在美國宇航局實習(xí)的斯卡斯代爾少年，發(fā)現(xiàn)新行星

在美國宇航局實習(xí)的斯卡斯代爾少年，發(fā)現(xiàn)新行星

A teenage whiz kid from the New York suburbs needed just three days at a NASA internship to pull off something out of this world — discover a brand new planet.

一個來自紐約郊區(qū)的十幾歲的神童,在NASA實習(xí)三天就完成了一件事——發(fā)現(xiàn)了一個全新的星球。

Wolf Cukier, a 17-year-old senior at Scarsdale High School, was doing a summer internship at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland over the summer when he made the cosmic discovery using the space agency’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite, or TESS, NASA said.

據(jù)美國宇航局介紹，17歲的沃爾夫·庫基爾是斯卡斯代爾高中的一名大四學(xué)生。今年夏天，他在馬里蘭州NASA戈達(dá)德太空飛行中心實習(xí)時，利用NASA的凌日系外行星勘測衛(wèi)星(簡稱TESS)發(fā)現(xiàn)了這一宇宙現(xiàn)象。

“There’s a whole bunch of things that also looked like planets when I was searching,” Cukier told The Post Wednesday. “It took some time to actually verify that this was a bonafide planet and not the telescope shaking or something.”

周三，庫基爾告訴《華盛頓郵報》:“當(dāng)我搜索的時候，有很多東西看起來也像行星。”“我們花了一些時間來證實這是一顆真正的行星，而不是望遠(yuǎn)鏡震動之類的。”

“When I first found it, it was among 100 other things I flagged to start,” he said. “I do think I put like 10 asterisks next to it. I thought it looked pretty good compared to the rest of the things I saw.”

他說:“當(dāng)我第一次發(fā)現(xiàn)它的時候，它是我想要開始做的100件事情之一。”“我覺得我在它旁邊加了10個星號。我覺得和我看到的其他東西相比，它看起來很不錯。”

Cukier’s find is TESS’ first circumbinary planet — a celestial object that orbits two stars. The discovery was announced at the 235th American Astronomical Society meeting in Honolulu Monday.

庫基爾的發(fā)現(xiàn)是TESS發(fā)現(xiàn)的第一顆繞雙星運(yùn)行的天體。這一發(fā)現(xiàn)于周一在檀香山舉行的第235屆美國天文學(xué)會會議上宣布。

He said he landed the internship after he “sent a bunch of emails to random researchers at different institutions.”

他說，他是在“給不同機(jī)構(gòu)的隨機(jī)研究員發(fā)了一堆電子郵件”之后得到這份實習(xí)工作的。

“One of them said ‘I can’t take you but I can refer you to someone who might be able to take you,” he said. Enter NASA.

“其中一人說，‘我不能帶你去，但我可以把你介紹給可能帶你去的人，’”他說。就這樣，他進(jìn)入了美國宇航局。

However, the Princeton-bound teen doesn’t get to name his discovery.

然而，這個前往普林斯頓的少年并沒有給他的發(fā)現(xiàn)命名。

“New planets discovered by TESS get a TOI number if they don’t have another significant name already,” he said.

他說:“TESS發(fā)現(xiàn)的新行星如果沒有另外一個重要的名字，就會得到《印度時報》的編號。”

Nor does he know what he would name it — although his brother insists “’Wolftopia’” would be pretty cool.”

他也不知道自己會給它起什么名字——盡管他的哥哥堅持認(rèn)為“狼國”會很酷。

Cukier found his planet in a binary star system called TOI 1338, which lies inside a constellation about 1,300 light-years from Earth.

庫基爾發(fā)現(xiàn)的這顆行星是一個名為TOI 1338的雙星系統(tǒng)，它位于距離地球1300光年的一個星座內(nèi)。

Now called TOI 1338 b, it is the only known planet within the system — and the first planet discovered by TESS.

它現(xiàn)在被稱為TOI 1338b，是太陽系中唯一已知的行星——也是TESS發(fā)現(xiàn)的第一顆行星。