Supermassive Black Holes 超大质量黑洞 - 7

When it's feeding, a giant black hole creates a bright burning gas disk around it and then for some reason, it stops feeding, leaving a dark, deadly core lurking¹ menacingly in the center of the galaxy². And one of these dark, silent monsters had been found in our neighboring galaxy.

The discovery of a massive black hole lurking so close to us made headlines around the world. But many scientists found the news impossible to believe. They didn't think the evidence was good enough for such an extreme idea. Even the Nukers themselves began to have doubts.

There is always the danger that instead of being a black hole, it's a dense³ cluster of something else that's dark, that's not a black hole.

I thought there was a fair chance that we'd made some terrible bone-headed mistake and that somebody within a year was gonna write a paper and show that we were a bunch of idiots and we would feel terrible about it.

To convince the skeptics, they needed to find more supermassive black holes in many more galaxies⁴. For this they needed to look further into space. So they turned to Hubble Space Telescope. From 1994, Hubble began a systematic⁵ survey of the centers of distant galaxies, searching for the telltale signature of stars speeding around a supermassive black hole.

Astronomers⁶ started by looking at an active galaxy, M87. As expected, it had a giant feeding black hole shooting a great jet of energy into space. But it was when the search broadened out to include inactive galaxies as well that something incredible happened.

lurk: be present in a latent or barely discernible state

boneheaded: stupid, foolish

jet: a rapid stream of liquid or gas forced out of a small opening

1 lurking   

潜在

参考例句：

• Why are you lurking around outside my house? 你在我房子外面鬼鬼祟祟的，想干什么？
• There is a suspicious man lurking in the shadows. 有一可疑的人躲在阴暗中。 来自《现代英汉综合大词典》

2 galaxy   

n.星系；银河系；一群(杰出或著名的人物)

参考例句：

• The earth is one of the planets in the Galaxy.地球是银河系中的星球之一。
• The company has a galaxy of talent.该公司拥有一批优秀的人才。

3 dense   

a.密集的，稠密的，浓密的；密度大的

参考例句：

• The general ambushed his troops in the dense woods. 将军把部队埋伏在浓密的树林里。
• The path was completely covered by the dense foliage. 小路被树叶厚厚地盖了一层。

4 galaxies   

星系( galaxy的名词复数 )； 银河系； 一群（杰出或著名的人物）

参考例句：

• Quasars are the highly energetic cores of distant galaxies. 类星体是遥远星系的极为活跃的核心体。
• We still don't know how many galaxies there are in the universe. 我们还不知道宇宙中有多少个星系。

5 systematic   

adj.有系统的，有计划的，有方法的

参考例句：

• The way he works isn't very systematic.他的工作不是很有条理。
• The teacher made a systematic work of teaching.这个教师进行系统的教学工作。

6 astronomers   

n.天文学者，天文学家( astronomer的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Astronomers can accurately foretell the date,time,and length of future eclipses. 天文学家能精确地预告未来日食月食的日期、时刻和时长。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Astronomers used to ask why only Saturn has rings. 天文学家们过去一直感到奇怪，为什么只有土星有光环。 来自《简明英汉词典》