NASA 搬运工 D47
（宇宙之美 何其壮哉！）
Star light, Star bright! Illuminating far-off galaxies at night!
星光，星光灿烂！晚上照亮远处的星系！
In the 1980s, scientists started discovering a new class of extremely bright sources of X-rays in galaxies. These Ultraluminous X-ray sources, or ULXs, are objects beaming with the light of 1 million suns, 23 million light years away. Long thought to be black holes, in the past few years Chandra X-ray Observatory data helped identify these objects as neutron stars — the cores of a massive post-supernova star. This discovery also came with clues about how these objects can shine so brightly.
在20世纪80年代，科学家们开始在星系中发现一类新的非常明亮的X射线源。这些超光速X射线源，或ULX，是在距离我们两千三百万光年的一百万个太阳光下闪耀的物体。长期以来被认为是黑洞，在过去的几年中，钱德拉X射线天文台的数据帮助将这些天体识别为中子星，这是中子星 - 巨型后超新星的核心。这一发现也提供了关于这些物体如何明亮地闪耀的线索。
The latest ULX is located in the Whirlpool galaxy, also known as M51. This composite image of the Whirlpool contains X-rays from Chandra (purple) and optical data from the Hubble Space Telescope (@NASAHubble) (red, green, and blue). The ULX is marked with a circle.
最新的ULX位于漩涡星系，也被称为M51。这个漩涡合成图像包含来自钱德拉的X射线（紫色）和来自哈勃太空望远镜（@NASAHubble）（红色，绿色和蓝色）的光学数据。 ULX标有一个圆圈。
Neutron stars are extremely dense objects — a teaspoon would weigh more than a billion tons, as much as a mountain. The intense gravity of the neutron stars pulls surrounding material away from companion stars, and as this material falls toward the neutron star, it heats up and glows with X-rays. As more and more matter falls onto the neutron star, there comes a time when the pressure from the resulting X-ray light becomes so intense that it pushes the matter away. Astronomers call this point — when the objects typically cannot accumulate matter any faster and give off any more X-rays — the Eddington limit. The latest result shows this ULX is surpassing the Eddington limit for a neutron star.
中子星是非常密集的物体 - 一茶匙重达10亿吨，就像一座山。中子星的强烈引力将周围的物质拉离伴星，当这种物质落向中子星时，它会升温并发出X射线。随着越来越多的物质落入中子星，有一段时间，由此产生的X射线光的压力变得如此强烈，以至于将物质推离。天文学家称这一点 - 当物体通常不能更快地聚集物质并放出更多的X射线 - 爱丁顿极限。最新的结果显示，ULX超过了中子星的爱丁顿极限。
Credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/Caltech/M. Brightman et al.; Optical: NASA/STScI
#nasa #space #chandra #supernova #explosion #remnants#carbon #chemical #elements #beautiful #pictureoftheday#picoftheday #universe #solarsystem #stars #earth #xray#observatory #astronomy #astronomers
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