It's just a faint red smudge, but the detectors on the James Webb Telescope are in no doubt that this galaxy, a large collection of stars, is at a prodigious distance.

该星系看上去只是一团不清晰的红色印迹，但是詹姆斯·韦伯望远镜上的探测器确信该星系由一大群恒星组成，距离我们异常遥远。 

Astronomers say the observatory is seeing the object when the Universe was less than 300 million years old. Put another way, if the cosmos is 13.8 billion years old, James Webb is seeing the galaxy when the Universe was only 2% of its current age.

天文学家们表示，现在通过天文观测台观测到的这个天体的形态不会晚于宇宙诞生后 3 亿年。换句话说，如果宇宙的年龄是 138 亿岁，詹姆斯·韦伯望远镜看到的是宇宙只有当前年龄的 2% 时该星系的模样。

The most interesting aspect of the discovery is not the great distance, however, it's the galaxy's large size and brightness.

但这次发现中最引人注目的部分并不是该星系离我们超乎寻常的距离，而是它的巨大体积跟亮度。

Researchers are struggling to explain the presence of so mature an object, so early in the nascent universe.

研究者们仍难以解释为何如此成熟的天体会在新生宇宙的早期阶段存在。

When space agencies spent 10 billion dollars developing James Webb, they promised it would do remarkable things. Two years into operations, that enormous investment is starting to pay back.

当航天机构花费掉 100 亿美元开发詹姆斯·韦伯望远镜时，他们承诺它会有非凡的表现。望远镜投入使用两年以后，这项巨额投资开始获得回报。

词汇表

smudge 模糊的印迹、污痕
detectors 探测器
prodigious 异常的，不寻常的
observatory 天文观测台
the cosmos 宇宙
nascent 新生的，刚开始发展的
remarkable 非凡的，引人注目的
operations 运行，工作