“营养不良”的黑洞打破了所有规则

“营养不良”黑洞打破了所有规则

Black holes don't give up their secrets easily.

黑洞不容易泄露它们的秘密。

Researchers used Hubble's Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph to observe matter swirling deep inside the disk. (Photo: NASA, ESA, S. Bianchi, A. Laor and M. Chiaberge)

Despite decades of scientific speculation, we didn't even lay eyes on one until earlier this year when astronomers finally captured an image of Powehi — an apt Hawaiian term meaning "adorned fathomless dark creation."

尽管经过了几十年的科学推测，直到今年早些时候天文学家们终于捕捉到波伊希的图像，我们才真正看到了它。波伊希是夏威夷语，意思是“装饰着深不见底的黑暗造物”。

And now, scientists have detected another supermassive black hole that's even more "fathomless." In fact, it breaks the few rules we expect even black holes to abide by.

现在，科学家们发现了另一个超大质量的黑洞，它甚至更加“深不可测”。事实上，它打破了我们所期望的即使是黑洞也能遵守的一些规则。

The light-sucking anomaly, described in a newly published study, lies at the heart of spiral galaxy NGC 3147, about 130 million light-years from where you're currently sitting. This supermassive black hole is very hungry. In fact, researchers say it's malnourished because it can't find enough material to hoover into its gaping maw.

在最新发表的一项研究中描述了这一吸光异常现象，它位于螺旋星系NGC 3147的中心，距离你现在所在的位置约1.3亿光年。这个超大质量黑洞非常饥饿。事实上，研究人员说它营养不良是因为它找不到足够的物质吸进张开的胃里。

And yet, despite lean offerings at the galactic buffet, this hungry hippo has a flat, compact disk of matter embedded in its gravitational field. The matter is whirling around 3147's black hole at a frantic pace of about a 10th of the speed of light.

然而，尽管银河自助餐提供的食物不多，这个饥饿的黑洞却有一个扁平的、紧凑的物质圆盘，嵌在它的引力场中。该物质正以约为光速十分之一的疯狂速度围绕着3147的黑洞旋转。

An artist's rendering of the black hole in galaxy NGC 3147. (Photo: NASA, ESA, and A. Feild and L. Hustak)

As NASA explains in a press release, that kind of disk typically accompanies an engorged black hole — one that's getting plenty of nourishment from its surroundings. And yet, this black hole, despite having about 250 million times the mass of our sun, is faint and famished.

正如美国宇航局在一份新闻稿中解释的那样，这种圆盘通常伴随着一个膨胀的黑洞——一个从周围环境中获得大量营养的黑洞。然而，尽管这个黑洞的质量是我们太阳的2.5亿倍，它仍然虚弱而饥饿。

Indeed, it took a very close scan by Hubble's Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph to even detect its presence.

事实上，哈勃太空望远镜的成像光谱仪对它进行了非常近距离的扫描，甚至发现了它的存在。

"Without Hubble, we wouldn't have been able to see this because the black-hole region has a low luminosity," noted study co-author Marco Chiaberge of the European Space Agency in the NASA release. "The luminosities of the stars in the galaxy outshine anything in the nucleus. So if you observe it from the ground, you're dominated by the brightness of the stars, which drowns the feeble emission from the nucleus."

“如果没有哈勃，我们就不可能看到这一点，因为黑洞区域的光度很低，”研究报告的合著者、欧洲航天局的马可·基亚伯吉在NASA的新闻稿中指出。“星系中恒星的亮度比原子核中的任何东西都要亮。所以，如果你从地面上观察它，你就会被恒星的亮度所控制，而恒星的亮度掩盖了原子核发出的微弱辐射。”

For answers, not surprisingly, we may have to turn, yet again, to Albert Einstein. Specifically, researchers want to test his theories of relativity on the galactic carnivore. The brilliant and much-misquoted German physicist did, after all, predict black holes existed long before we found them.

为了寻找答案，我们可能不得不再次求助于阿尔伯特•爱因斯坦，这并不奇怪。具体来说，研究人员想要在银河食肉动物身上验证他的相对论。毕竟，这位才华横溢的德国物理学家确实在我们发现黑洞之前很久就预言过黑洞的存在。

His theories of relativity, when tested on this black hole's unlikely gas disk, could give astronomers an unprecedented glimpse into the previously "fathomless" processes that occur close to a black hole.

当他的相对论在这个不太可能存在的黑洞的气盘上进行测试时，可能会让天文学家们对以前发生在黑洞附近的“深不可测”的过程有一个前所未有的了解。

"This is an intriguing peek at a disk very close to a black hole, so close that the velocities and the intensity of the gravitational pull are affecting how the photons of light look," noted study co-author Stefano Bianchi of Italy's Roma Tre University in the release. "We cannot understand the data unless we include the theories of relativity."

意大利罗马特雷大学的研究合作者斯特凡诺·比安奇在研究报告中指出:“这是对一个非常接近黑洞圆盘的一次有趣的观察，它离黑洞如此之近，以至于速度和引力的强度正在影响光子的形状。”“如果不依靠相对论，我们就无法理解这些数据。”

It seems this black hole may defy most current astronomical theories. It may even defy the rules of existence itself. But we'll have to wait and see if it can defy Einstein.

这个黑洞似乎与目前大多数天文学理论相悖。它甚至可能违背存在本身的规则。但我们必须拭目以待，看它能否挑战爱因斯坦。