极其罕见的双黑洞和三黑洞

三个巨大的黑洞在碰撞过程中被强烈的辉光所识别

An intense glow has helped in revealing the location of three gigantic black holes set on a collision course.

强烈的辉光有助于揭示三个巨大黑洞在碰撞过程中的位置。

A new study published in The Astrophysical Journal says astronomers were searching for pairs of black holes when they "stumbled" upon three galaxies on a collision course. Each galaxy has a black hole at its centre.

发表在《天体物理学杂志》上的一项新研究说，天文学家在寻找成对的黑洞时，在碰撞过程中“偶然”发现了三个星系。每个星系的中心都有一个黑洞。

They're a billion light-years away from Earth and were only discovered when researchers combined a range of data from terrestrial and space telescopes.

它们距离地球有10亿光年，只有当研究人员结合地面和太空望远镜的一系列数据后才被发现。

Data revealed several telltale signs of the presence of black holes at the centre of each of the merging galaxies. For example, the system was glowing intensely in infrared light during a phase where one of the black holes was likely feeding on cosmic gas. Large amounts of gas and dust were also detected - typical around black holes.

数据显示，在每一个合并星系的中心都有黑洞存在的迹象。例如，在一个黑洞可能以宇宙气体为食的阶段，这个系统在红外光下发出强烈的光。在典型的黑洞周围，也探测到大量的气体和尘埃。

Normally the gas and dust blocks out light coming from supermassive blackholes, but the researchers got around that by looking at infrared and x-ray images.

通常情况下，气体和尘埃会阻挡来自超大质量黑洞的光线，但研究人员通过观察红外和X射线图像来解决这个问题。

Infrared and x-ray light can get through clouds of gas and dust more easily than optical light.

红外线和X射线比光更容易穿透气体和尘埃云。

"Through the use of these major observatories, we have identified a new way of identifying triple supermassive black holes," said co-author Ryan Pfeifle of George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia.

弗吉尼亚州费尔法克斯市乔治梅森大学的合作者瑞安·普菲弗说：“通过使用这些主要的观测站，我们找到了一种识别三重超大质量黑洞的新方法。”

"We hope to extend our work to find more triples using the same technique."

“我们希望扩展我们的工作，用同样的技术找到更多的三元组。”

Shobita Satyapal, another author of the study: "Dual and triple black holes are exceedingly rare but such systems are actually a natural consequence of galaxy mergers, which we think is how galaxies grow and evolve."

这项研究的另一位作者肖比塔·萨蒂亚帕尔说：“双黑洞和三黑洞极其罕见，但这样的系统实际上是星系合并的自然结果，我们认为这就是星系生长和演化的方式。”

Computer simulations found that about 16 percent of pairs of black holes will have interacted with a third before merging.

计算机模拟发现，大约16%的双黑洞在合并前会与第三个黑洞相互作用。