大约在13亿年前，在狮子座方向的一个遥远星系中，两个黑洞相撞并合并。2025年1月14日，由此产生的引力波脉冲抵达了位于路易斯安那州和华盛顿州的激光干涉引力波天文台（LIGO）探测器。在6月24日发表于《自然》杂志的一篇论文中，由安大略省圆周理论物理研究所的马思政（Sizheng Ma）领导的研究团队宣布，他们利用这些引力波首次窥探到了黑洞的“事件视界”。
事件视界是光线和物质都无法逃脱的边界，由爱因斯坦的广义相对论所预测。随着两个黑洞合并，新黑洞事件视界的特性会被印刻在释放出的引力波中。由于去年探测到的这组波是迄今为止双黑洞合并中最清晰的一次，马博士的团队得以成功解密该部分信号，并且其结果与理论预测完全吻合。这提供了一个前所未有的视角，来观察光线因引力场损失能量而变红、以及黑洞自转拖拽周围时空等极端物理现象。
尽管黑洞深处的“奇点”由于引力过于强大导致爱因斯坦理论失效，但事件视界是宇宙允许物理学家接近奇点的极限。伊利诺伊大学厄巴纳-香槟分校的物理学家尼古拉斯·尤尼斯（Nicolas Yunes）指出，事件视界对于理解量子力学与广义相对论之间的不相容性至关重要。物理学家们希望，这种新探测技术能帮助他们在事件视界附近寻找微弱的量子引力效应线索。
About 1.3 billion years ago, two black holes collided and merged in a distant galaxy in the direction of the constellation Leo. On January 14th, 2025, the resulting pulse of gravitational waves reached the detectors of the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) in Louisiana and Washington state. In a paper published in Nature on June 24th, a team led by Sizheng Ma of the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics in Ontario reported using these gravitational waves to glimpse the "event horizons" surrounding black holes.
An event horizon marks the boundary from which nothing, not even light, can escape the warp of gravity, a phenomenon predicted by Einstein's theory of general relativity. As two black holes merge, the properties of the new hole's event horizon are imprinted on the released gravitational waves. Since the wave detected last year was the clearest from a binary merger so far, Dr. Ma's team successfully deciphered the relevant signal, which matched theoretical predictions exactly. This offers an unprecedented view of extreme physics, including light losing energy and reddening, and the rotating hole dragging spacetime.
While the "singularity" at the heart of a black hole represents a region where Einstein's theory yields nonsensical results due to intense gravity, the event horizon is as close to it as the universe allows physicists to get. Nicolas Yunes, a physicist at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, notes that event horizons are crucial for understanding the incompatibility between quantum mechanics and general relativity. Physicists hope this new wave-deciphering technique will enable them to search for subtle whispers of quantum-gravitational effects lingering near the event horizon.
Source: Scientists can now study the event horizons of black holes
Subtitle: They make the universe’s most extreme gravitational laboratories
Dateline: Jul 02, 2026 06:22 AM