(单词翻译:单击)
The universe is full of mysteries, and it often takes years of staring at something to figure out what it could be.
宇宙充满着奥秘，而人类往往需要经年累月地仔细观察，才能发现其中的奥秘。
But what if you don't have years? What if you just have one split second?
但如果等不及那么久，要怎么办呢？如果只有一瞬间的时间来观察，要怎么办呢？
That's what's happened with so-called fast radio bursts.
快速射电暴发的发生就是在那么一瞬间完成的。
For a decade, astronomers have been struggling to understand these weird events,
十年来，天文学家们一直在试图理解一些奇怪的迹象，
which appear as a flash of radio waves in a random part of the sky.
天空中随处闪现出多道无线电波。
But this week, according to a paper published in the journal Nature, we might have finally figured out what causes at least one of them.
但就在本周，《自然》杂志上发表了一篇论文，根据这篇论文，我们或许可以找出这些无线电波产生的至少一个原因。
Fast radio bursts, or FRBs, are called fast for a reason.
快速射电暴发（FRB）有这样的名字不是没有原因。
Each event lasts for just a couple of milliseconds, and then it never appears again.
每个现象仅在几毫秒之内完成，然后就再也消失不见。这是通常情况哦！
Usually. In 2015, astronomers noticed that one they'd previously observed repeats.
但就在2015年，天文学家们发现，其中一个以前已经出现过的快速射电暴发生重复。
It's called FRB 121102, and the signal comes from a dwarf galaxy about three billion light-years from us.
它的名字叫做快速射电暴121102，其信号来自距离地球30亿光年的一个矮星系。
Since then, it's been observed a handful of times.
从那以后，天文学家多次观测到快速射电暴121102。
And in this new paper, researchers published a new guess about what might be causing it.
在这篇有关快速射电暴的最新论文中，研究人员就其可能产生的原因提出了一种新的猜想。
After collecting 18 new observations, the authors focused on the length of the bursts,
在观察收集了18种新的现象后，这篇文章的作者将注意力聚焦到快速射电暴的持续时间，
along with two aspects of the radio waves: Their dispersion and their polarization.
以及这种无线电波的另外两个维度：弥散现象和极化现象。
A wave's dispersion describes how much one frequency gets separated from another.
所谓波的弥散是指不同波频的波逐渐散开。
Even if an object emits a bunch of frequencies at once,
即便某物体一次发射多个不同频段的无线电波，
they might reach Earth at different times because of how they pass through space.
在抵达地球的时候，
Kind of like how a prism can separate white light into a rainbow.
这就有点像白光通过棱镜后会色散出七色光一样。
So dispersion can indicate things about the conditions around where the wave was emitted.
所以说，弥散可以表明物体发射波的情况。
On the other hand, polarization, which involves the direction waves travel, provides insight into the emitter itself.
而极化则可以表明波传播的方向，以及发出波的物体的情况。
In this case, all the observations had roughly the same polarization,
就快速射电暴121102而言，科学家发现的所有现象里，波的极化情况都相同。
and that told the scientists that whatever created the bursts has a constant orientation relative to Earth.
这就表明，发出这些波段的物体与地球有固定的角度关系。
Besides that, some of these bursts were almost astonishingly short. One lasted just 30 microseconds!
除此之外，其中一些快速射电暴的持续时间很短，最短的只有30毫秒。
That implies that whatever created it was about 10 kilometers across,
这表明，发射快速射电暴的物体离地球只有大约10公里远，
which just so happens to be about the size of a neutron star, the dense cores leftover from smaller supernovas.
而其体积恰好与中子星差不多，中子星是超新星爆炸后塌缩形成的核心部分，密度极大。
The observations also showed that the source of the burst was surrounded by a cloud of electrons and bathed in a violent magnetic field.
观察结果还表明，快速射电暴发生前，其发生体被电子云包围，周围是强力磁场。
Astronomers usually associate those conditions with the space around a black hole.
通常情况下，天文学家会将这些条件与黑洞周围的空间联系到一起。
So one possible scenario is that this FRB comes from a poor, tortured neutron star being jostled by a nearby black hole.
所以一种可能的情况是快速射电暴121102由一颗中子星发出，这颗中子星受到其附近某黑洞的引力控制。
Or, it might be a neutron star surrounded by the remnants of a supernova, or even something completely different.
也可能是中子星受到超新星残留物或者其他什么物体的包围。
We'll need more research to figure it out.
需要进一步的研究才能发现包围中子星的物体究竟为何。
Still, even if we do figure out the source for sure, there are a lot of other questions to answer.
不过，就算我们确认了源头说在，还有很多疑问没有解决。
Like, we don't really know how a neutron star would cause these bursts,
比如，我们并不知道中子星是怎样引起快速射电暴的，
even if we can confirm that's where they're coming from.
即便我们能够确认快速射电暴的源头所在。
So, part of the mystery might be solved, but we've still got a long way to go.
所以，虽然谜团解开了一部分，但我们依然有很长的路要走。
But that isn't the only star-themed discovery we made recently.
