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Today's news that the Kepler spacecraft has turned up an alien solar system with five of its six known planets bunched tightly around their star had a familiar ring. In the past 15 years, astronomers have identified hundreds of solar systems, each bizarre in its own way. Yet this new system offers a unique way to learn more about how planets form and evolve. |
今天的一条新闻报道说：开普勒太空望远镜发现了一个系外恒星系统，六颗已知行星中的五颗紧紧地环绕在恒星周围。这类新闻听起来有些耳熟，在过去的15年当中天文学家们发现了几百个恒星系统，每个系统都有其本身的奇异之处。然而这个新发现的系统为天文学家们提供了独一无二的途径，能够使他们更加清晰地了解行星是如何形成和演化的。 |
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"We keep hearing it over and over again: Other planetary systems aren't like our own," says exoplanet astronomer Debra Fischer of Yale University. But "this six-planet system is just incredible." |
“我们不断地听到这样的说法：其他的行星系统跟我们太阳系有所不同，”耶鲁大学研究系外行星的天文学家黛布拉·费希尔说，“但是，这个拥有六颗行星的系统简直不可思议！” |
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The find comes from NASA's Kepler telescope, launched in March 2010 to hunt for planets orbiting other stars. For months on end, it has been staring at 156,000 stars in the constellation Cygnus, searching for the tiniest fading of a star's light that signals a planet passing in front of it. Reporting online today in Nature, planetary dynamicist Jack Lissauer of NASA's Ames Research Center in Mountain View, California, and 39 Kepler co-authors announced that the effort paid off with the discovery of six planets orbiting a single star designated Kepler-11 2000 light-years away. |
这个系统是由美国国家航空航天管理局的开普勒太空望远镜发现的。开普勒太空望远镜于2010年3月份发射升空，用以搜寻环绕其他恒星的行星。连续几个月以来，该望远镜一直对准天鹅座的156,000颗恒星，寻找恒星最微弱的变暗迹象，这种变暗表示有一颗行星正在恒星的前面经过。加州山景城市美国国家航空航天管理局埃姆斯研究中心的行星动力学家杰克·利索尔，以及39位研究开普勒望远镜的同事，今天在《自然》杂志在线版上报道该发现时宣布：他们的努力得到了回报，他们发现了六颗行星围绕着一颗叫做开普勒-11的恒星旋转，该恒星位于2000光年之外。 |
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None of the planets is Earth-like or even as small as Earth. All fall between Earth and Uranus in mass, and three are clearly gas giants with thick atmospheres of hydrogen and helium like Uranus's. Most odd is that five of the six orbit much closer to their star than Mercury orbits the sun, whereas the sixth orbits closer to where Venus would be. "It is by far the most densely packed planetary system," Lissauer said during a press teleconference this week. "Why there are so many so close is a mystery." |
所有的行星都不同于地球，甚至都不像地球那么小。所有的行星在质量上都大于地球而小于天王星，很明显其中三颗是气态的巨型行星，跟天王星一样拥有氢和氦构成的厚厚的大气层。最为奇怪的是，六颗行星中有五颗在距其恒星很近的轨道上运行，比水星轨道跟太阳距离要近得多，而第六颗行星跟恒星的距离也比金星跟太阳的距离近。“这是一个行星密度最高的行星系统，”本周利索尔在一次电话新闻发布会上说，“为什么在这么近的距离上有这么多行星呢？这是一个谜。” |
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But that mystery may eventually help astrophysicists understand how and where planets arise. Researchers have long debated how close in gas giant planets form from a flat disk of primordial gas and dust. One theory posits that they form far from their parent stars—about where Jupiter and Saturn are now—and move inward over time. Another says that they form in place. Researchers try to figure out which way real planets form by simulating planet formation in computer models. |
但是，这个谜最终可能会帮助天体物理学家们理解行星产生的方式和位置。有关气态巨型行星形成于原始气体和尘埃平盘内的什么位置问题，长期以来研究人员一直在争论。一种理论提出，他们形成于远离主恒星的位置，大约相当于木星和土星目前的位置，随着时间的推移它们向内部移动。另外的一种理论指出，气态行星形成于适当的距离上。研究人员通过计算机模型来模拟行星形成的情况，以期搞明白真正的行星是按照哪一种方式形成的。 |
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The Kepler find dramatically shows how poorly the models are doing. "The usual planet formation model is severely challenged to explain the Kepler-11 system," says planetary dynamicist Peter Bodenheimer of the Lick Observatory at the University of California, Santa Cruz. Making all five Kepler-11 planets far out and moving them in "is so complicated it's unlikely," he says. But forming them about where they are now would require an unrealistic amount of solid particles to form a rocky core, he says. For now, Bodenheimer leans toward formation in place, if only because it is "a little bit less problematic." |
引人瞩目的是，开普勒望远镜的这项发现表明了那些模拟的效果有多么差。“在解释开普勒-11系统时，对普通行星形成情况的模拟受到了严峻的挑战，”加州大学圣克鲁兹分校利克天文台的行星动力学家彼得·博登海默说。他指出，使开普勒-11中的五颗行星在远处的外围形成，然后再将它们移进来，这太复杂了，不可能是这样的。但是他又说道，如果就在它们目前位置形成，那么将需要大量的固体粒子才能形成固体核心，这是不现实的。目前，博登海默倾向于认为行星在适当的距离上形成，只有这样问题才会较少一些。 |
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Kepler-11's tightly bunched planets may have deepened the mystery, but researchers see a ray of hope in them as well. The combination of Kepler's extreme sensitivity and closely spaced planets gravitationally tugging on one another allows team members to learn more about the Kepler-11 planets than astronomers using other techniques have found out about other, less-populated systems. Those additional properties include a planet's mass, density, and proportion of rock and gas—just the sort of information modelers need to test their theories of planet formation convincingly. |
开普勒-11系统中紧密环绕的行星使行星形成之谜更加深奥了，但是研究人员通过这些行星也看到了一线希望。天文学家们利用其他技术发现过行星比较稀疏的其他系统，但是相比之下，开普勒望远镜的极端敏感性结合在近距离上互相吸引的行星，使研究小组的成员们对开普勒-11系统中的行星情况了解得更多一些。其他的特征包括行星的质量、密度以及岩石和气体的比例等，这些正是进行模拟的人员需要验证的信息，验证之后才能使他们的行星形成理论令人信服。 |
