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Scientists say they have discovered the closest black hole to Earth.
科学家表示，他们发现了距离地球最近的黑洞。
Black holes are areas in space where gravity is so strong that nothing – not even light – can escape them.
黑洞指的是太空中引力非常强大的区域，以致于任何东西——甚至是光——都无法逃脱它们。
They are believed to be formed from collapsed stars.
科学家认为它们是由坍塌的恒星形成的。
An international group of astronomers recently announced the discovery of the black hole, which sits about 1,600 light years from Earth.
一个国际天文学家小组最近宣布他们发现了这个距离地球约1600光年的黑洞。
A light year is the distance light travels in one year.
一光年是光在一年内传播的距离。
In space, light moves about 9.4 trillion kilometers each year.
在太空中，光每年移动约9.4万亿公里。
The researchers named the black hole Gaia BH1.
研究人员将这个黑洞命名为盖亚BH1。
They say it sits in the constellation of Ophiuchus.
他们说它位于蛇夫座。
A constellation is a grouping of stars.
星座是一组恒星。
The black hole is believed to weigh about 10 times the mass of our sun.
据信，这个黑洞的质量约为太阳质量的10倍。
The team said it is three times closer to Earth than the previous record-holder.
该团队表示，之前的纪录保持者与地球的距离是它与地球距离的三倍。
The newly discovered gravitational mass was identified by observing the motion of its orbiting star.
新发现的黑洞的引力质量是通过观测其伴星的运动来确定的。
The star orbits the black hole at about the same distance as Earth orbits the sun.
这颗恒星绕黑洞运行的距离与地球绕太阳运行的距离大致相同。
Kareem El-Badry is an astrophysicist with the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics and Germany’s Max Planck Institute for Astronomy.
卡里姆·巴德里是哈佛-史密森天体物理中心和德国马克斯·普朗克天文研究所的天体物理学家。
He was the lead writer of a study describing the discovery in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.
他是发表在《英国皇家天文学会月刊》上的一项描述该发现的研究的主要作者。
The black hole was first identified using the European Space Agency’s (ESA) Gaia spacecraft.
该黑洞最初是使用欧洲航天局的盖亚空间望远镜发现的。
Gaia has already discovered more than 800,000 multi-star systems.
盖亚空间望远镜已经发现了超过80万个多恒星系统。
El-Badry and his team then sought to confirm the discovery through numerous additional observations over a period of four months.
巴德里和他的团队随后试图通过在四个月的时间里进行大量额外的观测来证实这一发现。
This effort involved six different highly sensitive telescopes across the world.
这项观测活动使用了全球六台不同的高灵敏度望远镜。
One was the 6.5-meter Magellan Baade telescope, based at the Las Campanas Observatory in Chile.
其中之一是位于智利拉斯坎帕纳斯天文台的6.5米长的麦哲伦·巴德望远镜。
The team also used an instrument on the Gemini North telescope, which is based in Hawaii.
该团队还使用了位于夏威夷的双子星天文台上的一台仪器。
The researchers needed such telescopes to effectively observe the orbital motion of the black hole’s star.
研究人员需要这样的望远镜来有效地观察黑洞的恒星的轨道运动。
The telescope in Chile and the Gemini instrument were able to provide the astronomers with high-resolution images.
位于智利的望远镜和双子座望远镜能够为天文学家提供高分辨率的图像。
The telescopes also collected sensitive data on ultraviolet and near-infrared wavelengths.
这些望远镜还收集了有关紫外线和近红外线的敏感数据。
El-Badry said in a statement the Gemini observations “confirmed beyond a reasonable doubt” that the team had discovered a normal star and at least one black hole.
巴德里在一份声明中表示，通过双子座望远镜的观测该团队“排除了合理的怀疑”，从而证实他们发现了一颗正常的恒星和至少一个黑洞。
El-Badry added that the black hole appears to be dormant, meaning not currently active.
巴德里还说，该黑洞似乎处于休眠状态，意思是它目前不活跃。
When active, black holes give off high-energy light.
当黑洞活动时，它会发出高能光。
While dormant, they give off nothing and are difficult to identify.
在休眠期间，它们不会释放任何物质，因此很难识别。
The scientists said it remains unclear how the black hole formed in our Milky Way galaxy.
科学家表示，目前还不清楚该黑洞是如何在我们的银河系中形成的。
Examinations of data collected on Gaia BH1 suggests “its existence is difficult to explain” using traditional evolutionary modeling methods, said Tineke Roegiers.
蒂内克·罗吉斯说，对收集来的有关盖亚BH1的数据进行仔细检查后发现，使用传统的进化建模方法“很难解释它的存在”。
She is a project information specialist with the Gaia spacecraft team.
她是盖亚空间望远镜团队的项目信息专家。
The researchers said if the black hole formed the traditional way – from the gravitational collapse of a star – that star would have been at least 20 times the mass of our sun.
研究人员表示，如果该黑洞以传统的方式——恒星的引力坍塌——形成，那么这颗恒星的质量至少是太阳质量的20倍。
This means the star would have only lived a short time, maybe only a few million years.
这意味着这颗恒星的寿命很短，可能只有几百万年。
If both stars had formed at the same time, the scientists say, the massive star would have quickly turned into a “supergiant” and swallowed the other star before it had a chance to fully develop.
科学家表示，如果这两颗恒星同时形成，这颗质量大的恒星就会迅速变成一颗“超巨星”，并在另一颗恒星完全形成之前吞噬掉它。
These differences, Roegiers said, “may indicate something important is missing from our current knowledge of black hole formation.”
罗吉斯说，这些差异“可能表明我们目前对黑洞形成的了解中缺少了一些重要的东西。”
El-Badry said the mystery about Earth’s closest black hole presents many questions about how it formed, “as well as how many of these dormant black holes there are out there.”
巴德里说，关于这个距离地球最近的黑洞的谜团产生了许多关于它是如何形成的问题，“以及那里有多少这样的休眠的黑洞。”
He added, “I have been searching for a system like Gaia BH1 for the last four years, trying all kinds of methods – but none of them worked. It has been elating to see this search finally bear fruit.”
他还说：“在过去的四年里，我一直在尝试用各种方法寻找诸如盖亚BH1之类的系统，但都没有奏效。看到这次搜寻终于取得了成果，我感到非常高兴。”
I’m Bryan Lynn.
布莱恩·林恩为您播报。
译文为可可英语翻译，未经授权请勿转载！
