英语新闻丨银河系中心黑洞首张照片来了

Chinese scientists have contributed to the global effort that captured the world's first image of Sagittarius A, the supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way galaxy, according to the Shanghai Astronomical Observatory of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, one of the participants in the project.

银河系中心黑洞人马座A*（Sgr A*）首张照片在中国科学院上海天文台揭开了面纱。

Experts believe the image of Sagittarius A will help people better understand the extreme celestial objects called black holes and the evolution of our galaxy.

专家相信人马座A*的形象将帮助人们更好地理解称为黑洞的极端天体和我们星系的演化。

The Event Horizon Telescope, a global network of synchronized radio observatories that produced the first image of a black hole in 2019, held a news conference on Thursday to present the mug shot of the behemoth lurking behind the clouds of dust and gas that surround the center of our home galaxy.

“事件视界望远镜（EHT）”是全球同步射电观测台网络，它于2019年拍摄了第一张黑洞图像。周四，该望远镜举行了一场新闻发布会，展示了潜伏在我们家园星系中心的尘埃和气体云背后的巨兽的照片。

While it is impossible to see the black hole itself, because its enormous gravitational pull traps light, scientists did manage to capture the swirling mass of superheated interstellar material, the orange ring-shaped silhouette surrounding it.

虽然不可能看到黑洞本身，因为它巨大的引力会捕捉光线，但科学家确实设法捕捉到了过热的星际物质的漩涡质量，即围绕它的橙色环形轮廓。

The image is the culmination of five years' worth of work done by more than 300 researchers from 80 institutions around the globe.

这张图片是全球80家机构的300多名研究人员在五年时间里所做工作的顶峰。

Shen Zhiqiang, director of the Shanghai observatory and the Event Horizon Telescope's coordinator in China, said scientists may eventually be able to produce a "short film" of Sagittarius A as more highly sensitive telescopes join the global endeavor.

上海天文台主任、事件地平线望远镜驻中国协调员沈志强表示，随着更高灵敏度的望远镜加入全球努力，科学家们最终可能能够拍摄一部黑洞的“电影”。

Sagittarius A is located about 27,000 light years away from our solar system. It has an estimated mass of more than 4 million times that of the sun. It's about 24 million kilometers in diameter.

人马座A*距离太阳系大约27，000光年。

据估计，它的质量是太阳质量的400多万倍。

直径约2400万公里。

The black hole is now mostly dormant and only occasionally absorbs nearby gas or dust, but it holds many mysteries that have puzzled scientists for decades, such as its birth and growth.

黑洞现在大多处于休眠状态，只是偶尔吸收附近的气体或尘埃，但它包含着数十年来困扰科学家的许多谜团，比如它的诞生和生长。

Black holes typically form when the nuclear fusion of a very massive star fizzles out and it collapses upon itself into a super dense celestial object.

黑洞通常形成时，一个非常大的恒星的核融合消失，它自己坍塌成为一个超稠密的天体。

However, the mechanism that forms supermassive black holes like Sagittarius A is unclear because no star is large enough to directly collapse into a black hole of this size, let alone much bigger black holes like the Messier 87, the subject of the first black hole image.

然而，形成像人马座A*那样的超大质量黑洞的机理还不清楚，因为没有一颗恒星大到足以直接坍塌成这种大小的黑洞，更不用说像第一张黑洞图像的主题Messier 87那样大得多的黑洞了。

Proposed explanations include that smaller black holes grow larger by swallowing nearby interstellar gas and dust or stars, or by merging with other black holes.

提议的解释包括，较小的黑洞通过吞咽附近的星际气体和尘埃或恒星，或者与其他黑洞合并而变大。