Galaxy Zoo: Now Available In Chinese (Mandarin)

What follows is a press release from Academia Sinica’s Institute of Astronomy & Astrophysics, regarding the new Mandarin Galaxy Zoo. Below is some context for English speakers and regular Galaxy Zoo users.

在可觀測宇宙散佈千億星系，許多以美麗著稱。光芒閃耀的每個星系裡，都有數十億顆恆星。新推出的「星系動物園」網站中文版，和研究星系大有關聯，不管有沒有天文背景，只要有網路，無論愛上網咖還是宅宅A咖，只花二分鐘也可參與星系分類的Galaxy Zoo計畫，自2007年以來，在英、美、歐地區成為網民科普熱門運動，已經招募87萬名星系分類員（志工），大受歡迎。原來星星可以這樣數。

2013年10月份，在中研院年度開放日這天，由中研院天文所推廣成員共同翻譯完成的中文版網站，也選在這天首度公開試用，在場民眾只花二分鐘做星系形態辨識，分類結果就成為整個科學計畫資料庫的一部分，換言之，中文版的星系分類員是實際參與貢獻了科學研究，這吸引不少熱心學生和家長，「做天文只要二分鐘，很酷！而且學到新知識。」

從”Galaxy Zoo”到「星系動物園」，天文所推廣組表示，「兩年前就想過要做」的這個計畫，今年8月，一經天文所博士後研究Meg Schwamb再次提議，立刻獲得響應，網站中文化水到渠成，也讓台灣在全球天文學界再博得一次「亞洲第一」的小獎勵（註：目前該網站只有英文版和西語版）。推廣組表示，由於星系資料持續新增，分類員在圖像庫中撈到某個從未曾被人見過的星系，或「全球第一人」這樣的說法，確實所言不虛。

來自英國的Galaxy Zoo計畫主持人Chris Lintott表示，在網民科學網站傘狀計畫下的項目還有很多，天文類的譬如行星獵人(Planet Hunters)和火星氣候(Planet Four)。這些都必須靠各位地球人以好眼力來熱情相挺，電腦可幫不上忙。為什麼呢？歡迎上網一探究竟：http://www.galaxyzoo.org/?lang=zh

眨眼睛、動滑鼠、幫幫星系分分類！

Last weekend, led by Dr. Meg Schwamb (who is part of the Planet Hunters and Planet Four teams), a team of Taiwanese astronomers helped introduced a Chinese (Mandarin) version a Galaxy Zoo to the public on the Open House Day of Academia Sinica, the highest academic institution in Taiwan.

A big crowd of enthusiastic students and parents, attracted by the long queue itself, visited the ‘Citizen Science: Galaxy Zoo’ booth to try the project hands-on by doing galaxy classifications. They were excited to participate in scientific research and enjoyed it very much.

“Amazing! In just two minutes, we have helped astronomer doing their research, it’s so cool! Also, we learn new astronomical facts we never knew before. It’s a good show.”

The Education Public Outreach team of Academia Sinica’s Institute of Astronomy & Astrophysics (a.k.a. “ASIAA”), has helped translated Galaxy Zoo from English to Chinese (Mandarin). The main translator, Lauren Huang said, “we were keen to do a localized version for Galaxy Zoo since 2010, so when Meg brought up this nice idea again, we acted upon it at once.” In less than six weeks, it was done. The other translator, Chun-Hui, Yang, who contributed to the translation, said that she likes the website’s sleek design very much. “I think the honor is ours, to take part in such a well-designed global team work!” Lauren said.

Talking about the translation process process, Lauren provided an anecdote that she thought about giving “zoo” a very local name, such as “Daguanyuan” (“Grand View Garden”), a term with authentic Chinese cultural flavour, and is from classic Chinese novel Dream of the Red Chamber. She said, “because, my personal experience in browsing the Galaxy Zoo website has been very much just like the character Ganny Liu in the classics novel. Imagine, if one flew into the virtual image database of the universe, which contains all sorts of hidden treasures waiting to be explored, what a privilege, and how little we can offer, to help on such a grandeur design?” However, the zoo is still translated as “Dungwuyuan”, literally, just as “zoo “. Because that’s what some Chinese bloggers have already accustomed to, creating a different term might just be too confusing.

You can check out the Traditional Character Chinese (Mandarin) version of Galaxy Zoo at http://www.galaxyzoo.org/?lang=zh