这张令人震惊的图片可能揭示了为什么我们的星系中心没有恒星

这张令人震惊的图片可能揭示了为什么我们的星系中心没有恒星

If you've gazed at the star-studded Milky Way in the night sky, you may have wondered about the strange haze at its heart.

如果你凝视过夜空中繁星点点的银河，你可能会对其中心奇怪的薄雾感到好奇。

Photo: NASA/SOFIA/JPL-Caltech/ESA/Herschel

Astronomers, too, have long puzzled over that creamy filling. If the core is made up of gas and dust — the key ingredients for fresh-baked stars — why are there so few of them hanging around there?

长期以来，天文学家也一直对这种奶油状的填充物感到困惑。如果核心是由气体和灰尘组成的——这是新鲜恒星的关键成分——那么它们为什么那么少呢?

This spellbinding new image from NASA — capturing the core in a sweeping, 600-light-year wide panorama — may offer a hint.

这张来自美国国家航空航天局的引人入胜的新图像——以600光年宽的全景捕捉到了地核——可能提供了一个线索。

Using infrared data, scientists were able to illuminate the galaxy's core in spectacular high-definition, revealing features that have never been seen before.

利用红外数据，科学家们能够以惊人的清晰度照亮银河系的核心，揭示出以前从未见过的特征。

Astronomers are hoping those super-crisp details will help them account for the mysterious dearth of stars in the region.

天文学家希望这些超级清晰的细节能帮助他们解释该地区恒星的神秘缺乏。

"The Milky Way's central regions have significantly more of the dense gas and dust that are the building blocks for new stars compared to other parts of the galaxy," NASA notes in a press release. "Yet, there are 10 times fewer massive stars born here than expected."

NASA在一份新闻稿中指出:“与银河系的其他部分相比，银河系的中心区域有更多的致密气体和尘埃，它们是形成新恒星的基石。”“然而，这里诞生的大质量恒星是预期的10倍。”

If the center of our galaxy is also its oven, where fresh stars are baked from raw ingredients like gas and dust, you might think there would be more than a few celestial cookies hanging around there.

如果我们的星系中心也是它的烤箱，在那里新鲜的恒星是由气体和尘埃等原料烘烤而成，你可能会认为那里会有很多天上的饼干。

But even the stars that do manage to emerge from that central oven come out strange and misshapen. They tend to stick together, resulting in dense gatherings of bright stars like the Quintuplet Cluster and Arches Cluster. You can see both clusters in the incredibly high-resolution image NASA captured.

但即使是那些从中央炉中冒出来的星星，也会奇怪而畸形。它们倾向于粘在一起，导致明亮的恒星密集聚集，如五胞胎星系团和拱门星系团。你可以在NASA拍摄的高分辨率图像中看到这两个星团。

For their research, astronomers relied on the Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy, known simply as SOFIA. As the largest airborne telescope in existence, SOFIA can cast its infrared eye far into the cosmos, all while mounted on a roving Boeing 747 that has been modified to bear a bevy of sensors.

天文学家的研究依赖于平流层红外天文台，简称索菲亚。作为现存最大的机载望远镜，索菲亚可以将它的红外望远镜投射到宇宙深处，而这一切都是安装在一架波音747飞机上的，这架飞机经过改装，装有一组传感器。

Without SOFIA's penetrating gaze, much of the details at the heart of our galaxy would be concealed by the dense, light-blocking clouds that dominate the region. The image even reveals clouds of material being hoovered into the galaxy's black hole-in-residence: Sagittarius A*.

如果没有索菲亚敏锐的目光，我们银河系中心的许多细节将会被笼罩在这一区域的浓密、遮光的云层所掩盖。这张照片甚至揭示了被吸入星系黑洞的物质云:人马座A*。

"It's incredible to see our galactic center in detail we've never seen before," James Radomski, a scientists at SOFIA notes in the release. "Studying this area has been like trying to assemble a puzzle with missing pieces. The SOFIA data fills in some of the holes, putting us significantly closer to having a complete picture."

索菲亚的科学家詹姆斯·拉多姆斯基在新闻稿中写道:“看到我们从未见过的银河系中心的细节，真是令人难以置信。”“研究这一领域就像用缺失的碎片拼凑拼图。索菲亚的数据填补了一些漏洞，使我们更接近完整的图像。”

To fill in that picture even further, astronomers once again turn to the telescope of tomorrow: The James Webb Space Satellite. Already fully assembled, the all-seeing eye is expected to launch in March 2021. Once in orbit, its powerful sensors will be able to draw back the cosmic curtain even further than the pioneering Hubble Space Telescope.

为了进一步完善这一理论，天文学家们再次求助于未来的望远镜:詹姆斯·韦伯太空卫星。已经完全组装完毕的全视之眼预计将于2021年3月推出。一旦进入轨道，它强大的传感器将能够拉开宇宙的帷幕，甚至比开创性的哈勃太空望远镜还要远。

And unravelling the mystery of our own cosmic heart could also help us understand the inner workings of much more distant galaxies.

解开我们自己的宇宙之心的奥秘也可以帮助我们了解更遥远星系的内部运作。

"Understanding how massive star birth happens at the center of our own galaxy gives us information that can help us learn about other, more distant galaxies," principal investigator Matthew Hankins of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, California, explains in the statement. "Using multiple telescopes gives us clues we need to understand these processes, and there's still more to be uncovered."

位于加州帕萨迪纳市的加州理工学院的首席研究员马修·汉金斯在声明中解释说:“了解银河系中心的大质量恒星是如何诞生的，可以为我们提供信息，帮助我们了解其他更远的星系。”“使用多个望远镜为我们提供了了解这些过程所需的线索，还有更多的东西有待发现。”