宇宙星战在太空中形成的壮观的“彩虹云”

宇宙星战在太空中形成的壮观的“彩虹云”

A stunning rainbow-colored cloud of gas surrounds two stars that battled in deep space several hundred years ago.

几百年前，两颗恒星在深空中奋战，周围环绕着一团彩虹色的气体云。

Astronomers were able to observe the binary star system known as HD101584 by using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) and saw a strange gas cloud that they think resulted from the two stars doing battle, according to a European Southern Observatory (ESO) statement.

根据欧洲南方天文台(ESO)的一份声明，天文学家通过使用Atacama大型毫米/亚毫米阵列(ALMA)，观测到了被称为HD101584的双星系统，并看到了一个奇怪的气体云，他们认为这是由于两颗恒星在战斗中产生的。

The new observations from ALMA have shown scientists that what happened with HD101584 was something like a stellar confrontation.

来自ALMA的最新观测显示，科学家们发现HD101584发生了类似恒星对峙的事情。

The main star grew large enough to swallow its lower-mass partner. In response, the ESO explains, the smaller star zoomed towards the giant’s core but didn’t collide with it. Instead, the larger star was triggered into an outburst, scattering its gas layers and exposing its core.

主恒星变得足够大，可以吞下它的小质量伴星。ESO解释说，作为回应，这颗较小的恒星迅速移向巨星的核心，但没有与它相撞。相反，较大的恒星被触发爆发，它的气体层被散射，核心暴露出来。

“This stunning image of the circumstellar environment of HD101584 would not have been possible without the exquisite sensitivity and angular resolution provided by ALMA,” co-author Elizabeth Humphreys, from ESO in Chile, said in the statement.

来自智利ESO的合著者Elizabeth Humphreys在声明中说:“如果没有ALMA提供的细腻的灵敏度和角度分辨率，HD101584环绕恒星环境的这张令人震惊的图片是不可能的。

Researchers hope to gain more insights into the final evolution of stars like our sun.

研究人员希望对像太阳这样的恒星的最终演化有更多的了解。

“Currently, we can describe the death processes common to many Sun-like stars, but we cannot explain why or exactly how they happen. HD101584 gives us important clues to solve this puzzle since it is currently in a short transitional phase between better studied evolutionary stages. With detailed images of the environment of HD101584 we can make the connection between the giant star it was before, and the stellar remnant it will soon become,” said co-author Sofia Ramstedt, from Sweden’s Uppsala University, in the statement.

“目前，我们可以描述许多类太阳恒星的死亡过程，但我们无法解释它们为什么或确切是如何发生的。HD101584为我们解开这个谜题提供了重要的线索，因为它目前正处于较好研究的进化阶段之间的短暂过渡阶段。来自瑞典乌普萨拉大学的合著者索菲亚·拉姆斯泰特在声明中说:“通过HD101584周围环境的详细图像，我们可以将这颗巨星与它之前的样子联系起来，它的残骸不久就会成为恒星。”

Their research was published in the March issue of the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics.

他们的研究发表在3月份的《天文学与天体物理学》杂志上。