Burrows A
Department of Astronomy, The University of Arizona, Tucson 85721, USA.
Nature. 2000 Feb 17;403(6771):727-33. doi: 10.1038/35001501.
During the lifetime of our Milky Way galaxy, there have been something like 100 million supernova explosions, which have enriched the Galaxy with the oxygen we breathe, the iron in our cars, the calcium in our bones and the silicon in the rocks beneath our feet. These exploding stars also influence the birth of new stars and are the source of the energetic cosmic rays that irradiate us on the Earth. The prodigious amount of energy (approximately 10(51), or approximately 2.5 x 10(28) megatonnes of TNT equivalent) and momentum associated with each supernova may even have helped to shape galaxies as they formed in the early Universe. Supernovae are now being used to measure the geometry of the Universe, and have recently been implicated in the decades-old mystery of the origin of the gamma-ray bursts. Together with major conceptual advances in our theoretical understanding of supernovae, these developments have made supernovae the centre of attention in astrophysics.
在我们银河系的存在期间，发生了大约一亿次超新星爆发，这些爆发为银河系增添了我们呼吸的氧气、汽车中的铁、我们骨骼中的钙以及脚下岩石中的硅。这些爆发的恒星还影响着新恒星的诞生，并且是高能宇宙射线的来源，这些射线照射着地球上的我们。与每次超新星相关的巨大能量（约10^51，或约2.5×10^28吨TNT当量）和动量甚至可能在早期宇宙中星系形成时帮助塑造了星系。超新星现在正被用于测量宇宙的几何形状，并且最近还与有着数十年历史的伽马射线暴起源之谜有关。随着我们对超新星的理论理解取得重大概念进展，这些进展使超新星成为天体物理学关注的焦点。
