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听力文本
Black Holes Merge Into Unusual Size
Black holes are becoming stranger — even to scientists who study planets and other objects in outer space.
Astronomers recently reported the discovery of the signal from a violent collision of two black holes. The event, which took place long ago, created a new black hole of a size that scientists had never seen before.
California Institute of Technology physicist Alan Weinstein was part of the discovery team. He noted that the finding was the "biggest bang" ever observed by human beings since the Big Bang.
The Big Bang is a term many astronomers use to explain the beginning of the universe.
Black holes are compact areas of space. They are so dense that not even light can escape. Until recently, astronomers had observed them in two general sizes.
There are "small" ones called stellar black holes. These black holes are formed when a star collapses. They are about the size of a small city.
There are also supermassive black holes. These black holes are millions, maybe billions, of times more massive than our sun.
Astronomers' calculations suggest that anything in between the two sizes did not make sense. That was because stars that grew too big before collapse would generally destroy themselves, leaving no black holes.
Nelson Christensen is research director of the French National Centre for Scientific Research. He says scientists thought that star collapses could not create stellar black holes much bigger than 70 times the mass of our sun.
Then in May 2019 two sensors received a signal that turned out to be the energy from two stellar black holes crashing into each other. One was 66 times the mass of our sun. The other was 85 times the mass of the sun.
The result: The first ever discovered intermediate black hole, at 142 times the mass of the sun. The word intermediate suggests being in the middle of a process or development.
In the collision, a large amount of energy was lost. The energy was in the form of a gravitational wave, a ripple in space that travels at the speed of light.
It was that wave that physicists in the United States and Europe, using detectors called LIGO and Virgo, captured last year. After studying the signal and reexamining their work, scientists published the results this week in Physical Review Letters and Astrophysical Journal Letters.
Because the detectors receive the gravitational waves as audio signals, scientists actually heard the collision. For all the violence, the signal lasted only one-tenth of a second.
"It just sounds like a thud," Weinstein said. "It really doesn't sound like much on a speaker."
This crash happened about 7 billion years ago, when the universe was about half its current age. It was only detected now because the collision was so far away.
Black hole collisions have been observed before. But the black holes involved were smaller to begin with. Even after the collision, they did not grow beyond the size of normal stellar black holes.
Scientists still do not know how supermassive black holes at the center of galaxies formed, Christensen said, but this new discovery may offer a clue.
I'm John Russell.
重点解析
1.discovery n. 发现；发觉
Police have made a macabre discovery.
警察有了个可怕的发现。
2.supermassive adj. 特大质量的
Quasars are the very active centers of galaxies though to surround the central supermassive black hole.
类星体是星系中最活跃的中心，尽管他们围绕着中心特大质量黑洞。
3.current adj.现在的；流通的
Their current protests are motivated purely by self-interest.
他们目前的抗议纯粹是受私利驱使的。
4.intermediate adj.中间的，过渡的
Students are categorized as novice, intermediate, or advanced.
学生分为新生、中级生或高级生。
5.Astronomers' calculations suggest that anything in between the two sizes did not make sense.
make sense 有意义
On the face of it that seems to make sense. But the figures don't add up
乍一看，似乎讲得通，但这些数字对不起来。
There are some stylistic elements in the statue that just don't make sense.
这座雕像上的一些风格元素让人完全捉摸不透。
6.It was only detected now because the collision was so far away.
far away 遥远的
He had gone as far away as possible to build a new life.
他去了尽可能远的地方开始新的生活。
They came from as far away as Florida.
他们来自遥远的佛罗里达州。
参考译文
人类探测到两大黑洞碰撞形成超大黑洞
黑洞变得越来越陌生，甚至对于研究外太空行星和其他物体的科学家来说也不例外。
最近，天文学家报告称，发现了两个黑洞剧烈碰撞的信号。很久以前发生的这起事件创造了一个新的黑洞，其大小是科学家们从未见过的。
加州理工学院的物理学家艾伦·韦恩斯坦（Alan Weinstein）是研究这一发现的小组成员。他指出，这一发现是“宇宙大爆炸”以来人类观测到的“最大爆炸”。
“宇宙大爆炸”是许多天文学家用来解释宇宙起源的一个术语。
黑洞是空间中紧凑的形态。由于过于密集，连光都无处可逃。直到最近，天文学家才观察到两个普通大小的黑洞。
较“小”的黑洞被称为恒星黑洞。这类黑洞是恒星解体时形成的，体积约等于一个小型城市。
还有超大质量的黑洞。这类黑洞的质量是太阳的数百万倍，甚至数十亿倍。
天文学家的计算表明，这两种尺寸之间不可能存在中间值。因为在解体前变得太大的恒星通常会自我毁灭而不会留下黑洞。
尼尔森·克里斯滕森（Nelson Christensen）是法国国家科学研究中心的研究主任。他表示，科学家们认为，恒星解体不会产生比太阳质量大70倍的恒星黑洞。
然后，在2019年5月，两个传感器接收到两个恒星黑洞相撞产生的能量发出的信号。其中一个是太阳质量的66倍。另一个是太阳质量的85倍。
结果就是首次发现了质量是太阳142倍的中级黑洞。中级表示其处于发展的过程中。
两个黑洞碰撞时损失了大量能量。这些能量变成引力波——太空中以光速传播的涟漪。
去年，美国和欧洲的物理学家利用“激光干涉引力波天文台”（LIGO）和Virgo天文台探测器捕捉到了这一引力波。在研究该信号并对其结果进行反复检验后，科学家们本周在《物理评论快报》和《天体物理学杂志快报》上发表了研究结果。
由于探测器接收到的引力波是声波信号，因此科学家们真实地听到了碰撞声。整个碰撞过程发出的信号只持续了十分之一秒。
韦恩斯坦表示：“听起来像是‘砰’的一声。不像是扬声器发出的声音。”
这次撞击发生在约70亿年前，当时宇宙的年龄只有现在的一半。之所以现在才被发现，是因为碰撞发生的距离太遥远了。
人类以前也观测到黑洞碰撞，但那些黑洞体积更小。即使碰撞后，它们的体积也没有超过正常恒星黑洞的大小。
克里斯滕森表示，科学家仍然不知道星系中心的超大质量黑洞是如何形成的，但这一新发现或许能提供一些线索。
约翰·罗塞尔为您播报。
译文为可可英语翻译，未经授权请勿转载！
