黑洞有朋友嗎?

黑洞有朋友嗎?

"I would rather walk with a friend in the dark, than alone in the light."

“我寧愿與朋友在黑暗中同行，也不愿獨自在光明中行走。”

When she expressed that thought back in the early 20th century, American author Helen Keller was probably referring to "like-hearted" people.

當美國作家海倫·凱勒在20世紀初表達這一想法時，她可能指的是“有愛心的”人。

But it turns out, those may be words to live by — quite literally — for black holes.

但事實證明，這些可能是黑洞賴以生存的詞匯。

The supermassive black hole at the center of our galaxy, called Sagittarius A*, or Sgr A*, is estimated to contain about 4.5 million times the mass of our sun. (Photo: NASA/CXC/Stanford/I. Zhuravleva et al. [Public domain]/Wikipedia Commons)

Consider Sagittarius A*, or simply Sgr A* — the Milky Way galaxy's supermassive black hole-in-residence. Cramming a mass of around 4 million suns into a region about the size of the space between the Earth and the sun, it lives squarely at the heart of our galaxy.

考慮一下人馬座A*，或者簡單的Sgr A*——銀河系的超大質(zhì)量黑洞。它的質(zhì)量約為400萬個太陽，擠進了地球和太陽之間的空間大小的區(qū)域，正好位于我們銀河系的中心。

But it was assumed that, aside from the retinue of stars that surround it, this galactic carnivore lived in solitude.

但據(jù)推測，除了它周圍的恒星隨從，這種銀河系食肉動物生活在孤獨中。

After all, who wants to hang out with a black hole?

畢竟，誰愿意和黑洞在一起?

They're unrepentant gluttons at the dinner table. And definitely not fun at parties.

他們是餐桌上不知悔改的貪吃者。而且在派對上絕對不好玩。

But someone may put up with them. And that someone could be another black hole.

但有人可能會容忍他們。那個人可能是另一個黑洞。

According to a scholarly article published in arXiv, the star cluster surrounding Sgr A* indicates another dark influence at work — the gravitational pull of a smaller, but still massive, void lurking in the shadows.

根據(jù)發(fā)表在arXiv雜志上的一篇學術文章，圍繞Sgr a *的星系團表明了另一種黑暗的影響在起作用——隱藏在陰影中的一個更小但仍然巨大的真空的引力。

"Based on what we've seen, my colleagues and I show that if there is a friend there, it might be a second black hole nearby that is at least 100,000 times the mass of the Sun," study co-author Smadar Naoz, an astrophysicist at the University of California, writes in LiveScience.

“基于我們所看到的,我和我的同事們表明,如果有一個朋友,也許是第二個黑洞附近,至少是太陽質(zhì)量的100000倍,”這項研究的合作者Smadar Naoz,加利福尼亞大學的天體物理學家,在《生活科學》中寫道。

That would make the heart of our galaxy — already a place of high intrigue and drama — even more complicated. The black holes would be locked into a kind of gravitational dance. They would orbit each other, while simultaneously tugging at nearby stars in their orbits.

這將使我們銀河系的心臟——已經(jīng)是一個充滿陰謀和戲劇性的地方——變得更加復雜。黑洞會被鎖定在一種引力舞蹈中。它們會相互環(huán)繞，同時拉著軌道上鄰近的恒星。

The tell-tale heart of our galaxy is actually a star known as S0-2. It's close enough to Sgr A* to provide scientists with all kinds of information about its all-consuming neighbor — without actually being on the menu. Instead, S0-2 whips around Sgr A* at speeds of more than 16 million miles per hour. When the star passes too close to the black hole, its light stretches and shifts into the red part of the electromagnetic spectrum — a validation of Einstein's theory of general relativity.

銀河系的心臟其實是一顆被稱為S0-2的恒星。它與Sgr A*非常接近，可以為科學家提供所有關于它的所有鄰居的各種信息，而不需要真正出現(xiàn)在菜單上。相反，S0-2在Sgr A*附近以超過1600萬英里每小時的速度疾馳。當恒星太靠近黑洞時，它發(fā)出的光就會延伸并轉(zhuǎn)移到電磁波譜的紅色部分——這是對愛因斯坦廣義相對論的驗證。

By studying that shift in light, Naoz and her colleagues might be able to detect another hand pulling S0-2's strings. But it would be a much smaller hand. Because, so far, they haven't been able to note its effect on SO-2's orbit.

通過研究光的這種移動，Naoz和她的同事們可能能夠探測到另一只手在拉動S0-2的弦。但它會是一只更小的手。因為到目前為止，他們還沒有注意到它對so -2軌道的影響。

"But that doesn't mean that a smaller companion black hole cannot still hide there," Naoz notes. "Such an object may not alter the orbit of SO-2 in a way we can easily measure."

“但這并不意味著一個較小的伴生黑洞仍然不能隱藏在那里，”Naoz指出。“這樣一個物體可能不會以我們可以輕易測量的方式改變SO-2的軌道。”

Instead, the research team is focusing on gravitational waves that would be emitted by two massive black holes orbiting each other. But to pick up on those extremely low-frequency ripples in space, they will have to wait until the space-based detector known as LISA, or Laser Interferometer Space Antenna, is launched in 2034.

相反，研究小組正專注于由兩個相互環(huán)繞的巨大黑洞發(fā)出的引力波。但要捕捉到太空中那些極低頻的漣漪，他們必須等到2034年發(fā)射的LISA太空探測器，即激光干涉儀太空天線。

Then we might know for certain if these cold, remote chasms in space and time have any friends.

那么，我們就可以肯定地知道，這些空間和時間上寒冷遙遠的裂縫是否有朋友。