關於 astronomical journal ，我們在網路上蒐集到這些相關的討論、資訊與評價

美國兩名年僅16歲和18歲的高中生，發現了屬於同一顆主星的四顆系外行星，登上了《天文期刊》。💪

【NASA發現了與地球相似的新行星
NASA Says Data Reveals Kepler 452b, an Earth-Like Planet】

(New York Times, Jul. 24, 2015) —by Dennis Overbye

Inching ahead on their quest for what they call Earth 2.0, astronomers from NASA’s Kepler planet-hunting spacecraft announced on Thursday that they had found what might be one of the closest analogues to our own world yet.
美國太空總署(NASA)克卜勒行星探測太空船專案的天文學家們在尋找「地球2.0」的工作中取得了些許進展。本週四，他們宣佈發現了一顆或許與地球極為接近的行星。

It is a planet a little more than one and a half times as big in radius as Earth. Known as Kepler 452b, it circles a sunlike star in an orbit that takes 385 days, just slightly longer than our own year, putting it firmly in the “Goldilocks” habitable zone where the temperatures are lukewarm and suitable for liquid water on the surface — if it has a surface.
該行星名為「克卜勒452b」(Kepler 452b)，其半徑較地球的一倍半略大。它環繞著一顆類似於太陽的恆星運動，週期為385天，只比地球上的一年略長一點，因此確定地處在「宜居帶」，溫度不冷不熱，表面適合液態水存在—如果它有表面的話。

The new planet’s size puts it right on the edge between being rocky like Earth and being a fluffy gas ball like Neptune, according to studies of other such exoplanets. In an email, Jon Jenkins of NASA’s Ames Research Center, home of the Kepler project, and lead author of a paper being published in The Astronomical Journal, said the likelihood of the planet’s being rocky was 50 percent to 62 percent, depending on uncertainties in the size of its home star. That would mean its mass is about five times that of Earth.
根據對其他此類系外行星的研究推斷，以這顆新行星的大小而論，它正好介於地球這樣的岩石星球和海王星那樣的氣體星球之間。Jon Jenkins來自負責克卜勒項目的NASA艾姆斯研究中心(NASA Ames Research Center)，也是《天體物理學報》(The Astronomical Journal)上即將刊發的一篇相關論文的第一作者。他在電子郵件中表示，該行星屬於岩石構造的可能性為50%至62%，具體取決於其主星大小的不確定性。這將意味著，它的質量大約是地球的五倍。

Such a planet would probably have a thick, cloudy atmosphere and active volcanoes, Dr. Jenkins said, and twice the gravity of Earth. Describing the planet during a news conference, Dr. Jenkins lapsed into lines from John Keats’s poem “On First Looking Into Chapman’s Homer”: “Then felt I like some watcher of the skies / When a new planet swims into his ken.”
Jenkins博士表示，這樣的一顆行星很可能擁有較厚的渾濁大氣層及活火山，引力是地球的兩倍。在新聞發佈會上描述這顆行星時，他引用了約翰•濟慈(John Keats)在《初讀查普曼譯荷馬有感》(On First Looking Into Chapman’s Homer)中的詩句「於是我有如夜觀星象，忽見有新星游入眼底。」

The star that lights this planet’s sky is about 1.5 billion years older than our sun and 20 percent more luminous, which has implications for the prospects of life, Dr. Jenkins said.
為這顆行星提供光照的恆星比太陽古老約15億年，亮度則高出20%。Jenkins博士表示，這或許表示該行星存在孕育生命的可能性。

