|
|
Australian astronomers have discovered the closest potentially habitable planet found outside our solar system so far — a super-Earth located just 14 light years away.
澳大利亚的天文学家发现了太阳系外的一个潜在宜居地球。这颗超级地球是迄今为止离我们最近的一颗，距地球仅仅14光年。
The planet, reported in the Astrophysical Journal Letters, is one of three detected orbiting a small red dwarf star called Wolf 1061 in the constellation Ophiuchus.
据《天体物理学》杂志报道，这颗行星系围绕红矮星沃尔夫1061旋转的三颗行星之一，都处于蛇夫座当中。
"The middle planet Wolf 1061c, is orbiting within the so-called ’Goldilocks zone’ — the habitable zone where it might be possible for liquid water and maybe even life to exist," said the study’s lead author Dr Duncan Wright of the University of New South Wales.
该研究主要作者邓肯·赖特博士（Dr Duncan Wright）就职于澳大利亚新南威尔士大学（UNSW）。他介绍说：“沃尔夫1061c在3颗行星中位置居中，位于‘宜居带’（Goldilocks zone），那里可能会有液态水甚至是生命存在。”
"This discovery is especially exciting because the star is extremely calm. Most red dwarfs are very active, giving out X-ray bursts and super flares which spells doom for any life, given the habitable zone is so close into these stars."
“这个发现尤其让人兴奋，因为这颗恒星表面极度风平浪静。大多数红矮星非常活跃，会释出X射线大爆发还有吞噬一切生命的超级耀斑。而这个宜居带和这些红矮星挨得很近。”
Calm, quiet, stable stars may be an important requirement for life to survive on an orbiting planet.
要生活在轨道行星上，平静、镇定以及稳定也许是非常重要的条件。
"After looking at several thousand planetary candidates we found that our Sun is a particularly quiet star, even quieter than your average Sun-like star," said Dr Wright.
赖特博士说：“在观测了几千颗候选行星之后，我们发现太阳是一个极度安静的行星，甚至比一般的类太阳行星还要安静。”
"And the same is true for Wolf 1061, which is a particularly quiet star and is probably indicative that it’s a very old system."
“而沃尔夫1061也同样十分平静，这表明它也许是一个非常老的天体系统。”
Wolf 1061 is about a quarter the mass of the Sun with a surface temperature of about 3,100 degrees Celsius — just over half that of the Sun.
沃尔夫1061的质量大约是太阳的四分之一；表面温度大概是太阳的一半，大约在3100摄氏度左右。
The three newly detected planets are all thought to be rocky terrestrial worlds.
这三个新探测到的星球都被认为是石质的类地行星。
The nearest planet orbits the star every five days and is about 1.4 times the mass of the Earth.
最近的行星每五天绕红矮星旋转一周，质量是地球的1.4倍左右。
The middle planet — which is in the star’s habitable zone — is about 4.3 times the Earth’s mass and takes 18 days to complete each orbit.
位置在中间的行星，出于红矮星的宜居带，质量是地球的4.3倍，并且需要花上18天时间旋转一周。
The third planet is just beyond the habitable zone, taking 67 days to complete each orbit and is 5.2 times the mass of the Earth.
第三颗行星位于宜居带之外，每运行一圈需要67天的时间，其质量是地球质量的5.2倍。
"It is fascinating to look out at the vastness of space and think a star so very close to us — a near neighbour — could host a habitable planet," said Dr Wright.
赖特博士说：“仰望漫无边际的宇宙，意识到在离我们如此之近的地方可能存在一颗宜居行星，这种感觉相当奇妙。”
Dr Wright and colleagues detected the planets using the so called "wobble method".
赖特博士和其同事是使用“摆动法”来检测到这些行星的。
The team used the HARPS spectrograph on the European Southern Observatory’s 3.6-metre telescope at La Silla in Chile to observe the star’s movement.
在智利拉西那的欧洲南方天文台，该团队使用了HARPS 摄谱仪来观察行星的运动。
"We actually see the entire star wobbling back and forth due to the gravitational tug of the planets as they orbit around the star," said Dr Wright.
赖特博士说：“在行星环绕红矮星运转时，实际上我们观测到了整个星球由于重力作用来回摆动的现象。”
Dr Wright predicted astronomers would discover many more habitable zone planets orbiting around red dwarf stars in the near future.
赖特博士预测，不久以后宇航员们就能够发现更多围绕红矮星旋转的宜居带行星。
"There are 100 billion stars in the Milky Way, at least half are red dwarfs, and we now know from the planet-hunting Kepler Space Telescope that about half of those red dwarfs have multiple rocky planetary systems around them," said Dr Wright.
他说：“银河里有一千亿颗星球，至少有一半是红矮星。我们从用于捕获星球的开普勒太空望远镜中得知，大约有一半的红矮星被多重岩质行星系统环绕。”
"That means were talking about literally billions of planets.
那意味着我们实际上在谈论数十亿颗星球。
"While we won’t detect all of them, we will get a window into a small fraction of them in the near future and that’s going to be very exciting," he said.
他说：“尽管我们没有观测到所有行星，在不久的将来我们能够看到其中的一小部分。这一定会让人很兴奋。”
本文选自：今日头条
UFO中文网温馨提示：本文由网友采集编写，如果侵犯了您的版权，请联系管理员（邮箱：[email protected]）删除。 |
|
窥视卡
雷达卡
发表于 2018-7-2 19:26:42
提升卡
置顶卡
沉默卡
喧嚣卡
变色卡
抢沙发
显身卡
