天文學(xué)家發(fā)現(xiàn)已知軌道最短的小行星

天文學(xué)家發(fā)現(xiàn)了已知軌道最短的“罕見”小行星

Astronomers have made the rare discovery of a new asteroid circling the sun and whizzing past Earth every 151 days.

天文學(xué)家們罕見地發(fā)現(xiàn)了一顆新的小行星，它繞著太陽運行，每151天繞地球一圈。

The space rock is called 2019 LF6 and it has remained hidden from cosmic experts until now despite being 0.6 miles wide and orbiting near the Earth.

這塊太空巖石被命名為2019 LF6，盡管它寬0.6英里，在地球附近軌道運行，但直到現(xiàn)在，它仍然沒有被宇宙專家發(fā)現(xiàn)。

The newly discovered asteroid has the shortest orbit of any known asteroid.

這顆新發(fā)現(xiàn)的小行星是所有已知小行星中軌道最短的。

It was spotted by astronomers from the California Institute of Technology.

它是由加州理工學(xué)院的天文學(xué)家發(fā)現(xiàn)的。

Quanzhi Ye, a postdoctoral student at Caltech, explained: “LF6 is very unusual both in orbit and in size — its unique orbit explains why such a large asteroid eluded several decades of careful searches.”

加州理工學(xué)院博士后葉全智解釋說:“LF6在軌道上和大小上都很罕見——它獨特的軌道解釋了為什么這么大的一顆小行星躲過了幾十年的仔細搜索。”

The asteroid has an elliptical orbit so it travels way outside of the area in which the planets in our solar system orbit and actually gets closer to the sun than Mercury does.

這顆小行星的軌道是橢圓形的，所以它的運行距離我們太陽系中行星運行的區(qū)域很遠，實際上它比水星離太陽更近。

As Mercury is the closest planet to the sun, the asteroid’s orbit is very impressive.

由于水星是離太陽最近的行星，所以這顆小行星的軌道令人特別關(guān)注。

The researchers think that the asteroid could have been slingshot out of the common plane of orbit when it came to the gravitational disturbances of Venus or Mercury.

研究人員認為，這顆小行星可能是在受到金星或水星引力干擾時，從共同的軌道平面上彈射出來的。

Ye discovered 2019 LF6 using a camera that rapidly scans the night sky and searchers for signals that indicate moving asteroids as well as exploding or flashing stars and he only had a short window to do it in because this type of asteroid is more visible 20 to 30 minutes before sunrise or after sunset.

葉全智發(fā)現(xiàn)2019 LF6是用一臺相機快速掃描夜空，尋找代表移動的小行星、爆炸、閃爍的恒星的信號，他只有一個很短的時間窗口，因為這種類型的小行星在日出前20到30分鐘或日落后才更容易看到。

Finding an asteroid this large is also quite rare.

發(fā)現(xiàn)這么大的小行星也相當(dāng)罕見。

Ye said: “You don’t find kilometer-size asteroids very often these days.”

葉全智表示:“現(xiàn)在，千米大小的小行星都很難發(fā)現(xiàn)了。”