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The European Space Agency, or ESA, recently released detailed¹ information on almost 2 billion stars in the Milky² Way galaxy³.

欧洲航天局最近发布了有关银河系中近20亿颗恒星的详细信息。

The data is being collected in an effort to create the most complete map yet of our galaxy.

收集这些数据是为了创建迄今为止最完整的银河系地图。

The data was gathered from ESA's Gaia space observatory⁴.

这些数据是从欧洲航天局的盖亚空间探测器收集的。

Astronomers⁵ hope to use the data to better understand how stars are born and die, and how the Milky Way has changed over billions of years.

天文学家希望利用这些数据更好地了解恒星是如何诞生和死亡的，以及银河系在数十亿年中是如何变化的。

The data includes new information like the age, size, temperature and chemical properties of stars. This information can be used, for example, to find out which stars were born in another galaxy and then moved to the Milky Way.

这些数据包括诸如恒星年龄、大小、温度和化学性质等新信息。例如，这类信息可用于找出哪些恒星诞生于另一个星系，然后移动至银河系。

"This is an incredible gold mine for astronomy," said Antonella Vallenari. She helped lead a group of 450 scientists and engineers. They spent years turning the measurements collected by the space observatory into information that can be used.

安东内拉·瓦莱纳里表示：“对于天文学来说，这是一座不可思议的金矿。”她帮助领导了一个由450名科学家和工程师组成的团队。他们花了数年时间将空间天文台收集的测量结果转化为可以使用的信息。

Gaia was also able to find more than 100,000 starquakes. ESA compared starquakes to large tsunamis⁶ that go across stars. They appear to make the stars' brightness change for a very short period of time. The events let scientists measure the stars' density⁷, interior rotation⁸ and inside temperature, said astrophysicist Conny Aerts.

盖亚探测器还发现了超过10万次星震。欧洲航天局将星震比作跨越恒星的大型海啸。它们似乎使恒星的亮度在很短的时间内发生变化。天体物理学家康尼·艾茨表示，这些事件让科学家们可以测量恒星的密度、内部旋转和内部温度。

The scientists have only collected information on about one percent of the Milky Way's stars. But the Gaia mission is already providing enough information for about 1,600 scientific publications a year.

科学家们只收集了大约百分之一的银河系恒星的信息。但是盖亚的任务已经为每年大约1600篇科学出版物提供了足够的信息。

Project scientist Timo Prusti said the large number of stars observed makes it more likely that scientists will make discoveries.

项目科学家蒂莫·普鲁斯蒂表示，观测到的大量恒星使科学家更有可能做出发现。

"You have to observe a lot of objects in order to get the needle in the haystack," he said.

他说：“你必须观测很多物体才能在大海捞针。”

Josef Aschbacher is head of ESA. He said the new data permits astronomers to understand forces in the galaxy. For example, it could show how our own solar system is moving inside the Milky Way.

约瑟夫·阿施巴赫是欧洲航天局局长。他说，这些新数据让天文学家能够了解银河系中的力量。例如，它可以显示我们的太阳系如何在银河系中移动。

"It is enabling things that would never be possible without this large number of data," he said.

他说：“如果没有大量数据，这是不可能实现的事情。”

The Gaia data now being released also includes information on 800,000 binary⁹ stars, which are stars in orbit around another star. There is also data on several new planets outside the Solar System, hundreds of thousands of asteroids¹⁰ in the Solar System and millions of objects beyond our galaxy.

现在发布的盖亚探测器的数据还包括关于80万颗双星的信息，双星是指围绕另一颗恒星运行的恒星。还有关于太阳系外几颗新行星、太阳系数十万颗小行星以及银河系以外数百万个物体的数据。