Astronomers working out of the Keck Observatory in Hawaii have just announced that,in May of 2019,they observed the supermassive black hole at the center of our galaxy become 75 times brighter than it normally is.There's been a ton of speculation regarding what the heck caused the burst in infrared light,but it seems like a lot of astronomers,including those that discovered the flash,think that the supermassive black hole may be…feeding.
在夏威夷凯克天文台工作的天文学家刚刚宣布，在2019年5月，他们观测到位于我们星系中心的超重黑洞星云变得比正常亮75倍。关于到底是什么导致了红外线爆发，有大量的推测，但是似乎很多天文学家，包括那些发现了闪光的天文学家，都认为超重黑洞可能是在...喂养。
Here's a timelapse of images over 2.5 hr from May from @keckobservatory of the supermassive black hole Sgr A*.The black hole is always variable,but this was the brightest we've seen in the infrared so far.It was probably even brighter before we started observing that night!pic.twitter.com/MwXioZ7twV
这是从5月份开始的超过2.5小时的图片，来自超重黑洞的 keckobservatory Sgr a*。黑洞总是变幻莫测的，但这是迄今为止我们在红外线中看到的最亮的一个。在我们开始观察那个夜晚之前，它可能更亮了！Pic.twitter.com/mwxioz7twv
—Tuan Do(@quantumpenguin)August 11,2019
ーTuan Do(@quantumpenguin)2019年8月11日
Before discussing the recent observation,which was reported in a paper titled Unprecedented Variability of Sgr A*NIR and comes via Vice,it should be noted that this event took place in the distant past—the very distant past.That's because the supermassive black hole being observed,dubbed Sagittarius A*,is a mind-bending 25,640 light years from Earth.Which means what we observed just a couple months back actually happened 25,640 years ago.
在讨论最近的观测结果之前，应该指出，这一事件发生在很久以前，即非常遥远的过去。这是因为被观测到的超重黑洞，被称为人马座 a*，距离地球25,640光年，令人难以置信。这意味着我们几个月前观察到的事情，实际上发生在25640年前。
Now that that fact is out of the way,let's talk about the supermassive black hole exploding with brightness.In the tweet above,Tuan Do,one of the lead researchers who discovered the flash,notes that the video is a time-lapse of images taken over two-and-a-half hours(from the Keck telescope).Do notes that this observation was taken from an infrared portion of the electromagnetic spectrum that's just out of the band of visible light that people can see with their pedestrian peepers.
既然这个事实已经过去了，那么让我们来谈谈超重黑洞的爆炸性增长吧。在上面的推文中，发现闪光的主要研究人员之一 Tuan Do 指出，这段视频是两个半小时(从凯克望远镜)拍摄的图像的延时。请注意，这个观察是从电磁波谱的红外线部分拍摄的，它刚好在人们可以用行人窥视器看到的可见光波段之外。
Taken when I was @keckobservatory,this raw image shows the brightest Sgr A*has ever been observed in the infrared(center).The emission associated with the black hole also changed by a factor of 75 over that night.Is Sgr A*waking up?Will we finally see 
?pic.twitter.com/lX7ZO2PhX2
这张原始照片拍摄于我在 keckobservatory 的时候，它显示了在红外线(中间)观测到的最亮的 Sgr a*。与黑洞相关的辐射在那个晚上也改变了75倍。Sgr a*醒了吗？我们最终会看到吗？Pic.twitter.com/lx7zo2phx2
—Tuan Do(@quantumpenguin)August 8,2019
ーTuan Do(@quantumpenguin)2019年8月8日
As the flash is unprecedented,astronomers admit that they don't actually know what caused it.But many of them,like Phil Plait, are guessing that the extraordinary increase in brightness was caused by either a subatomic particle"wind"that surrounds S2(a star that orbits closely to the supermassive black hole),or perhaps G2,which is an unknown astronomical object that may be a dust cloud or a star surrounded by a dust cloud that also orbits near the black hole.
由于这次闪光是前所未有的，天文学家们承认他们实际上并不知道是什么造成的。但是他们中的许多人，比如 Phil Plait，猜测这种亮度的异常增加要么是由围绕着 s 2的次原子粒子"风"(一颗围绕着超重黑洞运行的恒星)造成的，要么是 g 2，一颗未知的天体，可能是尘埃云，或者是被围绕在黑洞附近的尘埃云所包围的恒星。
If this is the case,it's fair to say that this increase in brightness is due to the supermassive black hole"feeding"on some form of dust surrounding it.This is one reasonable hypothesis because as a black hole feeds on matter,it lights it up to enormous levels of brightness due to the matter's speed—the gargantuan mass of a supermassive black hole means that things that get near it increase in speed and turbulence(the matter bumps into each other)causing an increase in thermal radiation.And an increase in thermal radiation necessarily means an increase in electromagnetic radiation;in this case,infrared light.(We've all seen Predator,right?!)
如果是这样的话，可以公平地说，亮度的增加是由于超重黑洞吸收了周围某种形式的尘埃。这是一个合理的假设，因为当一个黑洞以物质为食时，由于物质的速度，它会发出巨大的亮度----超重黑洞的巨大质量意味着接近它的物体会增加速度和湍流(物质相互碰撞)，从而导致热辐射的增加。热辐射的增加必然意味着电磁辐射的增加;在这种情况下，是红外线。(我们都看过《铁血战士》，对吧?!)
In the above GIF:One artistic take on what a black hole feeding on a star would look like.
在上面的 GIF 图片中，我们可以看到一个正在吞噬恒星的黑洞的艺术效果。
Regardless of what caused the enormous flash of bright light from the supermassive black hole,one thing is certain:It's a lot of fun to guess about what happened.Oh,and we're also not in any danger from this event.That's important to note too,probably.
不管是什么原因导致了超重黑洞空间站巨大的闪光，有一件事是肯定的:猜测发生了什么是很有趣的。而且我们也不会因为这件事而有危险。也许这也是需要注意的一点。
来源：https://nerdist.com/article/black-hole-milky-way-glowing-brighter/
