(单词翻译:单击)
Scientists on Thursday provided the first look at a black hole -- one they called the "gentle giant" -- lurking at the center of the Milky Way.
周四，科学家揭开了一个黑洞的神秘面纱，他们将这一位于银河系中心的黑洞描述为“温柔巨兽”。
"Sagittarius A*."
“这就是人马座A*。”
The supermassive black hole devours any matter wandering within its gravitational pull.
这个超大质量黑洞，会吞噬任何在其巨大引力作用范围内的物质。
The image shows a ring of bright orange light surrounding darkness.
图像显示，一个发光的橙色环状物围绕着一个黑色核心。
It is only the second black hole ever imaged.
这是截止目前人类拍下的第二个黑洞。
The feat was accomplished by the same Event Horizon Telescope international collaboration that in 2019 unveiled the first-ever photo of a black hole, in a different galaxy.
此次壮举是由事件地平线望远镜国际合作实现的，发布于2019年的史上第一张、位于另一个星系的黑洞的照片，也是由他们拍摄的。
University of Arizona astronomer Feryal Ozel, at a news conference in Washington, D.C., said the area has been an intense focus of astronomers for decades.
亚利桑那大学的天文学家费里娅勒·厄泽尔在华盛顿特区的新闻发布会上表示，这一领域几十年来一直是天文学家关注的焦点。
"Observations of stars orbiting around it revealed the presence of an object that is very massive, 4 million times the mass of our sun, but also very faint."
“我们对围绕可疑黑洞运行的恒星进行了观察，发现确实存在一个非常大的物体，质量大约是太阳的400万倍，但也非常模糊。”
Black holes are extraordinarily dense objects with gravity so strong that not even light can escape, making them difficult to view.
黑洞是一种密度极高的天体，其引力大到连光都无法逃脱，因此很难观察到它们。
A black hole's event horizon is the point of no return beyond which anything -- including stars and planets -- gets dragged into oblivion.
黑洞的事件视界，是一个没有回头路的点，任何物体--包括恒星和行星--都会被拖入湮灭的深渊。
Astrophysicist Michael Johnson called the black hole "ravenous but inefficient," eating relatively little matter.
天体物理学家迈克尔·约翰逊称，该黑洞“虽然贪婪，但效率低下”，吃掉的物质相对较少。
"First, we see that only a trickle of material is actually making it all the way to the black hole, if this energy star were a person it would consume a single grain of rice every million years."
“首先，我们看到只有一小部分物质真正进入了黑洞，打个比方，如果这颗暗能量星是一个人的话，它每百万年只会吃掉一粒米。”
Ozel said it was a even gentler, more cooperative black hole than they had hoped for.
厄泽尔称，这是一个比他们所希望的更温和、更具有合作性的黑洞。
The new image, she said, is the first picture confirming that Sagittarius A* is indeed a black hole.
她表示，这张新照片是第一张证实人马座A*确实是一个黑洞的照片。
