It’s a big universe, but it’s full of small planets.这是一个相当大的宇宙，但却充满著了小型的行星。A group of astronomers led by Guillermo Torres of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics announced on Tuesday that they had found eight new planets orbiting their stars at distances compatible with liquid water, bringing the total number of potentially habitable “Goldilocks planets” to a few dozen, depending on how the habitable zone is defined.周二，以哈佛-史密森尼天体物理中心(Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics)的吉耶尔莫·纳里斯(Guillermo Torres)派的一组天文学者宣告，他们新发现有八颗行星在允许液态水不存在的距离环绕它们的恒星运营。这样一来，有可能适合居住于的“适居带上(Goldilocks)行星”的总数就下降到了数十颗。

当然，这还各不相同如何定义适居带上。NASA’s Kepler spacecraft, now in its fifth year of seeking out the shadows of planets circling other stars, has spotted hundreds, and more and more of these other worlds look a lot like Earth — rocky balls only slightly larger than our own home, that with the right doses of starlight and water could turn out to be veritable gardens of microbial Eden.美国国家航空航天局(NASA)的开普勒(Kepler)太空望远镜目前已转入搜索环绕其他恒星转动的行星的阴影的第五年。

它早已找到了数百个，以及更加多与地球十分相似的世界——只比我们的家园地球体积略为大的石球，只要有适度的光和水，就可能会沦为名副其实的微生物伊甸园。As the ranks of these planets grow, astronomers are beginning to plan the next step in the quest to end cosmic loneliness, gauging which hold the greatest promise for life and what tools will be needed to learn about them.随着此类行星的数量大大减少，天文学者开始计划涉及探寻的下一步，测算哪颗行星不存在生命的可能性仅次于，以及理解它们必须什么工具，从而落幕我们在宇宙中的孤独感。On Monday another group of astronomers said they had managed to weigh precisely a set of small planets and found that their densities and compositions almost exactly matched those of Earth. Both groups announced their findings at a meeting of the American Astronomical Society in Seattle.周一，另一组天文学者回应，他们早已顺利准确计算出来出有了一系列小行星的重量，找到它们的密度和包含完全与地球完全一致。

这两组天文学者都在西雅图的美国天文学不会 (American Astronomical Society)的会议上发布了自己的研究结果。Alluding to the popularity of food shows and cooking apps, Courtney Dressing, also of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, said at a news conference, “I’m going to give you the recipe for a rocky planet.”某种程度来自哈佛-史密森尼天体物理中心的考特妮·德雷辛(Courtney Dressing)在新闻发布会上借出美食节目和烹调软件的话说道，“我现在要告诉他你该如何制作岩态行星。”She began, “Take one cup of magnesium....”她说道，“用一杯镁……”Reviewing the history of exoplanets, Debra Fischer, a Yale astronomer, recalled that the first planet found orbiting another sunlike star, a Jupiter-like giant, was discovered 20 years ago. Before that, she recalled, astronomers worried that “maybe the Star Trek picture of the universe was not right, and there is no life anywhere else.”耶鲁大学(Yale)天文学者德布拉·费希尔(Debra Fischer)在总结系由外行星历史时说，第一次找到环绕类似于太阳的恒星运营的行星是在20年前。这颗行星很像木星，体积极大。

她回想道，在那之前，天文学者担忧“也许《星际变形金刚》(Star Trek)中的宇宙景象是不准确的，其他地方显然没生命”。She termed the progress in the last two decades “incredibly moving.”她回应，过去20年的变革“十分难以置信”。So far, Kepler has discovered 4,175 potential planets, and 1,004 of them have been confirmed as real, according to Michele Johnson, a spokeswoman at NASA’s Ames Research Center, which operates Kepler.负责管理运营开普勒的NASA艾姆斯研究中心(NASA Ames Research Center)的女发言人米歇尔·约翰逊(Michele Johnson)称之为，目前为止，开普勒早已找到了4175颗疑为行星，其中有1004颗早已获得证实。Most of them, however, including the new ones announced Tuesday, are hundreds of light-years away, too far for detailed study. We will probably never know any more about these particular planets than we do now, including whether anybody can or does live on them.不过，它们中的大多数，其中还包括周二宣告的新发现的行星都距离地球数百光年，因为太远，而不合适展开详尽研究。

