2022年10月31日 VOA慢速英语：科学家报告发现了世界上已知最古老的星图的一部分

 

Researchers say they have discovered part of the oldest known map of the stars in an ancient document.
研究人员表示，他们在一份古代文件中发现了已知最古老的恒星图的一部分。
 
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.
该文件最初是在埃及的一个名为修道院的基督教中心发现的。它是由一种由动物皮制成的材料制成的，称为羊皮纸，在古代通常用于记录。
 
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.
该文件包含基督教著作。但检查羊皮纸的科学家发现，在同一张羊皮纸的下面还有其他文字。当时的普遍做法是继续使用同一张羊皮纸来创作新作品，因为纸张可能供不应求。
 
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.
检查羊皮纸的研究人员发现了与天文学有关的著作。他们确定这些文字是由一位名叫喜帕恰斯的古希腊天文学家创作的。
 
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.
喜帕恰斯也是一位数学家，被广泛认为是三角学数学形式的创造者。但他也因在 2000 多年前创造了据信是第一张星图而闻名。研究人员估计，他对天空的观测是在公元前 129 年左右绘制的。
 
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.
历史学家之所以知道喜帕恰斯的地图，是因为其他天文学家在后来的著作中对其进行了描述。但他自己的明星描述被认为早已失传。最近在《天文学史杂志》的一项研究中报道了他长期寻找的星图的一部分的发现。
 
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.
研究人员使用一种称为多光谱成像的方法对羊皮纸进行拍照。该方法使用多个相机拍摄不同颜色的照片。然后，这些图片与 X 射线和红外图像相结合。在这种情况下，该过程用于揭示羊皮纸中过去的著作和其他细节。
 
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.
审查的文件被称为 Codex Climaci Rescriptus。它目前是华盛顿特区圣经博物馆收藏的一部分。 喜帕恰斯星图的证据是由有权使用博物馆文件的研究人员发现的。
 
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.
其中一位研究人员是杰米·克莱尔。作为英国剑桥大学的学生，她在 2012 年首次发现羊皮纸包含天文信息的证据。然后，在 2021 年，研究人员彼得·威廉姆斯首次观察到了天文测量的存在。威廉姆斯在英国剑桥的国际研究中心 Tyndale House 工作。Tyndale House 以圣经研究为中心。
 
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.
这些研究人员随后与法国索邦大学的科学家合作，进一步研究该文件。在仔细检查文件后，研究小组得出结论，其中包含古代地图的部分内容，即喜帕恰斯星表。希腊天文学家的地图使用一组数字来显示固定恒星的位置，称为坐标。
 
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.
历史学家认为，这张地图代表了首次尝试记录夜空中恒星的确切位置。在最新发现之前，科学家们使用了埃及天文学家克劳迪乌斯·托勒密绘制的星图。据信，在喜帕恰斯之后大约 300 年，他创造了他的地图，称为天文学大成。
 
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.
研究人员说，他们检查的文件提供了北极日冕中恒星的坐标，这是一个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."
主要研究人员之一是位于巴黎的法国国家科学研究中心的 Victor Gysembergh。他告诉《自然》杂志，他“从一开始就对这一发现感到非常兴奋”。“很明显我们有星坐标。”
 
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 与索邦大学的 Emmanuel Zingg 密切合作翻译了这份文件。该大学的一份声明说，对该地图的检查表明其中的数据非常准确。研究人员表示，它包含的恒星位置描述比托勒密的地图更准确。
 
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.
詹姆斯埃文斯是华盛顿塔科马普吉特海湾大学的天文学历史学家。他告诉《自然》，他认为这一发现是“罕见的”和“非凡的”。埃文斯补充说，这一发现代表了科学研究的一个重要时刻。这是天文学家从简单地描述他们在天空中看到的模式发展到测量和预测它们的时刻。