科学美国人60秒 SSS 中子星相撞后会发生什么（在线收听）

This is Scientific American — 60-Second Science. I'm Christopher Intagliata.

这里是科学美国人——60秒科学。我是克里斯托弗·因塔利亚塔。

Last year, astronomers observed two neutron stars collide—a crash transmitted in gravitational waves to detectors here on Earth. Represented in sound, you can hear a small upwards sweep in frequency, in the data, if you listen closely.

去年，天文学家观测到两颗中子星相撞——地球上的探测器接收到了撞击产生的引力波。转化为声音后，如果仔细听，可以听到数据频率小幅上扬。

(CLIP: LIGO neutron star merger)

（音频片段：激光干涉引力波天文台捕捉到的中子星合并引力波转化成的声音）

Several seconds later, the first waves of electromagnetic radiation arrived here on Earth — the first time a collision has been detected by both light and gravitational waves. And it's in studying the electromagnetic echoes of the collision that astrophysicists have gotten a far better glimpse of what really happened after those binary neutron stars merged, 130 million light-years away.

几秒钟后，第一波电磁辐射到达地球，这是光和引力波首次同时探测到星体相撞。正是在研究相撞产生的电磁回声时，天体物理学家得以更好地了解，在1.3亿光年之外这些中子星合并之后究竟发生了什么。

"Oh yeah, absolutely, so it gives us an understanding of basically all the nitty gritty of what's going on after the merger takes place." Kunal Mooley, an astrophysicist at Caltech.

“哦，绝对没错，这让我们了解了合并之后发生的几乎所有细节。”加州理工学院的天体物理学库纳尔·穆利说到。

First, he says, the stars collided (CLIP: Ligo merger)... creating a massive, black hole–like object, which started sucking up the cloud of neutron-rich cosmic debris left over from the crash. But its appetite was limited.

他说，首先这两颗中子星相撞（音频片段：激光干涉引力波天文台捕捉到的合并声音），产生了一种巨大的、像黑洞一样的物体，这个物体开始吸收撞击后留下的富含中子的宇宙碎片云团。但是它的胃口有限。

"It cannot eat all of it, so some bit of it basically escapes." Those escaping leftovers spewed outward into space, as a powerful jet. But along the way, Mooley says, the jet appears to have interacted with that cloud of neutron-rich material, blowing up a sort of cocoon within the debris floating around the collision. Until finally, the jet burst out and slammed into interstellar space... releasing yet more radiation we could detect here on Earth.

“它不能吃掉所有碎片，因此其中一些碎片会漏掉。”这些逃出来的剩余物向外喷射到太空，就像一股强大的喷射气流一样。穆利表示，但在此过程中，喷射物似乎与富含中子物质的云团相互作用，在碰撞处周围漂浮的碎片中炸出一种茧状结构。直到最后，喷射气流突出重围并撞向星际空间，释放出更多我们在地球上可以探测到的辐射。

The full play by play is in the journal Nature.

完整的详细报告发表在《自然》期刊上。

In this case, Mooley says, we were lucky to spot the event—the narrow jet was pointed close to Earth. But these collisions could be happening all the time, just that their jets point in directions hard to detect from our planet. But maybe, he says, astronomers can now look for those 'cocoons' as an alternate way to study these colossal bits of cosmic wreckage.

穆利说，在这种情况下，我们很幸运地发现了这个事件——狭窄的射流冲向地球附近。但是这些碰撞可能一直在发生，只是它们的射流喷向了地球难以探测到的方向。但穆利表示，也许天文学家现在可以寻找这些“茧”，作为研究这些巨大的宇宙残骸的另一种方式。

And while gravitational waves are exciting, "there's a lot more to be learned through electromagnetic waves and gravitational waves than that is to be learned through gravitational waves alone." When the LIGO gravitational wave detector fires up, early next year, he says, he'll be watching, waiting, perhaps, for his next study subject.

虽然引力波令人兴奋，但是“联合电磁波和引力波可以学到的东西，比仅仅通过引力波学到的要多得多。”他说，当激光干涉引力波天文台的引力波探测器明年初启动之后，他将会一直观察和等待，或许会等来他的下一个研究课题。

Thanks for listening for Scientific American — 60-Second Science. I'm Christopher Intagliata.

谢谢大家收听科学美国人——60秒科学。我是克里斯托弗·因塔利亚塔。