中英對照讀新聞》Twisted magnetic field observed around Milky Way’s central black hole銀河系中心的黑洞周圍觀測到扭曲磁場

◎林家宇

Astronomers on Wednesday announced that they have detected a strong and organized magnetic field twisted in a spiral pattern around the Milky Way’s supermassive black hole, revealing previously unknown qualities of the immensely powerful object lurking at the center of our galaxy.

天文學家宣布偵測到強烈且有序的磁場，以扭曲的螺旋狀型態環繞在銀河系的超大質量黑洞周邊。這項發現揭露了這個潛伏在銀河系中心的強大天體此前未知的特質。

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The structure of the magnetic field emanating from the edge of the black hole called Sagittarius A*, or Sgr A*, closely resembles one surrounding the only other black hole ever imaged, a larger one residing at the center of a nearby galaxy called Messier 87, or M87, the researchers said. This indicates that strong magnetic fields may be a feature common to black holes, they added.

研究員表示，這股磁場結構顯現在名為「人馬座A*」黑洞的邊緣，與圍繞在迄今唯一拍攝到的黑洞的磁場相似，後者是一個較大的黑洞，位於鄰近的「室女A星系」中心。這表明強大磁場或許是黑洞的一項共通特點。

Sgr A* possesses 4 million times the mass of our sun and is located about 26,000 light-years - the distance light travels in a year, 9.5 trillion km - from Earth.

人馬座A*具有的質量為太陽400萬倍，坐落在距地球2.6萬光年處。光年為光行進一年的距離，約9.5兆公里。

新聞辭典

lurk：動詞，潛伏、潛藏。例句：The man who was caught by the police lurked around John’s house last week.（被警察逮捕的那個人上週潛伏在約翰家附近。）

emanate：動詞，表現、顯示、發散。例句：When the game begins, her face emanates confidence and calmness.（當比賽開始，她的臉上展現出自信和冷靜）