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Scientists found this stellar beast while scanning two clusters of relatively young stars with a device called a Very Large Telescope -- yes, that is the instrument's official name. |
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科學家在觀察兩顆較年輕的恆星時發現了這個恆星怪物，用的是「很大的望遠鏡」──是的，這是該工具的正式名稱。 |
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The star known as R136a1 -- located in the RMC 136a cluster -- puts out 10 million times the light of our sun and is seven times hotter. |
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It weighs more than any other star found to date, roughly 265 times more than the sun. |
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Astronomers previously believed that 150 solar masses was the upper limit for a star. |
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Scientists now believe the star weighed more than twice that at birth and has been slowly losing mass ever since. |
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這顆恆星叫做 R136al，位於 RMC 136al 星團中，放送的光線強度是我們太陽的一千萬倍，熱度則高達七倍。它比目前發現的任何恆星都來得重，大約是太陽的二百六十五倍。之前天文學家相信恆星重量的上限是一百五十個太陽質量。現在科學家認為 R136al 的重量在誕生時是目前的兩倍以上，之後才逐漸消減質量。 |
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"Unlike people, these kinds of stars are massive when they are babies," said astrophysics professor Paul Crowther. "They lose weight as they get older." |
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「和人不一樣，這些類型的恆星在嬰兒時期很巨大，」天文物理學教授保羅．克勞瑟表示：「隨著他們長大會減輕重量。」 |
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Crowther led the group of University of Sheffield scientists who made the discovery. |
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發現這顆恆星的是克勞瑟帶領的雪菲爾大學科學家團隊。 |
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The cluster where R136a1 resides is part of a galaxy known as the Large Magellanic Cloud, a satellite of our Milky Way galaxy. |
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Because it is more than 160,000 light-years away from us, it is impossible to see with the naked eye or a standard rooftop telescope, according to Crowther. |
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R136al 所在的星團是大麥哲倫星雲的一部份，該星雲是我們銀河星系的衛星星系。克勞瑟表示，因為 R136al 和我們的距離超過十六萬光年，所以肉眼或一般天台望遠鏡看不到。 |
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"Owing to the rarity of these monsters, I think it is unlikely that this new record will be broken any time soon," Crowther said. |
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克勞瑟說：「由於這類巨星很稀有，我想這個新紀錄短時間內不太可能被打破。」 |
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The Very Large Telescope is actually an array of four optical telescopes located at the European Southern Observatory in Chile. |
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Data from the VLT was combined with information from the Hubble Space Telescope to track down the stellar giant. |
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「很大的望遠鏡」其實是一排四具光學望遠鏡組成，設立在智利的歐南天文台，收集到的資料和哈伯太空望遠鏡的訊息結合，以追蹤這顆巨大的恆星。 |
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The star is believed to be about one million years old, young compared to our sun's five billion years. |
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However, it is already middle-aged, and will most likely explode in a massive supernova in another million years. |
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這顆恆星大約已經有一百萬年，比起我們太陽的五十億年算年輕，不過也已經算中年了，而且很可能在下個一百萬年內爆炸形成一顆巨大的超新星。 |
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