Brahe Burst Brought to Light

    It’s not every day we get a chance to time travel. Other than into the future at the rate of one second per second. But astronomers say they’ve done a little traveling into the past. In November of 1572, legendary astronomer Tycho Brahe peered up at the night sky. He saw what looked like a strangely bright star in the constellation Cassiopeia. It was brighter even than the nearby planet Venus. He studied that bright new star for five months, until it faded away. But what Brahe saw wasn’t a new star. It was actually an old star undergoing the brilliantly bright death of a supernova.

    Scientists at the Subaru Telescope in Japan recently analyzed what could be called echoes of this more than 400-year-old event. They published their research in the December 4th issue of the journal Nature. Light from the original supernova bounced off dust particles in the interstellar clouds and eventually reached us here on earth more than four centuries later. Scientists used these echoes to determine that Brahe witnessed a type Ia supernova.

    认识“布拉赫”爆炸

    我们不是每天都能得到机会做时间旅行，当然这种旅行不是以每秒一秒的速度走向未来。但是天文学家说他们尝试了一次回到过去的时间之旅。在1572年的11月份，传奇的天文学家第谷·布拉赫 （Tycho Brahe）凝视夜晚的天空，他在仙后座看到一颗看起来异常明亮的星星。它比邻近的金星还要亮。第谷·布拉赫对这颗闪亮的新星星研究了五个月，直到它逐渐消失。不过，布拉赫看到的不是一颗新的星星，它实际上是一颗古老的星星，这颗星星正在经历一颗超新星的光彩绚烂之死。
 

    最近科学家们在日本的昂星团望远镜 （Subaru Telescope）天文观测站分析了可以被称为这次400多年前事件的“回声”。他们的研究结果发表在12月4日的《自然》杂志上（Nature）。来自原始超新星的光线被星际云中的尘埃粒子折射，经过4个多世纪后最后达到了我们的地球。科学家们利用这些回声确定布拉赫看到的是一种la--型超新星。
 

    Vocabulary:

    Burst：爆炸

    Legendary：传奇的

    Astronomer：天文学家

    Peer：凝视；注视

    Constellation：星座

    Cassiopeia：仙后座

    Venus：金星

    Fade: 逐渐消失

    Supernova: 超新星

    Bounce: 反弹；跳跃

    Interstellar: 星际间的

    Witness: 见证

    （英语原文来自SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN《科学美国人》http://www.sciam.com 作者：Cynthia Graber