Supermassive Black Holes 超大质量黑洞 - 6

When the results came down from the telescope he saw something that was completely unexpected. The picture from the active galaxy¹ where he hoped to find a black hole was unreadable. NGC 1068 was just too far away for the telescope to get a clear picture. The surprise came from Andromeda, the quiet, normal galaxy right next to us.

I was astonished when I found what I was looking for, but not where I was looking for it. This jog in this dark band shows that on one side the stars are moving very rapidly away from us at 150 kilometers a second which is 500,000 kilometers an hour.

Dressler thought there could only be one thing that would cause the stars to move this fast: a supermassive black hole and he wasn't alone. Fellow Nuker John Kormendy had found exactly the same thing.

The moment I could see that wiggle, so I knew essentially² instantly that there was a very good chance this would be a supermassive black hole. When you see something like that, you know you are on to something.

They'd found evidence of the most terrifying force in nature. But worryingly it wasn't in some far-off active galaxy. This supermassive black hole was in the very ordinary galaxy right next door to us.

Andromeda seemed to have a black hole but no bright quasar.

If there was a supermassive black hole, why wasn't it shining? That suggested that there was not stuff falling in. Maybe lots of galaxies³ could have a dormant⁴ phase where they had a supermassive black hole but they weren't being fed so they weren't shining.

A few theorists had predicted this very thing: supermassive black holes could exist in two states.

wiggle: move with short movements up and down or from side to side.

be on to something: have an idea that is likely to lead to an important discovery

dormant: temporarily inactive

1 galaxy   

n.星系；银河系；一群(杰出或著名的人物)

参考例句：

• The earth is one of the planets in the Galaxy.地球是银河系中的星球之一。
• The company has a galaxy of talent.该公司拥有一批优秀的人才。

2 essentially   

adv.本质上，实质上，基本上

参考例句：

• Really great men are essentially modest.真正的伟人大都很谦虚。
• She is an essentially selfish person.她本质上是个自私自利的人。

3 galaxies   

星系( galaxy的名词复数 )； 银河系； 一群（杰出或著名的人物）

参考例句：

• Quasars are the highly energetic cores of distant galaxies. 类星体是遥远星系的极为活跃的核心体。
• We still don't know how many galaxies there are in the universe. 我们还不知道宇宙中有多少个星系。

4 dormant   

adj.暂停活动的；休眠的；潜伏的

参考例句：

• Many animals are in a dormant state during winter.在冬天许多动物都处于睡眠状态。
• This dormant volcano suddenly fired up.这座休眠火山突然爆发了。