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This is Scientific American 60 Secomds, Space. I'm Clara Moskowitz, got a minute?
這里是科學美國人60秒，太空系列。我是克拉拉·莫斯科維茲。
Inside most galaxies a supermassive black hole lurks. But one galaxy about 4 billion light-years from us was recently discovered to have not one, not even two, but three gigantic black holes at its center.
在大多數的銀河系中都會隱藏著一個黑洞。但是科學家竟然發現這個距離我們四百萬光年的銀河系的中央有多大三個黑洞。
Such triple systems appear to be extremely rare—only four are known. The newfound system includes two black holes orbiting each other very closely, about 450 light-years apart, with a third black hole a bit farther out. The central pair zoom around each other at a fast clip, about 300 times the speed of sound on Earth. The hole trinity also represents the tightest trio of black holes known to date. It's described in thejournal Nature.
這種擁有三個黑洞的銀河系十分少見，目前只發現了四個。這三個黑洞中，有兩個相距450光年的黑洞繞著彼此做旋轉運動，另外一個則離這兩個距離較遠。中心的這一對黑洞運動速度非常快，相當于聲音在地球上傳播速度的300倍。按照已知的所有相關數據，這三個黑洞是距離彼此最緊密的。詳情請見自然雜志。
As these objects continue to orbit at the center of their galaxy, gravity will eventually pull them closerand closer together. Ultimately, they may even merge. Researchers hope this triple-black-hole system may be a good place to look for space-time ripples called gravitational waves. As their orbits shrink, the black holes should radiate away some of their orbital energy as the sought-after gravitational waves, predicted by Einstein a century ago.
隨著這三個黑洞不停地在銀河系中旋轉，引力會最終把它們拉的越來越近。最終，它們很可能會合并成一體。研究人員希望在這個三個黑洞系統中，可以發現時光漣漪，專業上叫做重力波。伴隨著這三個黑洞的旋轉軌道的范圍縮小，它們會釋放桑出一定量的軌道能量，也就是人們向往看到的重力波，關于這一點，愛因斯坦早在一個世紀以前就提出過猜想。
Thanks for the minute for Scientific American 60 Secomds, Tech. I'm Clara Moskowitz.
感謝收聽。
