天文學家發現跟地球一樣大的系外行星

【新唐人亞太台 2015 年 12 月 17 日訊】一群美國痲省理工學院的科學家們發現了一顆類似金星的行星，這將提供我們一個研究銀河系行星的大好機會。 

【0:00】GJ1132B繞恆星運轉 
【0:36】天文學家 ZACH BERTA-THOMPSON
【1:08】系外行星 
【1:25】天文學家 ZACH BERTA-THOMPSON
【2:00】天文望遠鏡 
【2:15】天文學家 ZACH BERTA-THOMPSON
【2:54】GJ1132B 

這個研究團隊的一名天文學家表示，設置在智利某座山頂的天文望遠鏡正在測量它的亮度。 

根據了解，這顆太陽系外的行星並非繞著太陽走，它的大小和地球差不多，在被發現的行星中是最接近太陽系的一顆；它的氣候和金星相仿，地表溫度超過攝氏260度，所以也不適合人類生存和水的存在，但是大氣並未完全蒸發。 

這位專家表示，這顆行星還有一項特點是它的軌道非常靠近它所環繞的那顆非常小的恆星，因此首次提供我們一個絕佳的機會來進一步研究相關的細節。 

目前研究團隊只採集到一些這顆行星的基本資料，包括面積、密度和軌道周期，其他都還付之闕如。 

這位專家還說：這顆編號GJ1132b的行星距離地球39 光年遠，給了科學家們一個大好機會來發現太陽系外是否還有適合人類居住的星球。 

他表示：浩瀚宇宙的星球就像圖書館一樣裏面擺滿了很多很多的書，但是大多數的書可能放在較遠的地方，我們一輩子都不可能打開它或去看它。由於我們正好發現這顆行星，讓我們得以一探究竟，就好像我們從書架上把這本書取下來，打開書開始細讀這個世界。 

新唐人亞太電視 綜合報導 

ZACH BERTA-THOMPSON： 
"The special thing about this planet is that it orbits a very nearby, very small star. Both of those things are very important. The fact that the planet is nearby means that it is much easier for us to study. We detect much more light from its star, so we can learn more about the planet. And the fact that star is small is also important, because the planet blocks a relatively larger fraction of its starlight. So taken together, what that means is that this planet is really our first opportunity to study the detailed properties of a rocky exoplanet outside of our solar system." 

ZACH BERTA-THOMPSON： 
"So we're doing a few things to try to study this planetary system already. One of those is that we're looking at the star as it is right now to see if there are any more planets orbiting around it. One of the things we've learned is that if the star has one planet around it, it probably has more planets around it as well. So we're trying to see if there are any other planets around this star. The next thing that we're trying to do is to try to make first steps to studying this planet's atmosphere. There are some hypotheses we can test about what this planet might be made of that we can start to probe with the Hubble Space Telescope." 

ZACH BERTA-THOMPSON： 
"We've known for a few years now that planets are extremely common on our galaxy. There are billions of planets in the Milky Way Galaxy alone. And the way I think about it is that those planets are like a library full of billions of books, but most of those books are so far away I'll never get to them. I'll never be able to open them up and read them. The planet that we just discovered, Planet GJ1132b, is a planet close enough, and orbiting a small enough star that we can actually study it in detail. We can actually take that book off the shelf, and open it up, and start to read the detailed story of this world, even though it's around a star that's outside of our solar system."