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Eclipses are supposed to make things go dark: the moon blocks the sun, and day turns to night.
日月食一直被認為是使得事物蒙上一層黑色：月亮擋住了太陽，因此白天變成黑夜。
Now astronomers have accidentally discovered the opposite: an eclipse that makes a star brighter.
現在天文學家們偶然間發現了截然不同的情況：日月食會使一顆恒星變的更加明亮。
Thank Einstein. And Kepler—the space telescope, not Johannes.
多虧了愛因斯坦。 還有天文望遠鏡開普勒，不是德國那位天文學家。
Launched in 2009, Kepler watched more than 100,000 stars, looking for tiny dips in a star's brightness caused by orbiting planets when they pass in front of their sun.
2009年啟用的開普勒望遠鏡根據恒星運動到太陽前方附近軌道時造成恒星反射的微弱光觀察到了超過10萬顆恒星。
But one star didn't get the memo.
但有顆星則沒有按規矩出牌。
Every 88 days, it brightens slightly.
每88天，它就會變亮一點。
Researchers realized that they were actually seeing a binary star system.
研究人員們意識到他們實際上是在觀察一顆雙子星系統。
One of the pair is big and bright like our sun.
其中一顆是像我們的太陽那樣又大又明亮。
The other is a white dwarf—a small, dim star a little larger than Earth, but so dense that a spoonful weighs tons.
另一顆是白矮星—一種小型，昏暗，比地球稍大點的恒星，但密度極高，一湯匙的物質就有幾噸重。
Because of its high mass, when the white dwarf passes in front of its mate its gravity bends and amplifies the larger star's light, just as Einstein said.
由于其高密度，當這顆白矮星運動到它同伴的前面時，自身重力發生彎曲并使得較大的那顆恒星發出的光線被增強，就如同愛因斯坦曾經描述的那樣。
In other words, the white dwarf acts like a lens that makes the bigger star appear brighter during the eclipse.
換句話說，白矮星充當了透射鏡片的作用，使得在日月食現象時較大的恒星候變得更加明亮。
The report is in the journal Science.
這一研究報告已在《科學》雜志上發表。
Black holes that orbit stars should do the same thing.
黑洞附近的恒星也能造成同樣的現象。
So someday someone might find a black hole by looking for the light.
所以終有一天有人會通過尋找光從而發現一個黑洞。
