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大型的恒星在生命的最后阶段会发生爆炸。1987年,人们观测到一颗距离我们169000光年的巨大恒星发生爆炸,并产生了超新星。这颗恒星持续燃烧了几个星期,能量是太阳的1亿多倍。尽管距离十分遥远,但我们在南半球天空看到的超新星还是异常明亮。当年2月23日,天文学家在智利发现了这颗恒星,它的强度在5月20日时达到顶点。之后,哈勃太空望远镜便一直跟踪这颗超新星,发现它仍不断从爆炸处向外扩散。这颗爆炸的恒星原本是质量为太阳20多倍的蓝巨星,爆炸后收缩成一颗中子星。
Large stars explode in the final stages of life. In 1987, one observed a massive star 169,000 light-years away from us exploding and produced a supernova. The star has been burning for weeks, with more than 100 million times as much energy as the sun. Despite the distance, the supernovae we see in the sky in the southern hemisphere are unusually bright. On February 23 of that year, astronomers discovered the star in Chile and its intensity culminated on May 20. Since then, the Hubble Space Telescope has been tracking the supernova, found it continued to spread out from the explosion. The exploding star was originally a blue giant that was 20 times as massive as the sun and shrank into a neutron star after the explosion.