“大到不存在”的恒星

宇宙中最重的恒星 “幾乎大到不存在”

The heaviest star in the universe has been discovered — and it’s only 15 miles wide.

宇宙中最重的恒星已經(jīng)被發(fā)現(xiàn)，它只有15英里寬。

It is more than twice the mass of the sun, meaning a sugar cube of it would weigh 100 million tons. That is the same weight as the entire human population.

它的質(zhì)量是太陽的兩倍多，這意味著它的一個糖立方體將重達(dá)1億噸。這相當(dāng)于整個人類的重量。

Known as a neutron star, it is the compressed remains of a supernova, an exploding star, and is 700,000 times heavier than Earth.

它就是中子星，是一顆超新星的壓縮殘骸，一顆正在爆炸的恒星，比地球重70萬倍。

It is also a pulsar, emitting radio waves like a lighthouse as it spins.

同時它也是一個脈沖星，在旋轉(zhuǎn)時像燈塔一樣發(fā)射無線電波。

Neutron stars form when the outer part of a giant sun explodes and the core implodes. Its protons and electrons melt into each other to form neutrons.

當(dāng)一個巨大太陽的外部爆炸，核心內(nèi)爆時，中子星就形成了。它的質(zhì)子和電子相互熔化形成中子。

Named J0740+6620, it is 2.17 times the mass of the sun — which is 333,000 times the mass of the Earth. The findings were published in Nature Astronomy.

它被命名為J0740+6620，是太陽質(zhì)量的2.17倍，是地球質(zhì)量的333000倍。研究結(jié)果發(fā)表在《自然天文學(xué)》雜志上。

It is “the most massive neutron star ever detected — almost too massive to exist,” says the team.

這是“迄今為止發(fā)現(xiàn)的最大的中子星——幾乎大到不可能存在。”研究小組說。

The measurement approaches the limits of how compact a single object can be without crushing itself into a black hole.

這種測量方法接近了單個物體在不將自身壓入黑洞的情況下所能達(dá)到的緊湊程度的極限。

It was detected about 4,600 light-years from Earth by the Green Bank Telescope in West Virginia. One light-year is about 6 trillion miles.

它是由西弗吉尼亞州的格林班克望遠(yuǎn)鏡在距離地球4600光年的地方發(fā)現(xiàn)的。一光年大約是6萬億英里。

Scientist Thankful Cromartie, of Virginia University, said: “Neutron stars are as mysterious as they are fascinating. These city-sized objects are ginormous atomic nuclei.”

弗吉尼亞大學(xué)的科學(xué)家謝天謝地地說:“中子星既神秘又迷人。這些城市大小的物體是巨大的原子核。”

Colleague Maura McLaughlin, who studied the star with Duncan Lorimer, said: “These stars are very exotic.”

同事莫拉·麥克勞克林和鄧肯·洛里默一起研究了這顆恒星，他說:“這些恒星非常奇特。”

Neutron stars have temperatures of a million degrees, are highly radioactive and have intense magnetic fields.

中子星的溫度為100萬度，具有很強(qiáng)的放射性，并具有強(qiáng)烈的磁場。

Mass is the amount of matter in a material while weight is a measure of how much gravity acts upon that mass.

質(zhì)量是物質(zhì)的數(shù)量，而重量是衡量物質(zhì)受到多少引力作用的尺度。