沙漏星雲噴射瞬間如同人眼

The sands of time are running out for the central star of this hourglass-shaped planetary nebula.

在這一酷似沙漏形狀的星雲內，“時間之沙”即將從中央星之中流逝殆盡。

With its nuclear fuel exhausted, this brief but spectacular closing phase of MyCn18 - better known as the Engraved Hourglass Nebula - occurs as its outer layers are ejected.

隨着其本身的核燃料的消耗幾近枯竭，被稱爲“沙漏星雲”的MyCn18的最外層開始朝外噴射，它這一短暫而又壯闊的生命也行將結束。

Located 8,000 light-years away from Earth in the southern constellation Musca, the sun-like star's core is in the process of becoming a cooling, fading white dwarf.

“沙漏星雲”MyCn18距離地球8000光年，位於南天蒼蠅座，這顆類似於太陽的星核進入了逐漸冷卻的階段，並慢慢變成了一顆白矮星。

Astronomers used the Hubble Space Telescope to make a series of images of planetary nebulae in the mid-1990s, including this one.

上世紀九十年代中期，天文學家們運用哈勃太空望遠鏡拍攝到了這一星雲的衆多圖像，其中便包括了這一張。

Delicate rings of colourful glowing gas - nitrogen-red, hydrogen-green, and oxygen-blue - outline the tenuous walls of the hourglass.

紅色氮氣、綠色氫氣和藍色氧氣這些彩色發光氣體共同組成了這個形狀與沙漏極其相似的星雲。

The unprecedented sharpness of Hubble's image has revealed surprising details of the nebula ejection process.

哈勃太空望遠鏡拍攝到的圖片相當清晰，以至於揭示了這一令人驚訝的星雲噴射過程。

And it is these that are helping scientists to resolve the outstanding mysteries of the complex shapes and symmetries of planetary nebula.

在圖片的“協助”之下，科學家們有望揭開揭開行星狀星雲複雜的結構，以及其對稱性背後的謎團。

MyCn18 was discovered by Annie Jump Cannon and Margaret W Mayall during their research on an extended Henry Draper Catalogue, an astronomical star encyclopedia compiled between 1918 and 1924.

1918年到1924年間，Annie Jump Cannon和Margaret W Mayall在擴充恆星百科全書“亨利-德雷珀目錄”的過程中發現了“沙漏星雲”MyCn18。

The astronomers described it as a small faint planetary nebula, but the march of technology allowed scientists Raghvendra Sahai and John Trauger of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory to capture this stunning image using Hubble in January 1996.

起初，科學家們將之形容爲一小團昏暗的星雲，但隨着天文研究科學技術的發展，1996年1月時，科學家Raghvendra Sahai和John Trauger利用哈勃望遠鏡拍攝到這張令人歎爲觀止的圖像。

MyCn18's hourglass shape is thought to have arisen from the expansion of a fast stellar wind within a slowly expanding cloud which is denser near its equator than its poles.

MyCn18之所以呈現出沙漏的外形，是因爲一個緩慢擴張的雲團裏迅速向外衝去的恆星風造成的，其“赤道”附近的雲團密度要大於兩極。