• Frenzy-feeding Black Hole Makes Galaxy Most Luminous Rings

00:06.93Astronomers have discovered the most luminous galaxy ever found, 00:10.28天文学家发现了有史以来人类发现的最明亮的星系—— 00:10.40shining with the equivalence of 300 trillion suns 00:13.69在可见宇宙的另一边，它闪烁 00:13.76from the far side of the visible universe. 00:16.16着相当于300万亿个太阳光的光辉。 00:16.28But almost all of that light is being produced 00:18.04但该星系几乎所有的光均来自 00:18.14by the galaxy's central supermassive black hole—not by its stars. 00:22.11它中央的超大质量的黑洞——而非它的恒星。 00:22.26The enlightening finding is in The Astrophysical Journal.

00:25.02这一极具启发性的发现发表于《天体物理学杂志》。 00:25.16Black holes are black because light itself cannot escape once falling in. 00:29.34黑洞之所以是黑色的，是因为光一旦进入里面就无法出来。 00:29.49But a feeding black hole is surrounded by a whirling, 00:32.17但是通过吸收周围物质来生长的黑洞通常都被旋转着的、 00:32.30white-hot disk of glowing debris—material heated to millions of degrees 00:36.20白热的盘状残骸包围着——在这些物质向下旋转直至被淹没的过程中， 00:36.33as it spirals down to oblivion. 00:38.53它们被加热到数百万度。 00:38.65The black hole in this faraway galaxy is on a feeding frenzy. 00:41.84这个遥远星系中的黑洞正处于被狂乱喂养的状态。 00:41.97The activity produces enough light to warm up most of the galaxy's dust— 00:45.79而这一活动产生的光亮足以加热该星系中大部分的尘埃—— 00:45.93which gives the whole galaxy an infrared glow 00:48.40让整个星系发出红外光， 00:48.52that we can detect from more than 12.5 billion light-years away. 00:52.10使我们得以从超过125亿光年的远处检测到它。 00:52.23Considering we are seeing this giant black hole's activity 00:55.29考虑到我们看到这个特大黑洞活动的时间， 00:55.43from a time when the universe was only a tenth of its present age, 00:58.44只有该星系当前年龄的十分之一。 00:58.56astronomers are puzzled about how it could've grown so big so fast. 01:02.92天文学家十分不解：为何它能如此快速地增长如此之大。 01:03.04A young, hungry black hole usually takes an occasional break from feeding— 01:07.09一个新生的、嗷嗷待哺的黑洞通常在吸食周围物质时都会偶尔休息一下—— 01:07.20its glowing debris disk can get so intense it pushes incoming material further away. 01:11.67它那发光的碎屑盘会因太过强烈而将吸食进来的物质向更深远处推进。 01:11.82Think of a baby burping mid-meal.

01:14.04就像一个婴儿在吃饭时打嗝了一样。 01:14.16But this particular galaxy's black hole seems to have circumvented this limitation— 01:18.27但这一特定星系的黑洞似乎绕过了这一限制—— 01:18.41if it's burping, the burps seem to be few and far between. 01:22.13即使它打嗝，打嗝的几率似乎也很少。 01:22.27One theory is that it must be spinning very slowly—the slower a black hole spins, 01:27.90有一种说法是，它一定在非常慢速地旋转——黑洞旋转得越慢， 01:28.03the weaker its repulsive burps may be, and the longer it can gorge uninterrupted. 01:32.48它想要'打嗝'的欲望就越弱，然后它就能不断地暴饮暴食。 01:32.59Study co-author Andrew Blain of the University of Leicester says 01:35.93该研究的共同作者，莱斯特大学的安德鲁 布莱恩说， 01:36.03that a slow spin may be how this black hole has sustained its binge, 01:39.34慢速旋转可能是导致该黑洞能够'持续暴食'的原因， 01:39.48which he calls the equivalent of 01:41.06他称这一现象为 01:41.32'winning a hot-dog-eating contest lasting hundreds of millions of years.'

