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Dr Molnar’ s interest was piqued at a conference in 2013, when Karen Kinemuchi, another astronomer,
Molnar博士的興趣源于2013年的一次會議，當時一位叫做Karen Kinemuchi的天文學家提出，
presented some puzzling findings on a particular star seen by Kepler, a space telescope designed chiefly to hunt for exoplanets.
她通過專門觀測系外行星的太空望遠鏡——開普勒發現了在一個特殊的恒星系統中有一些難以解釋的現象。
When Dr Molnar and his team observed the star—named KIC9832227—they discovered that it was a “ contact binary ”,
當Molnar博士和他的團隊觀察這個被命名為KIC9832227的恒星系統時，他們發現這是一對“相接雙星”，
a pair of stars so close together that the smaller orbits within the atmosphere of the larger.
即一對靠的很近的恒星，小恒星的軌道在大恒星的氣體外殼中。
They also found that the smaller star was orbiting more quickly—and thus closer to its bigger companion—than it had been when Dr Kinemuchi made her measurements.
他們同樣發現了小恒星的軌道運行速度越來越快——這意味著它越來越靠近大恒星，Kinemuchi博士當時也測量到了這一點。
Further observations confirmed that the smaller star was indeed spiralling towards its companion.
進一步的觀察確認，小的恒星的確在逐漸地向大的恒星靠攏。
Based on observations of another contact binary, V1309 Scorpii, which became a nova in 2008,
天蝎座v1309的雙星是2008年出現的新星，基于對這對密接雙星的觀察，
the researchers were able to offer a prediction of the time of impact that, they hope, should be accurate to within about seven months.
研究人員能夠對碰撞時間做出預測，他們希望能夠精確到7個月以內。
(The most likely date is a fifth of the way through 2022—ie, mid-March.)
（最可能的日期是2022年的五分之一處，即三月的中旬）
Successfully predicting a nova will be of interest to more than just amateur skywatchers.
并不僅僅只是業余天文觀察者熱衷于成功推測新星的出現。
Astronomers have built mathematical models to describe what happens during such events, but testing them against reality is hard.
天文學家們已經建立了數學模型來描述在新星出現期間會發生的事情，但是很難在沒有現實依據的情況下進行證實。
All previous novas have been detected after the fact.
以往的所有新星都是在出現之后才開始進行測量。
Anyone wanting to study what happens before the explosion must therefore sift back through old observations, hoping that some information about the pre-nova star will have been recorded by chance.
因此，任何想要研究在爆炸之前發生了什么的人必須篩選舊的觀察記錄，希望找到在恒星變成新星之前能有一些偶然記錄下的信息。
Armed with Dr Molnar’ s prediction, though, astronomers will be able to watch the build-up as well as the denouement.
盡管有了Molnar博士的預測，天文學家們在未來將會能夠像已經知道結果了一樣進行觀測。
英文文本來自經濟學人 譯文來自科技三組
