科學家發(fā)現(xiàn)驚人的超新星

科學家們在發(fā)現(xiàn)破紀錄的超新星后驚呆了

Scientists have a pretty good handle on the life cycle of various stars. They know the types of stars that are likely to die in fiery supernova blasts and they know that not all supernovas are created equal. Still, space has many untold secrets, and a new study published in the Astrophysical Journal reveals that scientists had their understanding of supernovas thrown into question after observing an explosion so massive that they initially thought their instruments had broken.

科學家們對各種恒星的生命周期掌握得相當好。他們知道可能死于超新星爆炸的恒星類型，也知道并非所有的超新星都是一樣的。盡管如此，太空仍有許多不為人知的秘密，發(fā)表在《天體物理學雜志》(Astrophysical Journal)上的一項新研究顯示，科學家們在觀測了一次如此巨大的爆炸之后，對超新星的理解出現(xiàn)了問題，他們最初以為自己的儀器已經(jīng)壞了。

The explosion in question, called SN2016iet, was first spotted back in 2016, but it took a further three years for astronomers to truly understand what they were seeing.

這次被稱為SN2016iet的爆炸最早是在2016年被發(fā)現(xiàn)的，但是天文學家又花了三年時間才真正理解他們所看到的東西。

Center for Astrophysics/Harvard

“When we first realized how thoroughly unusual SN2016iet is my reaction was ‘Whoa — did something go horribly wrong with our data?’” Harvard grad Sebastian Gomez, lead author of the paper, said in a statement. “After a while, we determined that SN2016iet is an incredible mystery, located in a previously uncatalogued galaxy 1 billion light-years from Earth.”

“當我們第一次意識到SN2016iet是多么不尋常時，我的反應是‘哇——我們的數(shù)據(jù)出了什么嚴重的問題嗎?”該論文的主要作者、哈佛大學畢業(yè)生塞巴斯蒂安戈麥斯在一份聲明中說。“過了一段時間，我們確定SN2016iet是一個令人難以置信的謎，它位于距離地球10億光年的一個以前未被編目的星系中。”

Working backwards from what they could see of the star’s current state, the team determined that the blast was created by a star 200 times as massive as our sun. Researchers believe it shed a whopping 85 percent of its mass during its brief existence, which ultimately ended in a colossal detonation. The huge amount of material the star shed, along with the supernova explosion itself, produced a sight that left scientists scratching their heads for years.

從他們所能看到的恒星的當前狀態(tài)向后看，研究小組確定爆炸是由一顆200倍于太陽質(zhì)量的恒星產(chǎn)生的。研究人員認為，在它短暫的存在期間，它的質(zhì)量下降了高達85%，最終導致了巨大的爆炸。恒星脫落的大量物質(zhì)，連同超新星爆炸本身，產(chǎn)生了一種景象，讓科學家們困惑了多年。

“Everything about this supernova looks different — its change in brightness with time, its spectrum, the galaxy it is located in and even where it’s located within its galaxy,” Professor Dr. Edo Berger explains. “We sometimes see supernovas that are unusual in one respect, but otherwise are normal; this one is unique in every possible way.”

“這顆超新星的一切看起來都不一樣——它的亮度隨時間、光譜、所在星系的變化，甚至它在星系內(nèi)的位置也在變化，”EdoBerger教授解釋說。“我們有時會看到超新星在某一方面是不尋常的，但在其他方面是正常的，這個超新星在所有可能的方面都是獨一無二的。”

Going forward, the team plans to continue to observe SN2016iet and, hopefully, learn more about its past and future. This will be made easier by the fact that the explosion was incredibly bright and located in a bare area of the sky, so there may still be more it can teach us.

展望未來，該團隊計劃繼續(xù)觀察SN2016IET，并希望進一步了解其過去和未來。這次爆炸非常明亮，而且位于天空的一個光禿禿的區(qū)域，這一事實將使這一切變得更加容易，所以它可能還能教給我們更多。