在美國(guó)宇航局實(shí)習(xí)的青少年發(fā)現(xiàn)新行星

在美國(guó)宇航局實(shí)習(xí)的青少年發(fā)現(xiàn)新行星

School advisors always tell students to make the most of summer internships. New York teen Wolf Cukier sure proves that point.

學(xué)校顧問(wèn)總是告訴學(xué)生要充分利用暑假實(shí)習(xí)。紐約青少年沃爾夫·庫(kù)基爾肯定證明了這一點(diǎn)。

The 17-year-old joined NASA's internship program at Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, after his junior year at Scarsdale High School.

這名17歲的少年在斯卡斯代爾高中三年級(jí)結(jié)束后，參加了NASA在馬里蘭州格林貝爾特的戈達(dá)德太空飛行中心的實(shí)習(xí)項(xiàng)目。

Cukier received an assignment to examine variations in star brightness captured by NASA's Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS).

庫(kù)基爾接受了一項(xiàng)任務(wù)，研究NASA凌日系外行星勘測(cè)衛(wèi)星(TESS)捕捉到的恒星亮度變化。

On his third day of work, Cukier noticed a strange signal coming from a system called TOI 1338. As the intern kept digging deeper into the data, he had a hunch that what he'd found was actually a new planet.

在他工作的第三天，庫(kù)基爾注意到一個(gè)奇怪的信號(hào)來(lái)自一個(gè)叫做TOI 1338的系統(tǒng)。隨著這位實(shí)習(xí)生不斷深入挖掘數(shù)據(jù)，他有一種預(yù)感，他發(fā)現(xiàn)的其實(shí)是一顆新行星。

In this illustration, TOI 1338 b is silhouetted by its host stars. (Photo: Chris Smith/NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center)

"I was looking through the data for everything the volunteers had flagged as an eclipsing binary, a system where two stars circle around each other and from our view eclipse each other every orbit," Cukier said in a NASA news release. "About three days into my internship, I saw a signal from a system called TOI 1338. At first I thought it was a stellar eclipse, but the timing was wrong. It turned out to be a planet."

庫(kù)基爾在NASA的新聞發(fā)布會(huì)上說(shuō):“我仔細(xì)查看了志愿者們標(biāo)記為食雙星的所有數(shù)據(jù)，在這個(gè)雙星系統(tǒng)中，兩顆恒星圍繞彼此旋轉(zhuǎn)，在我們的視野中，每繞一圈，就會(huì)使對(duì)方黯然失色。”“在我實(shí)習(xí)的第三天，我看到了一個(gè)叫做TOI 1338的系統(tǒng)發(fā)出的信號(hào)。起初我以為這是一次恒星日食，但時(shí)機(jī)不對(duì)。原來(lái)是一顆行星。”

NASA named the planet TOI 1338 b. It's the first circumbinary discovery by TESS, meaning it's a world orbiting two stars.

美國(guó)國(guó)家航空航天局將這顆行星命名為TOI 1338 b。這是苔絲第一次發(fā)現(xiàn)環(huán)繞雙星的行星，意味著這是一個(gè)圍繞兩顆恒星運(yùn)行的世界。

It's 6.9 times the size of Earth and orbits at almost the same plane as its stars. This means it regularly experiences stellar eclipses.

它的大小是地球的6.9倍，軌道幾乎與它的恒星處于同一平面。這意味著它經(jīng)常經(jīng)歷恒星日食。

Cukier co-authored a paper with scientists from Goddard, San Diego State University, the University of Chicago and other institutions about the discovery. They recently submitted their work to a scientific journal for publishing.

庫(kù)基爾與來(lái)自戈達(dá)德、圣地亞哥州立大學(xué)、芝加哥大學(xué)和其他機(jī)構(gòu)的科學(xué)家共同撰寫了一篇關(guān)于這一發(fā)現(xiàn)的論文。他們最近把他們的研究成果提交給了一家科學(xué)雜志發(fā)表。

"There are PhD candidates who would die to have the type of opportunities that Wolf has lucked into in this internship. It was an amazing, cool bit of serendipity," Wolf's mom, Beth Cukier, told CBS.

“有些博士生為了能得到沃爾夫在實(shí)習(xí)中幸運(yùn)獲得的機(jī)會(huì)，寧愿犧牲性命。沃爾夫的媽媽貝絲·庫(kù)基爾告訴哥倫比亞廣播公司。

The TOI 1338 system is 1,300 light-years away from Earth in the constellation Pictor. The two stars orbit each other every 15 days. TOI 1338 b is the only known planet in the system.

TOI 1338星系距離地球1300光年。這兩顆恒星每15天繞對(duì)方運(yùn)行一周。TOI 1338b是太陽(yáng)系中唯一已知的行星。

Planets orbiting two stars are hard for TESS to detect because of their irregular passes in front of their stars. Cukier had to visually examine each of these passes to reach his conclusion.

圍繞兩顆恒星運(yùn)行的行星很難被苔絲探測(cè)到，因?yàn)樗鼈冊(cè)谒鼈兊暮阈乔懊嬗胁灰?guī)則的通道。庫(kù)基爾必須對(duì)每一張通行證進(jìn)行視覺檢查，才能得出結(jié)論。

"These are the types of signals that algorithms really struggle with," said lead author Veselin Kostov, a research scientist at the SETI Institute and Goddard. "The human eye is extremely good at finding patterns in data, especially non-periodic patterns like those we see in transits from these systems."

“這些是算法真正難以處理的信號(hào)類型，”主要作者、SETI研究所和戈達(dá)德的研究科學(xué)家維瑟林·科斯托夫說(shuō)。“人類的眼睛非常善于在數(shù)據(jù)中發(fā)現(xiàn)模式，尤其是像我們從這些系統(tǒng)中看到的那些非周期性模式。”

TESS is expected to observe hundreds of thousands of eclipsing binaries during its initial two-year mission, meaning many more of these circumbinary planets could be discovered in the near future.

在最初的兩年任務(wù)中，苔絲預(yù)計(jì)將觀測(cè)到數(shù)十萬(wàn)個(gè)日食雙星，這意味著在不久的將來(lái)可能會(huì)發(fā)現(xiàn)更多這樣的雙星。

As for Cukier, he plans to use this experience as a way to jumpstart his career. He plans to study physics or astrophysics at college — an education that could serve him well at a place like NASA.

至于庫(kù)基爾，他計(jì)劃利用這次經(jīng)歷來(lái)啟動(dòng)他的職業(yè)生涯。他計(jì)劃在大學(xué)里學(xué)習(xí)物理學(xué)或天體物理學(xué)——在NASA這樣的地方，這種教育對(duì)他很有幫助。