Hi there, and welcome to a new episode of News Bites!

I'm Nancy Sun…

And I'm Trevor Tortomasi.

In today's news:

Butterflies cross the road, galaxies get in the picture, and the U.S. celebrates St. Paddy's Day.

All that and more, coming up next.

________________________________

國3部分封道迎接紫斑蝶

Freeway Closes in Part for Butterflies

Every year the purple crow butterfly does something very special.

They migrate (遷移) from their winter home in Kaohsiung to their summer homes in Yunlin.

And this year, the butterflies started arriving in Yunlin early!

To protect the butterflies, the right lane of Taiwan's National Freeway Number 3 was closed through Yunlin.

為了保護蝴蝶，台灣的國道三號右車道一部分封閉了。

Over 300 butterflies a minute crossed the freeway.

每分鐘有超過 300 隻蝴蝶飛過高速公路。

When the butterflies cross the road, motorists (駕駛) shouldn't speed (超速).

If they do, they might hurt the butterflies!

The butterflies didn't leave their winter home in Kaohsiung until February 28th this year.

So it was a bit of a surprise when they started appearing so soon.

Most years, the highway doesn't need to be closed until March 20th.

To protect the beautiful insects, the Freeway Bureau will also set up a net near the freeway to prevent the butterflies from getting too close to the cars.

Lovers of the purple crow butterfly also come to see their migration every year.

They can be seen in the weeks before or just after Tomb Sweeping Day.

And the best time of day to see them is between the hours of 9 and 11 AM.

________________________________

星系亂入恆星照片

Star Gets Photobombed by Galaxies

NASA launched (發射) the James Webb Telescope in December.

And now it's taking photos deep into space!

They tested the telescope by taking a picture of a star more than 9,000,000,000,000 kilometers away!

為了測試望遠鏡，NASA拍攝一顆9兆公里外的恆星！

When scientists looked at the photo, they saw thousands of galaxies in the background (背景、後景).

The galaxies 'photobombed' the picture of the star!

星系亂入恆星的照片！

The galaxies in the picture are several billion years old.

The beautiful picture can be seen online.

It has a reddish color because the telescope has special filters (濾色鏡).

Engineers (工程師) at NASA said they were 'giddy'(很興奮) when they saw the photo for the first time.

The star is 100 times fainter (隱約) than the human eye can see.

The James Webb Telescope is the replacement for the 32 year old Hubble Telescope.

詹姆斯韋伯望遠鏡代替了有 32 年歷史的哈勃望遠鏡。

It uses 18 mirrors that work together to create the images.

Once the testing of the telescope is completed, we will see the first real images from the telescope in late June or early July.

________________________________

美國聖派翠克節遊行回歸

U.S. Celebrates Return of St. Patrick's Day Parades

March 17th is St. Patrick's Day!

On this day Catholics (天主教徒) and people who are from Irish families celebrate the life of St. Patrick.

And in the U.S., a popular tradition is to hold a parade on the holiday!

在美國，舉辦遊行慶祝特別節日是一個很受歡迎的傳統！

The past two years, all the parades were canceled (取消) because of COVID-19.

But this year, the parades returned!

The St. Patrick's Day parade in New York City is the world's largest and oldest.

紐約市的聖派翠克節遊行是世界上規模最大、歷史最悠久的遊行。

It is 35 blocks long, and it started in 1762.

The city of Chicago dyed (染色) its river green over the weekend.

Many other cities in the US also brought back their St. Patrick's Day celebrations, including Boston.

The city has many large Irish communities (社區) and it hosts one of the biggest St. Patrick's Day celebrations in the U.S.

________________________________

So, in today's News Bites:

Purple crow butterflies are migrating from Kaohsiung to Yunlin.

Over 300 butterflies a minute cross Taiwan's Freeway Number 3.

To protect the butterflies, part of the freeway was closed, and motorists shouldn't speed.

________________________________

The James Webb Telescope is taking photos of deep space.

To test the telescope, scientists took a picture of a star 9,000,000,000,000 kilometers away.

But the picture of the star was photobombed by thousands of galaxies.

The galaxies in the picture are several billion years old.

The beautiful picture can be seen online.

________________________________

And,

St. Patrick's Day is a big holiday for Catholics and people who are from Irish families.

But the U.S. had to cancel all the parades and celebrations over the last two years because of COVID-19.

This year many cities brought back their celebrations including New York, Chicago, and Boston.

The St. Patrick's Day parade in New York City is the world's largest and oldest.

The city of Chicago dyed its river green over the weekend.

________________________________

And that's today's episode of News Bites!