“大到不存在”的恒星

宇宙中最重的恒星 “几乎大到不存在”

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经被发现，它只有15英里宽。

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.

它的质量是太阳的两倍多，这意味着它的一个糖立方体将重达1亿吨。这相当于整个人类的重量。

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，是一颗超新星的压缩残骸，一颗正在爆炸的恒星，比地球重70万倍。

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

同时它也是一个脉冲星，在旋转时像灯塔一样发射无线电波。

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.

当一个巨大太阳的外部爆炸，核心内爆时，中子星就形成了。它的质子和电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.

它被命名为J0740+6620，是太阳质量的2.17倍，是地球质量的333000倍。研究结果发表在《自然天文学》杂志上。

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

这是“迄今为止发现的最大的中子星——几乎大到不可能存在。”研究小组说。

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

这种测量方法接近了单个物体在不将自身压入黑洞的情况下所能达到的紧凑程度的极限。

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.

它是由西弗吉尼亚州的格林班克望远镜在距离地球4600光年的地方发现的。一光年大约是6万亿英里。

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

弗吉尼亚大学的科学家谢天谢地地说:“中子星既神秘又迷人。这些城市大小的物体是巨大的原子核。”

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

同事莫拉·麦克劳克林和邓肯·洛里默一起研究了这颗恒星，他说:“这些恒星非常奇特。”

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

中子星的温度为100万度，具有很强的放射性，并具有强烈的磁场。

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

质量是物质的数量，而重量是衡量物质受到多少引力作用的尺度。