01:45.55'赢得持续了数亿年的吃热狗大赛'。 01:45.68And if there's any mustard with those dogs, rest assured: it's hot. 01:49.32如果这些热狗配了芥末的话，至少确保了一点：它的确很热 01:50.06. Frenzy-Feeding Black Hole Makes Galaxy Most Luminous “暴食”的黑洞造就了最闪亮的星系 Astronomers have discovered the most luminous galaxy ever found, shining with the equivalence of 300 trillion suns from the far side of the visible universe. But almost all of that light is being produced by the galaxy’s central supermassive black hole—not by its stars. The enlightening finding is in The Astrophysical Journal.

天文学家发现了有史以来人类发现的最明亮的星系——在可见宇宙的另一边，它闪烁着相当于300万亿个太阳光的光辉。但该星系几乎所有的光均来自它中央的超大质量的黑洞——而非它的恒星。这一极具启发性的发现发表于《天体物理学杂志》。 Black holes are black because light itself cannot escape once falling in. But a feeding black hole is surrounded by a whirling, white-hot disk of glowing debris—material heated to millions of degrees as it spirals down to oblivion. The black hole in this faraway galaxy is on a feeding frenzy.

Frenzy-feeding Black Hole Makes Galaxy Most Luminous Rings

The activity produces enough light to warm up most of the galaxy’s dust—which gives the whole galaxy an infrared glow that we can detect from more than 12.5 billion light-years away. 黑洞之所以是黑色的，是因为光一旦进入里面就无法出来。但是通过吸收周围物质来生长的黑洞通常都被旋转着的、白热的盘状残骸包围着——在这些物质向下旋转直至被淹没的过程中，它们被加热到数百万度。这个遥远星系中的黑洞正处于被狂乱喂养的状态。而这一活动产生的光亮足以加热该星系中大部分的尘埃——让整个星系发出红外光，使我们得以从超过125亿光年的远处检测到它。 Considering we are seeing this giant black hole’s activity from a time when the universe was only a tenth of its present age, astronomers are puzzled about how it could’ve grown so big so fast.

A young, hungry black hole usually takes an occasional break from feeding—its glowing debris disk can get so intense it pushes incoming material further away. Think of a baby burping mid-meal. 考虑到我们看到这个特大黑洞活动的时间，只有该星系当前年龄的十分之一。天文学家十分不解：为何它能如此快速地增长如此之大。一个新生的、嗷嗷待哺的黑洞通常在吸食周围物质时都会偶尔休息一下——它那发光的碎屑盘会因太过强烈而将吸食进来的物质向更深远处推进。就像一个婴儿在吃饭时打嗝了一样。 But this particular galaxy’s black hole seems to have circumvented this limitation—if it’s burping, the burps seem to be few and far between. 但这一特定星系的黑洞似乎绕过了这一限制——即使它打嗝，打嗝的几率似乎也很少。 One theory is that it must be spinning very slowly—the slower a black hole spins, the weaker its repulsive burps may be, and the longer it can gorge uninterrupted. Study co-author Andrew Blain of the University of Leicester says that a slow spin may be how this black hole has sustained its binge, which he calls the equivalent of “winning a hot-dog-eating contest lasting hundreds of millions of years.” And if there’s any mustard with those dogs, rest assured: it’s hot. Astronomers have discovered the most luminous galaxy ever found, shining with the equivalence of 300 trillion suns from the far side of the visible universe. But almost all of that light is being produced by the galaxy’s central supermassive black hole—not by its stars.

The enlightening finding is in The Astrophysical Journal. Chao-Wei Tsai et al,The Most Luminous Galaxies Discovered by WISE Black holes are black because light itself cannot escape once falling in. But a feeding black hole is surrounded by a whirling, white-hot disk of glowing debris—material heated to millions of degrees as it spirals down to oblivion. The black hole in this faraway galaxy is on a feeding frenzy. The activity produces enough light to warm up most of the galaxy’s dust—which gives the whole galaxy an infrared glow that we can detect from more than 12.5 billion light-years away. Considering we are seeing this giant black hole’s activity from a time when the universe was only a tenth of its present age, astronomers are puzzled about how it could’ve grown so big so fast.

