very first star clusters came together to form galaxies at all – they

或者說，如果最初的星團聚集在一起形成了星系--它們

might have been so small and fragile they were blown apart when their own stars went

他們可能是如此之小和脆弱，當他們自己的恆星消失時，他們被吹散了。

supernova and the first galaxies may have actually formed from a second round of clumping

超新星和第一個星系可能實際上是由第二輪的結塊形成的。

of gas and dark matter as well as dust from the explosions.

的氣體和暗物質以及爆炸產生的塵埃。

To be honest, we don't even have a good enough definition of what a galaxy is to know when

說實話，我們甚至對什麼是星系都沒有一個足夠好的定義，不知道什麼時候能知道

to stop calling something a cluster of stars and when to start calling it a galaxy.

停止稱某物為星團，何時開始稱它為星系。

What we do know is that today we have bajillions of galaxies in our universe, none of which

我們所知道的是，今天我們的宇宙中有數十億個星系，其中沒有一個是

existed 13.8 billion years ago, so somewhere in between they must all have been babies.

存在於138億年前，所以在這之間的某個地方，他們肯定都是嬰兒。

Big gassy babies surrounded by clumps of dark matter.

被暗物質團塊包圍的大氣體嬰兒。

This video was made with the support of NASA's James Webb Space Telescope and the Space Telescope

這段視頻是在美國宇航局的詹姆斯-韋伯太空望遠鏡和太空望遠鏡的支持下製作的。

Science Institute. The James Webb Space Telescope is especially sensitive to the infrared wavelengths

科學研究所。詹姆斯-韋伯太空望遠鏡對紅外波段特別敏感

that light from baby galaxies gets stretched to by the time it arrives in our solar system,

來自嬰兒星系的光在到達我們的太陽系時被拉伸到了。

so astronomers are excitedly looking forward to using the JWST to learn more about the

是以，天文學家們正興奮地期待著利用JWST來了解更多關於

very first stars and galaxies that ever formed in the universe.

宇宙中最早形成的恆星和星系。