天文學(xué)家首次發(fā)現(xiàn)太陽系外也有'月球'的證據(jù)

Astronomers have announced the possible discovery of the first known moon outside our Solar System.

天文學(xué)家日前宣布，他們可能在我們的太陽系外發(fā)現(xiàn)了第一顆已知的月球。

This "exomoon" is not like any in our cosmic neighbourhood: it's the size of Neptune and orbits a planet the size of Jupiter -- but with 10 times the mass.

這顆“系外月球”與我們宇宙里的任何東西都不同：它的體型有海王星那么大，繞著一顆木星大小的行星旋轉(zhuǎn)--但這顆行星的質(zhì)量是木星的10倍。

The object was spotted in data from Nasa's Kepler spacecraft, and later observed using the Hubble telescope.

在該星體納入美國宇航局開普勒探測器的數(shù)據(jù)后，天文學(xué)家使用哈勃望遠鏡進行了觀測。

Astronomers David Kipping and Alex Teachey have published their results in Science Advances journal.

天文學(xué)家戴維·基平和阿萊克斯·提徹已將他們的成果發(fā)表在《科學(xué)進展》雜志上。

But they say that further observations are needed to understand the distant planetary system.

但是他們表示，需要進一步的觀察才能理解這個遙遠的行星系。

"We've tried our best to rule out other possibilities such as spacecraft anomalies, other planets in the system or stellar activity, but we're unable to find any other single hypothesis which can explain all of the data we have," said Dr Kipping, from Columbia University in New York.

來自紐約哥倫比亞大學(xué)的基平博士稱：“對所觀測到的現(xiàn)象，我們已盡力排除其他可能性，如探測器異常、太陽系中的其他行星或恒星活動，但我們無法找到任何其他單一假設(shè)來解釋我們的數(shù)據(jù)。”

To date, astronomers have discovered more than 3,500 exoplanets -- worlds orbiting stars other than the Sun.

迄今為止，天文學(xué)家已發(fā)現(xiàn)超過3500顆系外行星--即環(huán)繞除太陽以外運行的星體。

A hunt for exomoons -- bodies that orbit these distant planets -- has proceeded in parallel. But so far, these natural satellites have lingered at the limits of detection with current techniques.

天文學(xué)家也在同時尋找“系外月球”--即圍繞遙遠行星的星體。但到目前為止，這些天然星體很難被現(xiàn)有技術(shù)的探測到。

The researchers monitored a planet known as Kepler 1625b as it passed in front of its parent star.

研究人員是在這顆被命名為開普勒1625b的星體環(huán)繞其母星運行的時候，對其進行的監(jiān)測。