科學(xué)家們對銀河系超大質(zhì)量黑洞突然變亮感到困惑

科學(xué)家們對銀河系超大質(zhì)量黑洞突然變亮感到困惑

You never want to wonder what's eating a black hole.

你永遠(yuǎn)不會想知道是什么在吞噬黑洞。

In fact, moodiness is the last thing you want from a light-bending, time-sucking void.

事實上，在一個光線彎曲、耗費時間的空間里，喜怒無常是你最不想要的。

But something seems to have gotten Sagittarius A* all fired up.

但似乎有什么東西讓射手座興奮不已。

And, since it's the supermassive black hole at the heart of the Milky Way, it's a little hard to ignore.

而且，由于它是銀河系中心的超大質(zhì)量黑洞，所以很難忽略它。

Gas and dust typically make up the accretion disk surrounding a black hole. (Photo: HelloRF Zcool/Shutterstock)

Their research, revealed in Cornell University’s arXiv, suggests Sagittarius A* is flashing 75 times brighter than it has since monitoring began more than 20 years ago.

他們在康奈爾大學(xué)的arXiv上發(fā)表的研究表明，人馬座A*的亮度是20多年前開始監(jiān)測以來的75倍。

Back in May, astronomer Tuan Do from the University of California just happened to be peering at the heart of the galaxy from Hawaii's Keck Observatory, according to New Scientist.

據(jù)《新科學(xué)家》雜志報道，早在今年5月，加州大學(xué)的天文學(xué)家Tuan Do就在夏威夷凱克天文臺觀測到銀河系的中心。

He spotted something particularly bright. At first, Do assumed it was a star. Then he realized he was being flashed by the Milky Way's supermassive black-hole-in-residence.

他發(fā)現(xiàn)了特別明亮的東西。起初，Do認(rèn)為它是一顆恒星。然后他意識到自己正在被銀河系的超大質(zhì)量黑洞照亮。

"It was strange because I had never seen the black hole that bright before," Do tells New Scientist.

“這很奇怪，因為我以前從未見過這么明亮的黑洞，”Do告訴《新科學(xué)家》雜志。

And how, you may ask, does something called a black hole twinkle? All that frantic hoovering of dust and gas generates a lot of heat and under a telescope's ultraviolet eye, it appears to flicker. Think of it as a little stardust left around the mouth — or in this case, the accretion disk — of a messy eater.

你可能會問，黑洞是如何閃爍的?所有這些瘋狂的灰塵和氣體的滴答聲產(chǎn)生了大量的熱量，在望遠(yuǎn)鏡的紫外線下，它似乎在閃爍。你可以把它想象成一個臟兮兮的吃東西的人嘴巴周圍留下的一點星塵——或者在這個例子中，是吸積盤。

Black holes have no time for napkins.

黑洞沒有時間用餐巾紙。

The unprecedented flash from Sagittarius A*, however, suggests the cosmic carnivore may have gobbled up a very spicy celestial meatball.

然而，人馬座A*發(fā)出的這一前所未有的閃光表明，這種宇宙食肉動物可能吞下了一顆非常辛辣的天體肉丸。

"Maybe more gas is falling into the black hole and that leads to higher amounts of accretion, which leads to it being brighter," Do adds in New Scientist.

Do在《新科學(xué)家》雜志上補充道:“也許有更多的氣體進(jìn)入黑洞，這就導(dǎo)致了更多的吸積，從而使黑洞變得更亮。”

There's also a chance the black hole finally got around to eating a gaseous object identified as G2, which was found to be approaching Sagittarius A* in 2014.

還有一種可能性是，黑洞最終會吃掉一個被確定為G2的氣態(tài)物體，該物體在2014年被發(fā)現(xiàn)正在接近人馬座A *。

Hawaii's Keck Observatory features twin telescopes that are sensitive to radio and ultraviolet wavelengths. (Photo: Abbie Warnock-Matthews/Shutterstock)

But frankly, scientists don't understand why our black hole has suddenly grown so bright. Do and his team are hoping information from other telescopes can help solve the mystery.

但是坦白地說，科學(xué)家們不明白為什么我們的黑洞突然變得如此明亮。Do和他的團(tuán)隊希望來自其他望遠(yuǎn)鏡的信息能幫助解開這個謎團(tuán)。

One thing we do know is there's no chance Sagittarius A* is on the move. These chasms in space and time don't wander the galaxy looking for snacks. In fact, Sagittarius A* has been sitting at the same buffet table in the heart of the galaxy for billions of years.

有一件事我們是知道的，那就是射手座是不會到處亂跑的。這些空間和時間上的裂縫不會在星系中游蕩尋找零食。事實上，人馬座A*已經(jīng)在銀河系中心的同一張餐桌上坐了幾十億年了。

But, like anyone who eats non-stop while being parked on their posteriors, black holes will gain mass ?— and expand in diameter.

但是，就像任何一個人把車停下來不停地吃東西一樣，黑洞會增加質(zhì)量，并擴(kuò)大直徑。

Most estimates peg the diameter of Sagittarius A* at around 14 million miles wide, with a mass of 3.6 million suns. That qualifies it, in astronomical terms, as supermassive — but not nearly enough for a membership card to the ultramassiveblack hole club.

大多數(shù)人估計人馬座A*的直徑約為1400萬英里寬，質(zhì)量為360萬個太陽。從天文學(xué)的角度來看，這足以證明它的質(zhì)量是超大型的，但對于一張超級黑洞俱樂部的會員卡來說，這還遠(yuǎn)遠(yuǎn)不夠。

That's for the likes of the downright beastly Holm 15A*.

這是為那些徹頭徹尾的野蠻的霍爾姆15A*之類的人準(zhǔn)備的。

In any case, with Sagittarius A* some 25,640 light-years from Earth, we're not even close to being folded into its expanding girth.

無論如何，人馬座A*距離地球25640光年，我們離它膨脹的周長還差得遠(yuǎn)呢。

Unless, of course, you consider that a black hole not only doesn't care for napkins, but also the rules of time and space.

當(dāng)然，除非你認(rèn)為黑洞不僅不喜歡餐巾紙，而且也不喜歡時間和空間的規(guī)則。

We simply don't know what these cosmic enigmas are capable of. Perhaps, as renowned astrophysicist Michio Kaku once suggested, a black hole could literally tear the universe a new one.

我們根本不知道這些宇宙之謎能做什么?；蛟S，正如著名天體物理學(xué)家賀來道雄曾經(jīng)提出的那樣，黑洞確實可以撕裂宇宙，形成一個新的黑洞。

"If space is a fabric, then of course fabrics can have ripples, which we have now seen directly. But fabrics can also rip. Then the question is, what happens when the fabric of space and time is ripped by a black hole?" he told the Economic Times earlier this year.

“如果空間是一種面料，那么面料當(dāng)然會有褶皺，我們現(xiàn)在已經(jīng)直接看到了。但織物也會撕裂。那么問題是，當(dāng)空間和時間的結(jié)構(gòu)被黑洞撕裂時會發(fā)生什么?”

Let's just hope it was a spicy meatball.

希望是辣肉丸子。