我们对于这些类似行星的理解，也许总有一天无法比现在更加多，其中还包括人们否需要，以及否有人在这些行星上存活。“We can count as many as we like,” said Sara Seager, a planet theorist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who was not involved in the new work, “but until we can observe the atmospheres and assess their greenhouse gas power, we don’t really know what the surface temperatures are like.”“我们可以想要数出多少就数出多少，”麻省理工学院（Massachusetts Institute of Technology，全称MIT）的行星理论家萨拉·西格(Sara Seager)说道，“但在需要仔细观察它们的大气，审定它们的温室气体含量之前，我们无法确实理解它们的地表温度。”她并没参予这项新的研究。Still, she added, “it’s heartening to have such a growing list.”不过，她补足道，“这样的行星更加多，也很令人鼓舞。

”Finding Goldilocks planets closer to home will be the job of TESS, the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite, scheduled to be launched in 2017. But if we want to know what the weather is like on these worlds, whether there is water or even life there, more powerful instruments will be needed.找寻离地球较将近的适居带上行星将是凌日系由外行星勘测人造卫星（Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite，全称TESS）的任务。这种卫星将于2017年升空。

但是，如果我们想要告诉这些行星上的天气状况、上面否有水乃至生命，还必须更加强劲的工具。Dr. Seager is heading a NASA study investigating the concept of a starshade, which would float in front of a space telescope and block light from a star so that its much fainter planets would be visible, the way a driver flips down a shade to block the glare of the sun.西格正在负责管理一项研究遮星板(starshade)概念的NASA研究。

这种遮星板将飘浮在太空望远镜前方，遮盖恒星收到的光，这样就能看到它较为黯淡的行星了，就像司机纳下遮阳板阻挡强光的阳光那样。Another group, led by Karl Stapelfeldt of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, is studying the alternative method known as a coronagraph, in which the occulting disk is inside the telescope.由NASA戈达德航天中心(Goddard Spaceflight Center)的卡尔·斯塔佩尔费尔德兹(Karl Stapelfeldt)所率领的另一个小组正在研究被称作日冕仪(coronagraph)另一种办法。根据这种办法，挡板不会被放到望远镜里面。

Both studies are expected to be completed in the next couple of months, and could affect plans to repurpose a former spy telescope, a clone of sorts of the Hubble, that was bequeathed to NASA three years ago by the National Reconnaissance Office. Astronomers hope to launch it in the early 2020s to study dark energy, under the unwieldy name of Wfirst/Afta.They are planning for now to include a coronagraph to search for exoplanets, according to Paul Schechter of M.I.T., chairman of a design team. Depending on the probe’s orbit, said Dr. Seager, it could be also be made “starshade ready.”两项研究都未来将会在未来几个月内已完成，它们有可能影响到转变原本的间谍望远镜的用于目的的计划。这种望远镜是对哈勃(Hubble)望远镜的一种拷贝，三年前由国家侦查局(National Reconnaissance Office)赠送给NASA。天文学者期望能在本世纪20年代初将其升空升空，用来研究亮能量。

它有个简单的名字，叫作长视场红外巡天望远镜/天体物理学专用资产(Wfirst/Afta)。某设计团队的主席、来自MIT的保罗·杜克特(Paul Schechter)回应，他们目前于是以计划在上面加装一台日冕仪，用来搜寻系由外行星。

西格说道，根据这个探测器的轨道，还可以对它展开调整，使之“需要用于遮星板”。NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope, due for a 2018 launch, will have a coronagraph capable of seeing Jupiter-size planets, but it is too late to adapt it to a star shade.NASA的詹姆斯·韦伯太空望远镜(James Webb Space Telescope)将于2018年升空，它上面也将加装一台能看见木星大小的行星的日冕仪，但现在早已马上对它展开调整，使它能用于遮星板。

Meanwhile, Dr. Seager and Julianne Dalcanton of the University of Washington are writing a separate report for AURA, a consortium of universities that runs observatories. The goal is have a pool of dozens of “exoEarths” to study in order to have any chance of seeing signs of life or understanding terrestrial planets, Dr. Seager said. Amassing them will require a space telescope 10 or 12 meters in diameter (the Webb will be 6.5, and the largest currently on Earth is 10).同时，西格和华盛顿大学(University of Washington)的朱莉安娜·达尔坎顿(Julianne Dalcanton)于是以分别在为AURA编写一篇报告。AURA是一个负责管理天文台运营的大学联盟。西格说道，他们是想要对数十个“系外地球”(exoEarth)展开研究，想到否有机会找到生命迹象或理解类地行星。要想要累积这么多的行星，必须一台直径为10或12米的太空望远镜（韦伯太空望远镜的直径将为6.5米；目前，地球上直径仅次于的是10米）。

All of this will be grist for the mill at the end of the decade when a panel of the National Academy of Sciences produces its decadal and very influential wish list for astronomy in the 2020s.到这一个10年邻近完结、国家科学院(National Academy of Sciences)的工作小组为天文学制订近于有影响力的20年代十年规划时，这一切都将十分简单。

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