哈勃望远镜实拍 支离破碎的星体

Halton Arp’s Atlas of Peculiar Galaxies sounds like a book that one might find in the library at Hogwarts in the Harry Potter books – but it’s real, a book which catalogues the strangest astronomical objects found so far by man.

特殊星系中的荷顿·阿特拉斯星系听起来像一本能在哈利波特书中描述的霍格沃茨魔法学校图书馆中找到的书，但是实际上这是一本真实的书，它将目前人类已知的最奇怪的天文学物体分类了。

This galaxy, Holmberg II, is one of its star attractions – among the oddest places in the universe.

就宇宙中最奇怪的地点来说，霍姆伯格星系是其中一个星星的聚集点。

Here, it’s captured by the Hubble Space Telescope in the act of ‘blowing bubbles’ – actually intricate glowing shells of gas created by the lifecycles of generations of stars.

这是被哈勃望远镜拍到的泡泡，实际上是由于日换星移而产生的错综复杂的发光的壳体。

High-mass stars form in dense regions of gas, and later in life expel strong stellar winds that blow away the surrounding material.

大量的星星存在于稠密的气体中间，在接下来的日子中，强有力的恒星风将会将其周围的物体吹走。

At the very end of their lives, they explode in as a supernova.

在每颗星星生命的末尾，他们将会爆炸成为一颗超新星。

Shock waves rip through the less dense regions around the stars, heating the gas and forming the delicate shells we see today.

强大的波浪会闯进那些气体密度较低的环绕在星星周围的地区，将那些气体加热然后转换成为我们现在看到的精美的壳体。

Holmberg II is a patchwork of dense star-forming regions and extensive barren areas with less material, which can stretch across thousands of light-years – so, gravitationally speaking, it’s a gentle haven where fragile structures such as these bubbles can hold their shape.

霍姆伯格星系是由一个高密度星系的拼凑出来的，可以延伸几千光年，所以从重力学角度讲，这是一个适合那些易碎的星体保持形状的地方。

But what earned Holmberg II its place in Halton Arp’s Atlas is what you can’t see in this image: the ultraluminous X-ray source in the middle of three gas bubbles in the top right of the image.

但是霍姆伯格星系并不是你看到的这样。在图片右上角的三个气体泡泡的中心部位，有大量的X射线的存在。

There are competing theories as to what causes this powerful radiation — one intriguing possibility is an intermediate-mass black hole which is pulling in material from its surroundings.

关于是什么引起了这种强有力的辐射，还有其他的很多理论。有一种是说在这附近有一个巨大的黑洞，以至于吸引周围的很多物体。

Astronomers took the picture using an advanced camera on the Hubble Space Telescope. The image is a combination of visible and near-infrared exposures taken using the Wide Field Channel of Hubble’s Advanced Camera for Surveys.

宇航员用一个在哈勃望远镜上的高清相机拍下了这张图片，它是用哈勃高级观测摄像机的广渠道近红外曝光系统拍摄的。