The European Southern Observatory on Monday released an image of colorful clouds of gas created by the explosion of a huge star long ago.
欧洲南方天文台周一发布了一张由很久以前的巨星爆炸产生的彩色气体云图像。
 
The clouds are in our own Milky Way galaxy about 800 light years from Earth. A light year is the distance light travels in a year, 9.5 trillion kilometers. Scientists estimate that the star was at least eight times the mass of the sun.
这些云位于我们自己的银河系中，距离地球约 800 光年。一光年是光在一年中传播的距离，9.5万亿公里。科学家估计这颗恒星的质量至少是太阳的八倍。
 
The area of the colorful cloud is about 600 times the size of our own solar system.
五彩云的面积大约是我们太阳系大小的600倍。
 
The image shows the pink and orange filament structures of the cloud. Filaments are like very thin strings such as silk or the strings of a spider's web.
该图像显示了云的粉红色和橙色细丝结构。细丝就像非常细的线，例如丝绸或蜘蛛网的线。
 
The cloud was created by the star's explosion, called a supernova.
云是由恒星爆炸产生的，称为超新星。
 
In a supernova, a large star collapses onto its core or center. The pressure and temperature at the core become so high that atoms of heavier elements are formed, and huge amounts of energy are released in a massive explosion. A supernova can also produce very heavy elements such as iron, gold or uranium.
在超新星中，一颗大恒星坍缩到它的核心或中心。核心的压力和温度变得如此之高，以至于形成了更重元素的原子，并在大规模爆炸中释放出大量能量。超新星还可以产生非常重的元素，例如铁、金或铀。
 
Bruno Leibundgut is an astronomer connected with the European Southern Observatory (ESO). He explained that denser areas of material from the supernova hit surrounding gas and created some of the filaments seen in the image.
Bruno Leibundgut 是一位与欧洲南方天文台 (ESO) 有联系的天文学家。他解释说，来自超新星的更密集的物质区域撞击了周围的气体，并产生了图像中看到的一些细丝。
 
He said, "Most of the material that shines is due to hydrogen atoms that are excited. The beauty of such images is that we can directly see what material was inside a star."
他说，“大部分发光的物质都是由于被激发的氢原子。这些图像的美妙之处在于我们可以直接看到恒星内部的物质。”
 
The image shows the cloud, called a nebula, about 11,000 years after the explosion.
该图像显示了爆炸后约 11,000 年的云，称为星云。
 
What is left of the supernova is a small, very dense spinning object called a pulsar. The pulsar spins about 10 times per second.
超新星留下的是一个小而非常密集的旋转物体，称为脉冲星。脉冲星每秒旋转约 10 次。
 
The picture of the cloud is a combination of many images taken by the VLT Survey telescope in Chile. The telescope uses a camera with filters to capture light of different colors. The data for the image was collected from 2013 to 2016, the ESO said.
云的图片是智利 VLT 巡天望远镜拍摄的许多图像的组合。望远镜使用带有滤光片的照相机来捕捉不同颜色的光。ESO 表示，该图像的数据是从 2013 年到 2016 年收集的。