“大到不存在”的恒星

宇宙中最重的恒星 “幾乎大到不存在”

The heaviest star in the universe has been discovered — and it’s only 15 miles wide.

宇宙中最重的恒星已經(jīng)被發(fā)現(xiàn)，它只有15英里寬。

It is more than twice the mass of the sun, meaning a sugar cube of it would weigh 100 million tons. That is the same weight as the entire human population.

它的質(zhì)量是太陽的兩倍多，這意味著它的一個糖立方體將重達1億噸。這相當(dāng)于整個人類的重量。

Known as a neutron star, it is the compressed remains of a supernova, an exploding star, and is 700,000 times heavier than Earth.

它就是中子星，是一顆超新星的壓縮殘骸，一顆正在爆炸的恒星，比地球重70萬倍。

It is also a pulsar, emitting radio waves like a lighthouse as it spins.

同時它也是一個脈沖星，在旋轉(zhuǎn)時像燈塔一樣發(fā)射無線電波。

Neutron stars form when the outer part of a giant sun explodes and the core implodes. Its protons and electrons melt into each other to form neutrons.

當(dāng)一個巨大太陽的外部爆炸，核心內(nèi)爆時，中子星就形成了。它的質(zhì)子和電子相互熔化形成中子。

Named J0740+6620, it is 2.17 times the mass of the sun — which is 333,000 times the mass of the Earth. The findings were published in Nature Astronomy.

它被命名為J0740+6620，是太陽質(zhì)量的2.17倍，是地球質(zhì)量的333000倍。研究結(jié)果發(fā)表在《自然天文學(xué)》雜志上。

It is “the most massive neutron star ever detected — almost too massive to exist,” says the team.

這是“迄今為止發(fā)現(xiàn)的最大的中子星——幾乎大到不可能存在。”研究小組說。

The measurement approaches the limits of how compact a single object can be without crushing itself into a black hole.

這種測量方法接近了單個物體在不將自身壓入黑洞的情況下所能達到的緊湊程度的極限。

It was detected about 4,600 light-years from Earth by the Green Bank Telescope in West Virginia. One light-year is about 6 trillion miles.

它是由西弗吉尼亞州的格林班克望遠(yuǎn)鏡在距離地球4600光年的地方發(fā)現(xiàn)的。一光年大約是6萬億英里。

Scientist Thankful Cromartie, of Virginia University, said: “Neutron stars are as mysterious as they are fascinating. These city-sized objects are ginormous atomic nuclei.”

弗吉尼亞大學(xué)的科學(xué)家謝天謝地地說:“中子星既神秘又迷人。這些城市大小的物體是巨大的原子核。”

Colleague Maura McLaughlin, who studied the star with Duncan Lorimer, said: “These stars are very exotic.”

同事莫拉·麥克勞克林和鄧肯·洛里默一起研究了這顆恒星，他說:“這些恒星非常奇特。”

Neutron stars have temperatures of a million degrees, are highly radioactive and have intense magnetic fields.

中子星的溫度為100萬度，具有很強的放射性，并具有強烈的磁場。

Mass is the amount of matter in a material while weight is a measure of how much gravity acts upon that mass.

質(zhì)量是物質(zhì)的數(shù)量，而重量是衡量物質(zhì)受到多少引力作用的尺度。