每天讀一篇 美語脫口說
First 』exomoon』 may have been found
天文學家首次發現太陽系外也有「月球」的證據
Astronomers have announced the possible discovery of the first known moon outside our Solar System.
天文學家宣布,可能在我們的太陽系外發現了第一顆已知的月球。
This "exomoon" is not like any in our cosmic neighbourhood: it’s the size of Neptune and orbits a planet the size of Jupiter - but with 10 times the mass.
這顆「系外月球」與我們宇宙裡的任何東西都不同:它的體積有海王星那麼大,繞著一顆木星大小的行星運行 - 但這顆行星的質量是木星的10倍。
The object was spotted in data from Nasa’s Kepler spacecraft, and later observed using the Hubble telescope.
該物體被納入美國宇航局克卜勒太空船的數據後,天文學家使用哈勃望遠鏡進行了觀測。
Astronomers David Kipping and Alex Teachey have published their results in Science Advances journal.
天文學家David Kipping和Alex Teachey已將他們的成果發表在《Science Advances》雜誌上。
But they say that further observations are needed to understand the distant planetary system.
但是他們說需要進一步的觀察才能理解這個遙遠的行星系統。
"We』ve tried our best to rule out other possibilities such as spacecraft anomalies, other planets in the system or stellar activity, but we’re unable to find any other single hypothesis which can explain all of the data we have," said Dr Kipping, from Columbia University in New York.
「我們對所觀測到的現象已盡力排除其他可能性,如太空飛行器異常,太陽系中的其他行星或恆星活動,但我們無法找到任何其他單一假設來解釋我們我們的數據,」來自紐約哥倫比亞大學的Kipping博士說。
To date, astronomers have discovered more than 3,500 exoplanets - worlds orbiting stars other than the Sun.
迄今為止,天文學家已發現超過3500顆系外行星 - 即環繞除太陽以外運行的星體。
A hunt for exomoons - bodies that orbit these distant planets - has proceeded in parallel. But so far, these natural satellites have lingered at the limits of detection with current techniques.
天文學家也在同時尋找「系外月球」 - 即圍繞遙遠行星的星體。但到目前為止,這些天然星體很難被現有技術的探測到。
The researchers monitored a planet known as Kepler 1625b as it passed in front of its parent star.
這顆被命名為Kepler 1625b的星體在環繞其母星運行的時候,研究人員對其進行了監測。
This 19-hour event, known as a transit, blocked out some of the light coming from the star, which lies at a distance of 8,000 light-years from Earth.
這個19小時的活動,被稱為「過境」,它阻擋了來自恆星的一些光線,而這顆恆星距離地球有8000光年。