這個星系中心的黑洞可能是宇宙中比較大的黑洞之一

這個星系中心的黑洞可能是宇宙中最大的黑洞之一

When you drive through some galactic neighborhoods, you definitely want to keep your windows rolled up.

當(dāng)你開車經(jīng)過銀河系的一些街區(qū)時，你肯定想把車窗搖起來。

The heart of our own Milky Way galaxy, for example, may have as many as 20,000 black holes. And all of them are handily eclipsed by the granddaddy of voids, the supermassive Sagittarius A*.

例如，我們銀河系的中心可能有多達2萬個黑洞。它們都被空洞的鼻祖——超大質(zhì)量的人馬座A*輕易地蓋過了。

But some black holes are so vast, they reduce even supermassive things to squintable proportions. In fact, they get their own membership card for being ultramassive black holes.

但有些黑洞太大了，它們甚至能把超大質(zhì)量的物體縮小到可瞇著眼的比例。事實上，它們擁有自己的會員卡，因為它們是超級大黑洞。

Such is Holm 15A*, the light-bending beast that calls the Holmberg 15 galaxy home, a merciful 700 million light-years from where you're currently sitting.

這就是霍爾姆15A*，一種彎曲光線的生物，它把霍爾姆15A*星系稱為自己的家，距離你現(xiàn)在坐的地方7億光年。

Direct measurements of Holm 15A* suggest it clocks in at a whopping 400 solar masses. (Photo: sdecoret/Shutterstock)

While astronomers have noted the likely presence of a black hole in the heart of the elliptical galaxy — indirect measurements even pegged its mass at around 310 billion times that of our sun — a new, more reliable measuring stick has given it even more daunting dimensions.

雖然天文學(xué)家已經(jīng)注意到在橢圓星系的中心可能存在一個黑洞——間接測量甚至認為它的質(zhì)量大約是我們太陽的3100億倍——一種新的、更可靠的測量棒已經(jīng)給了它更令人生畏的尺寸。

Holm 15A* is probably closer to the mass of 400 billion suns, according to scientists who submitted their research this week to The Astrophysical Journal.

霍爾姆15A*可能接近4000億個太陽的質(zhì)量，根據(jù)本周提交給《天體物理學(xué)雜志》的科學(xué)家們的研究。

The team, led by Kianusch Mehrgan from Germany's Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics, measured the black hole based on star movements.

由德國馬克斯普朗克地外物理研究所的基努什·梅爾根領(lǐng)導(dǎo)的研究小組根據(jù)恒星的運動來測量黑洞。

"This is the most massive black hole with a direct dynamical detection in the local universe," the team noted in the paper, which has yet to be reviewed by peers.

“這是在局部宇宙中直接動態(tài)探測到的最大的黑洞，”研究小組在論文中指出，該論文尚未得到同行的評論。

By "local'' researchers mean an area that sprawls about a billion light-years in radius — a somewhat necessary stretch of the term, considering the infinite expanse that is the universe.

所謂“局部”研究人員指的是一個半徑約為10億光年的區(qū)域——考慮到宇宙的無限大，這是這個術(shù)語的必要延伸。

The black hole at the center of the galaxy cluster PKS 0745-19 is another example of the ultramassive variety. (Photo: NASA/CXC/Stanford/Hlavacek-Larrondo, J)

"This is a remarkable observation of an extremely massive black hole at 40 billion solar masses," Andrew Coates, a professor at University College London who wasn't involved in the study, told Newsweek. "This makes it the most massive in our region of the universe, and one of the most massive ever found."

倫敦大學(xué)學(xué)院教授安德魯·科茨沒有參與這項研究，他在接受《新聞周刊》采訪時表示:“這是對一個具有400億太陽質(zhì)量的超大質(zhì)量黑洞的驚人觀測。”“這使得它成為宇宙中我們所在區(qū)域最大的恒星，也是迄今為止發(fā)現(xiàn)的最大恒星之一。”

Let's try imagining Greenland (before all of its ice disappears). You would be able to fit Greenland into Holm 15* about, errr … carry the two over the four … let's see … who are we kidding? Greenland wouldn't even be on the kiddie menu for Holm 15A*.

讓我們試著想象格陵蘭島(在所有的冰消失之前)。你可以把格林蘭塞進霍爾姆的15*里，呃……把兩個帶過去……讓我看看……我們在開玩笑吧?格陵蘭島甚至不會出現(xiàn)在霍爾姆15A*的兒童菜單上。

There are just some things in this universe that exist on such a grand scale, we simply can't give their girth a human framework.

在這個宇宙中，只有一些東西以如此宏大的規(guī)模存在，我們根本無法給它們的周長一個人類的框架。

Holm 15A* is one of those things.

霍爾姆15A*就是其中之一。