保护地球，探索宇宙，发现文明
A galaxy about 23 million light years away is the site of impressive, ongoing fireworks. Rather than paper, powder and fire, this galactic light show involves a giant black hole, shock waves and vast reservoirs of gas. This galactic fireworks display is taking place in NGC 4258, also known as M106, a spiral galaxy like our own Milky Way. This galaxy is famou...
Black holes are famous for ripping objects apart, including stars. But now, astronomers have uncovered a black hole that may have sparked the births of stars over a mind-boggling distance, and across multiple galaxies. If confirmed, this discovery, made with NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory and other telescopes, would represent the widest reach ever seen for...
Located about 5.8 billion light years from Earth in the Phoenix Constellation, astronomers have confirmed the first example of a galaxy cluster where large numbers of stars are being born at its core. Galaxy clusters are the largest structures in the cosmos that are held together by gravity, consisting of hundreds or thousands of galaxies embedded in hot gas...
在广阔的宇宙中，最大的黑洞也是由黑洞“种子”产生的。它们通过气体、尘埃、以及吞噬其他物体吸取营养，大小和质量逐渐增加，从而成为主导星系的中心，例如我们的银河系中心的黑洞。然而，至今还没有人找到这些刚刚“萌芽”的黑洞。 有理论认为，超大质量黑洞（质量相当于数十万到数十亿太阳质量）是由我们从未见过的较小黑洞组成的。这个难以捉摸的群体，称为“中等质量黑洞”，有一百至十万太阳质量。迄今为止发现的数百个黑洞中，有很多相对较小的黑洞，但没有一个属于中等质量范围。 科学家们正与NASA强大的太空望远镜以及其他天文观测站合作，追踪满足这些描述的遥远天体。他们已经找到了数十个候选目标，正在努力确认它们是否是黑洞。即使确认了这些天体的黑洞身份，同时这也开辟了一个全新的谜团：中等质量的黑洞是如何形成的？ “为什么这个问题令人着迷？为...
Credit:NASA NASA的凌星系外行星巡天望远镜(TESS)首次观测到一起宇宙惨案，一颗黑洞撕裂了一颗恒星，称为潮汐瓦解事件（TDE），这起事件名为ASASSN-19bt。 NASA的尼尔·盖恩斯·斯威夫特天文台和其他设施将对此进行了后续观测，这是对恒星毁灭事件早期时刻迄今进行的最详细观察，研究论文发表在2019年9月27日的天体物理学杂志。 论文合作者Patrick Vallely称：“早期的TESS数据让我们能够看到离黑洞非常近的光，比我们之前看到的要近得多。”ASASSN-19bt的亮度上升非常平稳，这也有助于我们确定这是一起潮汐瓦解事件，而不是其他类型的爆发。 全天自动测量超新星（All Sky Automated Survey for SuperNovae，简写ASAS-SN）于1月29日发现...
黑洞的最新可视化展示了黑洞的重力如何扭曲我们的视线及其周围的环境，就像在哈哈镜中看到的那样。可视化效果模拟了黑洞的外观：落入黑洞的物质积聚在一个又薄又热的结构中，称为吸积盘（accretion disk）。 随着磁场在气体的搅动中缠绕并扭曲，明亮的“结点”不断在吸积盘中形成并消散。最靠近黑洞的位置气体以接近光速运转，而外部速度更慢。这种速度差拉伸并剪切了这些明亮的“结点”，在吸积盘中产生了或明或暗的路线。 从侧面看，在黑洞周围的气体湍流呈现出神奇的双峰状外观。黑洞的极端重力会改变来自吸积盘不同部分的光的路径，从而产生这般扭曲的图像。侧视时扭曲的程度最大。 Credits: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center/Jeremy Schnittman 这张图注释了黑洞可视化中的各个部分...
In our vast universe, the heaviest black holes grew from seeds. Nourished by the gas and dust they consume, or by merging with other dense objects, these seeds grow in size and heft to form the centers of galaxies, such as our own Milky Way. But unlike in the realm of plants, the seeds of giant black holes must have been black holes, too. And no one has ever...
2019 September 3 Unusual Signal Suggests Neutron Star Destroyed by Black Hole Illustration Video Credit: NASA, Dana Berry (Skyworks Digital) Explanation: What created this unusual explosion? Three weeks ago, gravitational wave detectors in the USA and Europe — the LIGO and Virgo detectors — detected a burst of gravitational radiation that had the...
2019 August 20 Animation: Spiral Disk around a Black Hole Illustrated Animation Credit: ESA, NASA, Hubble, M. Kornmesser Explanation: What would it look like to orbit a black hole? Many black holes are surrounded by swirling pools of gas known as accretion disks. These disks can be extremely hot, and much of the orbiting gas will eventually fall through the ...
NASA钱德拉X射线天文台的数据揭示最遥远的黑洞。 Credits: X-ray: NASA/CXO/Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Chile/F. Vito; Radio: ALMA (ESO/NAOJ/NRAO); optical: Pan-STARRS 天文学家利用钱德拉X射线天文台发现了一个早期宇宙的黑洞，它被大量气体掩盖，是迄今为止发现的最远的黑洞。这个黑洞存在于大爆炸后8亿年（当今宇宙年龄为138亿年），这是人们发现的第一个迹象，证明宇宙历史早期存在这样的黑洞。 超大质量黑洞的质量是太阳的数百万到数十亿倍，通常通过从周围物质盘中吸取物质来增长。快速的增长会导致黑洞周围一小片区域内产生大量辐射。科学家将这种非常明亮、紧凑的光源称为“类星体（quasar）”。 根...