超大质量黑洞或将碰撞 35亿光年外星系面临毁灭_时事

超大质量黑洞或将碰撞 35亿光年外星系面临毁灭

The apocalypse is still on, apparently — at least in a galaxy about 3.5 billion light-years fromhere.

看起来，末日仍然会上演——至少是在距离我们35亿光年的一个星系。

Last winter a team of Caltech astronomers reported that a pair of supermassive black holesappeared to be spiraling together toward a cataclysmic collision that could bring down thecurtains in that galaxy.

过去的这个冬天，加州理工的一群天文学家发布论文称，一对超大质量黑洞似乎在朝着灾难性碰撞的轨迹运行，而这种碰撞可能会宣告该星系的落幕。

The evidence was a rhythmic flickering from the galaxy’s nucleus, a quasar known as PG1302-102, which Matthew Graham and his colleagues interpreted as the fatal mating dance of apair of black holes with a total mass of more than a billion suns. Their merger, the astronomerscalculated, could release as much energy as 100 million supernova explosions, mostly in theform of violent ripples in space-time known as gravitational waves that would blow the starsout of that hapless galaxy like leaves off a roof.

他们的证据是这一星系中心的类星体PG 1302-102表现出了一种有规律的闪动。研究人员马修·格雷厄姆(Matthew Graham)及其同事认为，这代表了一对总质量超过太阳10亿倍的黑洞在互相环绕，走向死亡。根据他们的估算，二者合并或许可以释放出1亿颗超新星爆炸的能量，多数表现为“引力波。这种时空中的猛烈涟漪会让星体从那倒霉的星系中喷出，好比是从屋顶上刮走树叶。

【超大质量黑洞或将碰撞 35亿光年外星系面临毁灭】相关文章：

★ 盘点2011年全球最“潮”的工作（双语）

★ 中联重科否认虚增销售指控

★ 美共和党议员：勿与华为做生意

★ 香烟盒大变样 “素颜”包装减少诱惑