不过这也不是近来唯一一个与星体有关的发现。
Using observations made with the creatively-named Very Large Telescope in Chile,
通过名字独创一格的“甚大望远镜”的观测结果，
astronomers reported that the universe might have way more massive stars than expected.
天文学家们发现，宇宙里大质量恒星的数量可能远远超过人类的想象。
They published their findings last week in the journal Science.
上周，他们的发现结果发表于《科学》杂志。
Since the 1950s, it's been believed that large stars are incredibly rare, but that's been tough to check.
自上世纪50年代以来，人们一直以为，大质量恒星数量少之又少，但这一点很难得到证实。
Because besides being really large, these stars don't tend to last very long, so it's hard to find a bunch of them in one area.
因为除了体型庞大以外，这些恒星的寿命普遍不长，所以，在某个区域内，很难发现多颗大质量恒星同时存在。
Astronomers are especially interested in these objects because they end their lives in powerful supernovas,
天文学家之所以对这些星体极为感兴趣，是因为这些星体总是在超新星剧烈爆炸时寿命终结，
which could produce the universe's heavy elements like gold, nickel, and uranium.
继而在宇宙间产生重金属，如金、镍和铀。
And stars like them also shaped the early universe with powerful radiation.
这样的恒星让初期的宇宙充满了强力辐射。
So they have a lot to teach us.
所以，我们可以从中学到很多。
To try and study multiple stars at once, these scientists looked at the nearby Large Magellanic Cloud,
为了同时研究多颗星体，这些天文学家观测了附近的大麦哲伦星云，
one of our satellite galaxies only about 160,000 light-years away.
这个星云是一个卫星星云，离地球只有16万光年。
Within the Cloud lies the Tarantula nebula, one of the most active starburst regions in our local universe.
蜘蛛星云就位于该星云内，蜘蛛星云是太阳系最活跃的星爆星系。
These regions are places where a lot of stars are made in a relatively short period of time,
这样的星系可以在相对较短的时间内产生许多星体，
which makes them especially useful for research.
因此极具研究价值。
In this latest study, when the scientists observed the nebula, they found dramatically more high-mass stars than predicted.
在最近的这项研究中，科学家观测该星云时，发现了比预期多很多的大质量恒星。
For example, they found 30% more stars more than 30 times the mass of our Sun.
比如，他们发现了比太阳质量大30多倍的恒星，其数量也比太阳系里星体的数量多30%。
And for stars more than 60 times as massive, it was an extra 73%.
而其中比太阳大60多倍的恒星数量，也多出了73%。
They even found a star weighing more than 200 solar masses, although it probably got heavier over time.
他们甚至发现有一颗恒星的质量是太阳的300多倍，这还没有算进这颗恒星随时间增加的质量。
The authors argue that, taken together, their data implies
这些天文学家表示，如果放在一块计算，这些恒星的数据表明，
that stars can be born with masses up to 300 times more than the Sun，which is twice the previously accepted limit.
它们刚产生时候的质量比太阳大300多倍。是之前普遍接受上限的两倍。
Also, since these giant stars burn through their fuel and die much more quickly than stars like our Sun,
此外，由于这些大质量恒星是通过燃烧自己来运转，而且其塌缩速度比地球快，
these results imply that we should see a lot more deaths, too.
所以，观测结果还表明，人类可以看到更多这样的恒星塌缩消亡。
Specifically, when stars like this die, they can turn into supernovas and create black holes.
值得注意的是，这样的恒星一旦塌缩，就会演变为超新星，继而产生黑洞。
So, based on these findings, the team estimates that one type of supernova should occur around 70% more often than expected,
因此，基于上述发现，该研究小组估测，单种超新星阶段发生的频率要比预想的高近70%。
and that there could be nearly triple as many black holes in the universe.
而且，其产生的黑洞数量也是太阳系的近三倍。
All these big conclusions, though, only hold true if the Tarantula nebula isn't, like, a special case of star formation.
不过，这些结论成立的前提是，蜘蛛星云不是一种特殊形式的星体形成过程演变的。
To know that, astronomers will have to make more observations of other starburst regions.
要确认这一点，天文学家必须要对其他星爆星系进行更多的观测。
Because, you know, you didn't think all the work was done, did you?
因为什么呢？你懂的，你也不觉得所有工作已经完成了，不是吗？
If you learn anything from SciShow Space, it's that there's always more work to be done.
毕竟如果你能从《太空科学秀》中有所得，那你至少也学到了：学无止境。
If you want to stay up to date with the Tarantula nebula and all kinds of space news,
如果你想跟进蜘蛛星云等空间类新闻的话，
you can go to youtube.comscishowspace and subscribe.
可以订阅youtube.comscishowspace栏目。
SciShow Space is the first spinoff show of SciShow and it's been steadily growing over the last few years.
《太空科学秀》是科学秀节目中唯一一档采用连载形式的栏目，而且近几年来，这档栏目一直在稳步发展。
And if you like it and want to help it grow, please tell your friends about it.
如果你喜欢我们的栏目，并且想为它的成长出一分力的话，也给你的朋友们科普一下我们的栏目吧。
We're so close to a million subscribers, and getting excited!
我们的订阅用户就快到100万啦，激动呢！
