在距地球330光年的地方發(fā)現(xiàn)“小巨人行星”

在距地球330光年的地方發(fā)現(xiàn)“小巨人行星”

It might not be the same as finding Baby Yoda or “Baby Shark,” but scientists have discovered a “baby giant planet” just 330 light-years from Earth.

這可能與發(fā)現(xiàn)幼約達或“幼鯊”不同，但科學家們已經(jīng)發(fā)現(xiàn)了一顆距離地球330光年的“幼巨行星”。

Known as 2MASS 1155-7919 b, the exoplanet has a mass just 10 times the size of Jupiter, the largest planet in the Solar System. It orbits a star that is 5 million years old at 600 times the distance the Earth orbits the Sun, researchers said in a study published in the journal Research Notes of the American Astronomical Society.

這顆被稱為2MASS 1155-7919 b的系外行星的質(zhì)量，是太陽系中最大的行星木星的10倍。研究人員發(fā)表在《美國天文學會研究筆記》(Research Notes of the American Astronomical Society)雜志上的一項研究稱，它圍繞著一顆500萬年前的恒星運轉(zhuǎn)，其軌道距離是地球圍繞太陽運行距離的600倍。

“The dim, cool object we found is very young and only 10 times the mass of Jupiter, which means we are likely looking at an infant planet, perhaps still in the midst of formation,” said the study’s lead author, Annie Dickson-Vandervelde, in a statement.

該研究的主要作者安妮·迪克森-萬德維爾德在一份聲明中說:“我們發(fā)現(xiàn)的這顆昏暗、涼爽的天體非常年輕，只有木星的10倍大，這意味著我們可能看到的是一顆尚在形成中的年輕行星。”

Dickson-Vandervelde continued: “Though lots of other planets have been discovered through the Kepler mission and other missions like it, almost all of those are ‘old’ planets. This is also only the fourth or fifth example of a giant planet so far from its ‘parent’ star, and theorists are struggling to explain how they formed or ended up there.”

Dickson-Vandervelde繼續(xù)說:“雖然通過開普勒任務(wù)和其他類似的任務(wù)發(fā)現(xiàn)了許多其他行星，但幾乎所有這些都是‘古老的’行星。這也是迄今為止發(fā)現(xiàn)的第四顆或第五顆遠離其母星的巨型行星，理論學家們正在努力解釋它們是如何形成或最終形成的。”

2MASS 1155-7919 b is also “closer to Earth than any other of similarly young age found to date,” the researchers added in the statement. A light-year, which measures distance in space, equals about 6 trillion miles.

研究人員在聲明中補充說，質(zhì)量為1155-7919 b的行星也“比迄今發(fā)現(xiàn)的任何其它年輕的類似行星更接近地球”。一光年是測量空間距離的單位，相當于6萬億英里。

Additional research is needed to learn how planets such as 2MASS 1155-7919 b have such expansive orbits around their stars, the astronomers added.

天文學家補充說，還需要進一步的研究，來了解像2MASS 1155-7919 b這樣的行星，是如何圍繞它們的恒星有如此廣闊的軌道的。