探索发现：能够维持生命的“超级地球”外部行星

译者 Shophen

Our planet Earth. Astronomers have found a super-earth exoplanet 37 light years away from our solar system. Photograph: Anonymous/AP

Astronomers say they have found a second planet outside our solar system that is the right distance from its star to potentially support life. But any possible inhabitants would need to have a taste for an environment that felt like a hot steam bath.

天文学家探测到位于我们的太阳系之外的第二颗星球，这颗星球与它所绕行的恒星之间的距离刚好适合生命存在。

我们的地球。天文学家已经探测到一颗距离我们的太阳系37光年的“超级地球”外部行星。摄影：匿名/美国联合通讯社

天文学家们声明，他们已经探测到第二颗位于我们的太阳系之外的星球，这颗星球与它所绕行的恒星之间的距离刚好可能维持生命存在。但是，可能在这颗行星上居住的生物必须得能受得了蒸气浴似的气候。

European astronomers announced the discovery of a total of 50 planets outside our solar system. Among these was one which lies in the "Goldilocks zone" – an area which is neither too hot nor too cold for liquid water, an essential for Earth-like life, to be present.

欧洲天文学家宣称，在探测到的总共50颗太阳系外的星球中，有一颗正位于适居带，这个地带不会太冷，也不会太热，刚好适合液态水的存在，而这液态水正是类地生物生存所必须的。

The only past discovery of a Goldilocks planet that still stands up today is one that was found in 2007. To be able to support life the new planet would need not only to have water, it would also need to be solid, like earth and not made up primarily of gas, like Jupiter.

之前唯一一次探测到的，而且直到如今还依然站得住脚的适居带是在2007年被探测到的。为了能够维持生命，这个新的星球不仅要有液态水，而且它的土表还必须是固态的，就像地球这样；而不是和木星一样，基本上都是由气态组成。

The newly discovered planet, which is called HD85512b, is about 3.6 times the mass of Earth, it is estimated that temperatures there range from 30C to 50C, and it is thought that the atmosphere is very humid.

这个新近探测到的星球编号为HD85512b，它的质量是地球的3.6倍。据估算，那里的温度约为30度到50度，据推测，那里的气候非常潮湿。

"It's going to be really muggy, just think about the muggiest (Washington) day you can think of," said Lisa Kaltenegger, an astronomer with the Max Planck Institute in Germany, and author of the new study. "We're not saying it's habitable for you and me."

“那里真的是又潮湿又闷热，想想你所能想到的（华盛顿）最潮湿最闷热的日子你就能明白了”，丽莎·卡尔特尼格说道，丽莎·卡尔特尼格是德国马克思-普朗克研究所的一名天文学家，也是一项最新研究---“并不是说它就适合你我居住 ”---的作者。

But other types of life – probably shorter and squatter – could conceivably take root there, she said. They would probably be closer to the ground than humans because gravity on the planet is about 1.4 times what we experience.

“但是，”她又说道，“其他生命形态——也许是更矮小、更接近地表的生命形态——就能在那儿扎根。”它们可能会比人类更贴近地表，因为该星球的重力是我们在地球上所承受的重力的1.4倍。

According to Kaltenegger, at least 60% of the planet would need to be covered in cloud for it to be potentially habitable. Earth has about 50% cloud cover.

据马尔特尼格说，一个星球必须要有60%的云层覆盖面积才有可能成为适居星球。而地球的云层覆盖面积大约是50%。

HD85512b closely circles a star about 35 light years from Earth in the constellation Vela. Each light year is 5.8 trillion miles. A year on the planet is only 60 days. Its sun is about 1,000C cooler than our sun.

编号为HD85512b的星球在船帆座所紧紧绕行的恒星据地球大约有35光年。一个光年是5.8百百亿英里。在那星球上，一年就只有60天。它所绕行的恒星的温度比我们地球所绕行的太阳低1000度。

The new "exoplanets" were found by the European Southern Observatory's special planet-hunting instrument called Harps, which is based in Chile. The finding doubles the number of planets that are closer to Earth in mass than those closer to Jupiter's size.

这颗新的外部行星是由欧洲南方天文台的特殊星球追踪器——又叫高精度径向速度行星搜索器——所探测到的，这个搜索器位于智利。此项发明使得与地球质量相接近 的星球数量变成木星的一倍。

This new Goldilocks planet was observed more than a thousand times over 200 nights of tracking from Chile so astronomers are confident of their findings, said study author Francesco Pepe of the Geneva Observatory in Switzerland.

天文学家们在智利经过了200多夜、对这颗新的适居星球进行上千次的观察，所以他们对此项发现充满信心，弗朗西斯科·博比说道，弗朗西斯科·博比是一位来自瑞典的日内瓦天文台的研究报告纂写者。

In addition to the two European discoveries of potentially habitable planets, a Nasa telescope has identified more than 50 other candidates, but those still need further investigation.

除了这两个欧洲发现的具有潜力的适居星球外，美国国家航空和宇航航行局的一个天文望远镜也已经鉴定出了其他50多个的候选星球，但这些仍需进一步的研究。