中子星合并，引力波首“现”

First-seen Neutron Star Collision Creates Light, Gravitational Waves

October 16, scientists who won a Nobel Prize for their discovery of gravitational waves announced the first detection of the collision of two neutron stars.

10月16日，因发现引力波而获得诺贝尔奖的科学家团队宣布，他们首次探测到了中子星合并。

Astronomers detected the merger from 130 million light-years away, in the galaxy NGC 4993, on the morning of August 17.

天文学家在8月17日晨间观测到的此次合并来自1.3亿光年之外的NGC 4993星系。

The team alerted astronomers all over the world to the event right after it happened, helping them point telescopes directly at the scene of the crash.

在探测到这一天文事件后，科学家团队提醒全球的天文学家观测这一现象，帮助他们把望远镜对准合并现场。

The collision created the first observed instance of a single source emitting ripples in space-time, known as gravitational waves, as well as light, which was released in the form of a two-second gamma ray burst.

通过这次合并，科学家首次观测到太空中单源发射的引力波，并观测到了以两秒钟的伽马射线暴形式释放出的可见光。

It is being hailed as the first known instance of multi-messenger astrophysics: one source in the universe emitting two kinds of waves, gravitational and electromagnetic.

这预示着天体物理学首次进入多信使阶段：宇宙中的同一来源发射出两种形式的波，引力波和电磁波。

These images revealed a radioactive soup giving birth to unfathomable amounts of platinum, gold, and silver – not to mention elements like the iodine found in our bodies, the uranium in nuclear weapons, and the bismuth in Pepto-Bismol – while shooting those materials deep into space.

观测图像显示出了两个中子星的放射性碰撞场景，而这也产生了数量庞大的铂、金和银，以及我们身体中的碘、核武器中的铀、可以减轻肠胃不适的铋。中子星合并将这些物质四散进宇宙深处。

The two neutron stars most likely merged to form a black hole, though the tiny bit of neutron star that escaped – and formed new elements – could get recycled into planets like Earth where aliens may eventually dig up the metals as we have.

两个中子星最可能合并成一个黑洞，但合并中四散出的碎块会形成新的元素，循环进入类似地球的星体，也许外星人正像我们一样挖掘这些金属矿藏。

Gravitational waves were first directly detected two years ago, proving Albert Einstein’s theory of general relativity, and recently, three scientists were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics for their work on that first detection. Those gravitational waves were the result of two black holes colliding, and the signal lasted for only a fraction of a second. Because black holes don’t emit light, these waves were invisible and only “heard” as thumps.

引力波于两年前首次被发现，证实了爱因斯坦的广义相对论。最近，三位科学家因首次探测到引力波被授予诺贝尔物理学奖。他们成功探测到来自于两个黑洞合并的引力波信号，信号仅持续几毫秒。因为黑洞并不发射出光，因此引力波不可见，只能以急速跳动的形式被“听到”。