A young, hungry black hole usually takes an occasional break from feeding—its glowing debris disk can get so intense it pushes incoming material further away. Think of a baby burping mid-meal. But this particular galaxy’s black hole seems to have circumvented this limitation—if it’s burping, the burps seem to be few and far between. One theory is that it must be spinning very slowly—the slower a black hole spins, the weaker its repulsive burps may be, and the longer it can gorge uninterrupted. Study co-author Andrew Blain of the University of Leicester says that a slow spin may be how this black hole has sustained its binge, which he calls the equivalent of “winning a hot-dog-eating contest lasting hundreds of millions of years.” And if there’s any mustard with those dogs, rest assured: it’s hot.

Scientists have found hundreds of galaxies hiding in plain sight, cloaked by the light emitted from an extremely active supermassive black hole. The galaxies and blazing black hole can be seen in a new image released by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). The black hole, a type known as a, sits 2.4 billion light-years from Earth and is so bright that astronomers have assumed it was alone in its area of space for decades, according to. But as MIT researchers in the Astrophysical Journal, the quasar is actually at the center of a galaxy cluster. (Space.com when it was first accepted to the journal and posted on ArXiv.org.) A galaxy cluster is a collection of hundreds to thousands of galaxies bound together by gravity. Often, astronomers expect clusters to look 'fluffy' and give off a very diffuse signal in the X-ray band, according to the statement. Quasars and black holes, however, tend to give off brighter, point-like signals.

'The images are either all points, or fluffs, and the fluffs are these giant million-light-year balls of hot gas that we call clusters, and the points are black holes that are accreting gas and glowing as this gas spirals in,' Michael McDonald, a physicist at MIT and co-author on the new work, said in the statement. The researchers theorize that the quasar at the center of this cluster is burning particularly brightly because it's on a 'feeding frenzy.' Huge chunks of matter are falling into the quasar from the disk of material surrounding it and causing the black hole to radiate large amounts of energy.

The team estimates that the quasar is 46 billion times brighter than our sun. The immense light produced by this feeding frenzy is responsible for hiding the galaxies surrounding the quasar, but researchers believe that the overshadowing is temporary. Eventually, they expect the black hole's radiance to fade and to start looking like they expect other cluster galaxies to look. 'This could be a blip that we just happened to see,' McDonald said.

'In a million years, this might look like a diffuse fuzzball.' McDonald and his team first, and the mystery as to why they initially missed it sparked a search for similar objects.

'We started asking ourselves why we had not found it earlier, because it's very extreme in its properties and very bright,' McDonald says. 'It's because we had preconceived notions of what a cluster should look like. And this didn't conform to that, so we missed it.' In response, the scientists set up a survey called CHiPS (Clusters Hiding in Plain Sight) to re-examine X-ray images taken previously. So far, 90 percent of the data they've re-evaluated turned out not to be galaxy clusters, McDonald said in the statement. 'But the fun thing is, the small number of things we are finding are sort of rule-breakers,' he said. The new report published the first results from the CHiPS survey, which has so far only confirmed the existence of one hidden galaxy cluster.

Yet, scientists expect to find more in the future and to be able to use the clusters to learn more about the universe's expansion. 'Take for instance, the Titanic,' McDonald said. 'If you know where the two biggest pieces landed, you could map them backward to see where the ship hit the iceberg.

In the same way, if you know where all the galaxy clusters are in the universe, which are the biggest pieces in the universe, and how big they are, and you have some information about what the universe looked like in the beginning, which we know from the Big Bang, then you could map out how the universe expanded.' Follow Kasandra Brabaw on Twitter. Original article on.