This is Scientific American 60 Secomds, Space. I'm Clara Moskowitz, got a minute?
这里是科学美国人60秒,太空系列。我是克拉拉·莫斯科维兹。
Inside most galaxies a supermassive black hole lurks. But one galaxy about 4 billion light-years from us was recently discovered to have not one, not even two, but three gigantic black holes at its center.
在大多数的银河系中都会隐藏着一个黑洞。但是科学家竟然发现这个距离我们四百万光年的银河系的中央有多大三个黑洞。
Such triple systems appear to be extremely rare—only four are known. The newfound system includes two black holes orbiting each other very closely, about 450 light-years apart, with a third black hole a bit farther out. The central pair zoom around each other at a fast clip, about 300 times the speed of sound on Earth. The hole trinity also represents the tightest trio of black holes known to date. It's described in thejournal Nature.
这种拥有三个黑洞的银河系十分少见,目前只发现了四个。这三个黑洞中,有两个相距450光年的黑洞绕着彼此做旋转运动,另外一个则离这两个距离较远。中心的这一对黑洞运动速度非常快,相当于声音在地球上传播速度的300倍。按照已知的所有相关数据,这三个黑洞是距离彼此最紧密的。详情请见自然杂志。
As these objects continue to orbit at the center of their galaxy, gravity will eventually pull them closerand closer together. Ultimately, they may even merge. Researchers hope this triple-black-hole system may be a good place to look for space-time ripples called gravitational waves. As their orbits shrink, the black holes should radiate away some of their orbital energy as the sought-after gravitational waves, predicted by Einstein a century ago.
随着这三个黑洞不停地在银河系中旋转,引力会最终把它们拉的越来越近。最终,它们很可能会合并成一体。研究人员希望在这个三个黑洞系统中,可以发现时光涟漪,专业上叫做重力波。伴随着这三个黑洞的旋转轨道的范围缩小,它们会释放桑出一定量的轨道能量,也就是人们向往看到的重力波,关于这一点,爱因斯坦早在一个世纪以前就提出过猜想。
Thanks for the minute for Scientific American 60 Secomds, Tech. I'm Clara Moskowitz.
感谢收听。