?Astrophysicists have gotten a better glimpse at what happens to crashing neutron stars by listening in on the electromagnetic echoes of the collision. Christopher Intagliata reports.?天體物理學(xué)家通過監(jiān)聽碰撞產(chǎn)生的電磁回波,對中子星碰撞的情況有了更好的了解。克里斯托弗?因塔利亞塔報道。
? 撰文\播音:克里斯托弗·因塔利亞塔(Christopher Intagliata) 翻譯:邱燕寧 審校:許楠 Last year, astronomers observed two neutron stars collide—a crash transmitted in gravitational waves to detectors here on Earth. Represented in sound, you can hear a small upwards sweep in frequency, in the data, if you listen closely.? 去年,天文學(xué)家觀測到兩顆中子星相撞——一種以引力波形式傳送到地球上探測器的碰撞。如果你仔細(xì)聽,你可以在數(shù)據(jù)中聽到一個小的升階頻率。 < <<片段:LIGO?中子星合并>> Several seconds later, the first waves of electromagnetic radiation arrived here on Earth - the first time a collision has been detected by both light and gravitational waves. And it's in studying the?electromagnetic?echoes of the collision that astrophysicists have gotten a far better glimpse of what really happened after those binary neutron stars merged, 130 million light-years away.? 幾秒鐘后,第一波電磁輻射到達(dá)地球,這是第一次用光波和引力波探測到的碰撞。正是在研究碰撞的電磁回聲時,天體物理學(xué)家們才得以更清楚地看到,在1.3億光年之外,這兩顆中子星合并后究竟發(fā)生了什么。 "Oh yeah, absolutely, so it gives us an understanding of basically all the nitty gritty of what's going on after the merger takes place." Kunal Mooley, an astrophysicist at Caltech. “哦,是的,當(dāng)然了,所以它讓我們基本上了解了合并后發(fā)生的所有細(xì)節(jié)。”?加州理工學(xué)院的天體物理學(xué)家?guī)燹r(nóng)·莫里(Kunal Mooley)說。 First, he says, the stars collided < 首先,他說,這兩顆恒星相撞,創(chuàng)造了一個巨大的,黑色黑洞狀的物體,開始吸收撞擊后留下的富含中子的宇宙碎片。但它的胃口(能力)有限。 "It cannot eat all of it, so some bit of it basically escapes." Those escaping leftovers spewed outward into space, as a powerful jet. But along the way, Mooley says, the jet appears to have interacted with that cloud of neutron-rich material, blowing up a sort of cocoon within the debris floating around the collision. Until finally, the jet burst out and slammed into interstellar space… releasing yet more radiation we could detect here on Earth.? “因?yàn)?/span>它不能吸收所有的碎片,所以一些碎片會流失掉。”那些逃逸出來的剩余物向外噴射到太空,就像一架強(qiáng)大的噴氣式飛機(jī)。但在此過程中,莫里說,噴射物似乎會與富含中子物質(zhì)的云團(tuán)相互作用,在碰撞周圍漂浮的碎片中炸開了一個繭狀結(jié)構(gòu)。直到最后,噴氣機(jī)爆炸并撞向星際空間,釋放出更多我們在地球上可以探測到的輻射。 The full play by play is in the journal?Nature. [K. P. Mooley et al.,?Superluminal motion of a relativistic jet in the neutron-star merger GW170817] 《自然》雜志上刊登了全部過程。 In this case, Mooley says, we were lucky to spot the event—the narrow jet was pointed close to Earth. But these collisions could be happening all the time, just that their jets point in directions hard to detect from Earth. But maybe, he says, astronomers can now look for those 'cocoons' as an alternate way to study these colossal bits of cosmic wreckage.? 在這種情況下,莫里說,我們很幸運(yùn)的發(fā)現(xiàn)了這個事件——狹窄的射流指向了地球附近。但這些碰撞可能一直在發(fā)生,只是它們的噴射指向地球難以探測的方向。但他說,也許天文學(xué)家現(xiàn)在可以尋找這些“繭”,作為研究這些巨大的宇宙殘骸的另一種方式。 And while gravitational waves are exciting, "there's a lot more to be learned through electromagnetic waves and gravitational waves than that is to be learned through gravitational waves alone." When the LIGO gravitational wave detector fires up, early next year, he says, he'll be watching, waiting, perhaps, for his next study subject.? 盡管引力波是令人興奮的,“但通過電磁波和引力波可以學(xué)到的東西比僅僅通過引力波學(xué)到的要多得多。”他說,當(dāng)LIGO引力波探測器明年初啟動時,他將會觀察、等待,或許,等待他的下一個研究課題。