保护地球，探索宇宙，发现文明
The solar system might be a lot hairier than we thought. This illustration shows Earth surrounded by theoretical filaments of dark matter called “hairs.” Dark matter is an invisible, mysterious substance that makes up about 27 percent of all matter and energy in the universe. The regular matter, which makes up everything we can see around us, is ...
What is a black hole? A black hole is an astronomical object with a gravitational pull so strong that nothing, not even light, can escape it. A black hole’s “surface,” called its event horizon, defines the boundary where the velocity needed to escape exceeds the speed of light, which is the speed limit of the cosmos. Matter and radiation fall in, but they ca...
2020年11月4日 Fifty Gravitational Wave Events Illustrated Image Credit: LIGO Virgo Collaborations, Frank Elavsky, Aaron Geller, Northwestern U. Explanation: Over fifty gravitational wave events have now been detected. These events mark the distant, violent collisions of two black holes, a black hole and a neutron star, or two neutron stars. Most of the 50 event...
2020年9月8日 GW190521: Unexpected Black Holes Collide Illustration Credit: Raúl Rubio (Virgo Valencia Group, The Virgo Collaboration) Explanation: How do black holes like this form? The two black holes that spiraled together to produce the gravitational wave event GW190521 were not only the most massive black holes ever seen by LIGO and VIRGO so far, their mass...
2020年8月26日 Cygnus Skyscape Image Credit & Copyright: Alistair Symon Explanation: In brush strokes of interstellar dust and glowing hydrogen gas, this beautiful skyscape is painted across the plane of our Milky Way Galaxy near the northern end of the Great Rift and the constellation Cygnus the Swan. Composed using 22 different images and over 180 hours o...
2020年8月25日 Visualization: A Black Hole Accretion Disk Visualization Credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Jeremy Schnittman Explanation: What would it look like to circle a black hole? If the black hole was surrounded by a swirling disk of glowing and accreting gas, then the great gravity of the black hole would deflect light emitted by the disk to mak...
2020年8月16日 NGC 6814: Grand Design Spiral Galaxy from Hubble Image Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA; Acknowledgement: Judy Schmidt Explanation: In the center of this serene stellar swirl is likely a harrowing black-hole beast. The surrounding swirl sweeps around billions of stars which are highlighted by the brightest and bluest. The breadth and beauty of the d...
天文学家发现了宇宙杀手的最佳证据：一个被称为“中等质量”的神秘的黑洞，它撕裂了一颗离它太近的任性的恒星，从而暴露了它的存在。 黑洞的质量大约是太阳的5万倍，比位于大型星系核心的超大质量黑洞(数百万或数十亿倍太阳质量)要小，但比大质量恒星坍缩形成的恒星质量黑洞要大。 这些所谓的中等质量黑洞(IMBHs)是黑洞演化过程中一个长期寻找的“缺失环节”。尽管还有其他一些IMBH候选者，但研究人员认为这些新发现是迄今为止宇宙中黑洞的最有力证据。 它利用了两个X射线天文台的强大力量以及NASA哈勃太空望远镜的敏锐视野，最终锁定了这只宇宙怪兽。 这幅图描绘了一场宇宙间的谋杀。一颗恒星正在被一个包含数万个太阳质量的黑洞的强大引力撕碎。恒星残骸在黑洞周围形成了一个吸积盘。来自超高温气体盘的X射线光提醒天文学家黑洞的位置；否则它就会...
2020 March 24 A Black Hole Disrupts a Passing Star Illustration Credit: NASA, JPL-Caltech Explanation: What happens to a star that goes near a black hole? If the star directly impacts a massive black hole, then the star falls in completely — and everything vanishes. More likely, though, the star goes close enough to have the black hole’s gravity ...
宇宙中所见最大爆炸的证据来自钱德拉和XMM-牛顿卫星的X射线数据，以及默奇森宽场阵列射电望远镜和巨米波射电望远镜，如图所示。这次喷发是由位于星团中心星系的一个黑洞引起的，它喷发出了喷流，并在周围的热气体中形成了一个大洞。研究人员估计这次爆炸释放的能量是之前记录保持者的5倍，是典型星系团的数十万倍。 来源：X-ray: Chandra: NASA/CXC/NRL/S. Giacintucci, et al., XMM-Newton: ESA/XMM-Newton; Radio: NCRA/TIFR/GMRT; Infrared: 2MASS/UMass/IPAC-Caltech/NASA/NSF 发现了宇宙中最大的爆炸。这个破纪录的巨大喷发来自数亿光年远的遥远星系团中的一个黑洞。 “从某种意义上讲，这次爆炸与19...