美宇航局宣布发现地球附近最年轻黑洞

　　The US National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) announced on Monday that it has discovered the youngest black hole known to exist in our cosmic neighborhood. The 30-year-old black hole, known as Supernova 1979C (SN 1979C)， is about 51 million light years from Earth and occurred in galaxy M-100.

　　NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory has revealed a bright source of X-rays that has remained steady during observation from 1995 to 2007. This data suggests that the object is a black hole being fed either by material falling into it from the supernova or a binary companion。

　　"If our interpretation is correct, this is the nearest example where the birth of a black hole has been observed," said Daniel Patnaude of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, who led the study。

　　"This may be the first time the common way of making a black hole has been observed," said co-author Abraham Loeb, also of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics。

　　There is one other possible explanation for what scientists have seen: They could be watching the birth instead of a pulsar wind nebula. But Alex Filippenko of the University of California at Berkeley said the discovery is most likely a black hole。

　　美国“红色轨道”网站15日报道称，美国宇航局日前发现一个地球附近最为年轻的黑洞。据了解，该黑洞年仅30岁，系距离地球约5100万光年的M100星系中的超新星“SN1979C”的余烬。

　　根据美国宇航局钱德拉X射线望远镜获得的数据，一个明亮的X射线源在1995年到2007年这段观测期内保持稳定。科学家据此推断该射线源是一个黑洞，其正在吞噬超新星“SN1979C”及其伴星落下的物质。

　　“如果我们的解释没错的话，这应该是已被观测到的时间最近的一个黑洞诞生的实例，”领导这项研究的美国马萨诸塞州剑桥哈佛-史密森天体物理学中心的丹尼尔-帕特诺德说道。

　　“能观察到黑洞正常的形成过程，这对人类来说可能是第一次，”该研究论文的撰稿人之一、同样来自哈佛-史密森天体物理学中心的亚伯拉罕-罗伯说。

　　对于科学家的最新观察结果，还有其他解释：他们所看到的或许只是一个“脉冲星风星云”的诞生。但加利福尼亚大学伯克利分校的亚历克斯称该射线源更有可能是黑洞。