Nothing rages against the dying of the light harder than a star. Their death throes are wild and violent as the star is wracked with colossal quakes, throwing vast amounts of stellar material out into the surrounding space.
沒(méi)有一種光的消逝比恒星更劇烈。恒星的死亡像狂風(fēng)驟雨般劇烈,因?yàn)楹阈墙?jīng)受劇烈震動(dòng),將數(shù)量龐大的星體物質(zhì)拋向周圍的空間。

Studying the gas and dust thrown off in such events can help us understand how these stars die… and now Hubble has studied in greater detail than ever before two of the dustiest, gassiest star deaths in the galaxy.
研究這種情況下被拋出的氣體和塵??梢詭椭覀兝斫膺@些恒星是如何死亡的?,F(xiàn)在哈勃比以往更詳細(xì)地研究了星系中兩顆塵埃最多、氣體最多的恒星的死亡。

They're two planetary nebulae (so named because initially, these objects were first described as planet-like in the 18th century) called NGC 6303, or the Butterfly Nebula, and NGC 7027. And Hubble has used the full wavelength range of its Wide Field 3 camera - from near ultraviolet to near-infrared - to study the turbulent processes within them.
這兩個(gè)行星狀星云(取這個(gè)名字是因?yàn)樽畛踉?8世紀(jì)時(shí)說(shuō)這些物體外觀類似行星)名為NGC 6303,也叫蝴蝶星云,和NGC 7027。哈勃利用第三代廣域照相機(jī)的全波長(zhǎng)范圍,即從近紫外到近紅外的范圍,研究星云內(nèi)部的湍流過(guò)程。

"When I looked in the Hubble archive and realised no one had observed these nebulae with Hubble's Wide Field Camera 3 across its full wavelength range, I was floored," said astronomer Joel Kastner of Rochester Institute of Technology in New York.
紐約羅切斯特理工學(xué)院的天文學(xué)家Joel Kastner說(shuō):“我查看了哈勃的檔案,發(fā)現(xiàn)此前沒(méi)有人利用哈勃第三代廣域照相機(jī)的全波長(zhǎng)范圍觀察過(guò)這些星云,我很詫異?!?/div>

"These new multi-wavelength Hubble observations provide the most comprehensive view to date of both of these spectacular nebulae. As I was downloading the resulting images, I felt like a kid in a candy store."
“通過(guò)這些新的多波長(zhǎng)哈勃觀測(cè)看到的是這些壯觀星云目前最綜合的視圖效果。我下載傳回的圖像時(shí),感覺(jué)自己就像一個(gè)進(jìn)了糖果店的孩子?!?/div>

Both nebulae are probably descended from progenitor stars around three to five times the mass of the Sun; these progenitors collapsed into white dwarfs when they died. (Stars more massive than eight solar masses become neutron stars; and stars greater than 30 solar masses become black holes.) And both have high ionisation and excitation, indicating the stars inside them are very hot.
這兩個(gè)星云的前身可能都是恒星,質(zhì)量是太陽(yáng)的3-5倍。這些恒星死亡時(shí)坍縮成白矮星。(質(zhì)量大于8個(gè)太陽(yáng)質(zhì)量的恒星會(huì)成為中子星;大于30個(gè)太陽(yáng)質(zhì)量的恒星成為黑洞。)這兩個(gè)星云都有高電離度和高激發(fā)度,說(shuō)明其內(nèi)部的恒星非常熱。

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翻譯:菲菲