“We can think of Kepler-452b as an older, bigger cousin to Earth, providing an opportunity to understand and reflect upon Earth’s evolving environment,” he said. “It’s awe-inspiring to consider that this planet has spent six billion years in the habitable zone of its star, longer than Earth. That’s substantial opportunity for life to arise, should all the necessary ingredients and conditions for life exist on this planet.”
「我們可以把克卜勒452b想成是地球的一個表親，但它年齡比較大，塊頭也更大。它提供了一個機會，讓我們理解和思考地球上不斷演化的環境」，他說。「這顆行星在它的恆星的宜居區域內已經活動了60億年，比地球更長，令人驚歎。如果它具備生命出現的各種必要成分和條件，那麼它孕育生命的機會就相當可觀。」

Asked if any radio telescopes had pointed at the planet to try to detect exterrestrial radio broadcasts, Dr. Jenkins said, “I hope so.”
當被問及是否已經有電波望遠鏡指向這顆行星，以檢測外星生命無線電波時，Jenkins博士回道：「我希望已有此行動了。」

To determine whether Kepler 452b deserves a place on the honor roll of possible home worlds, however, astronomers have to measure its mass directly, which requires being close enough to observe the wobbling of its star as it is tugged around by the planet’s gravity. For now that is impossible, as Kepler 452 is 1,400 light-years away.
不過，為了判斷克卜勒452b是否應該在具備居住潛力星球的榮譽榜上佔有一席之地，天文學家們必須直接測量它的質量，而這就需要近距離觀測它圍繞的恆星在被其引力拖拽時的擺動狀態。目前來說，這是不可能實現的，只因克卜勒452b距離地球1400光年。

The planet is the first to be confirmed in a new list of candidates unveiled by Kepler astronomers on Thursday. It brings the number of possible planets discovered by Kepler to 4,696, many of them small like Earth. “We are the bread crumbs of the universe,” said Jeff Coughlin, of the SETI Institute in Mountain View, Calif., who compiled the catalog.
克卜勒專案的天文學家們週四公佈了一份新的候選名單，而452b是其中第一個有待確認的。克卜勒發現的潛在行星的數量至此增加至4696個，其中很多跟地球大小相近。加州山景城外星文明探測計畫研究所(SETI Institute)的Jeff Coughlin提到了，「我們(及其他星球)都是宇宙的小小麵包屑。」而他就是編成了這份包含眾多行星的目錄作者。

The spacecraft, launched in 2009, spent four years staring at a patch of the Milky Way on the border between the constellations Cygnus and Lyra, looking for the dips in starlight caused by the passage of planets. Its pointing system failed in 2013, but astronomers are still analyzing the data Kepler collected. Every time they sift through it, new planets pop out.
於2009年發射的克卜勒太空船在四年的時間裡觀測銀河系天鵝座與天琴座的交界處，以發現行星通過導致的恆星亮度的減弱。克卜勒的指向系統在2013年失靈，但天文學家們仍在分析它此前搜集到的資料。每次整理資料時，他們都會發現新的行星。

In the meantime, Kepler has switched to a different mode of observing in a mission called K2.
與此同時，克卜勒已切換到另一個觀測模式，並執行名為K2的任務。

The NASA news conference coincided with a major anniversary: It was only 20 years ago this fall that Michel Mayor and Didier Queloz, of the University of Geneva, discovered a planet circling the star 51 Pegasi, about 50 light-years from here. It was the first planet known to belong to a sunlike star outside our solar system, and its discovery ignited an astronomical revolution.
NASA舉行此次新聞發佈會的時間恰好也是一個重要的周年紀念：在20年前的秋季，日內瓦大學(University of Geneva)的Michel Mayor和Didier Queloz發現了一顆圍繞著距離地球50光年的恆星飛馬座51(51 Pegasi)旋轉的行星。這是人類發現的第一顆屬於類似太陽的恆星的太陽系外行星。這一發現引發了一場天文學革命。

Dr. Queloz, who is now at the University of Cambridge in England, told the news conference, “This is a great time we live in.”
目前在英國劍橋大學(University of Cambridge)任職的Queloz博士在本次新聞發佈會上表示，「我們生活在一個偉大的時代。」

“If we keep working so well and so enthusiastically,” he went on, it is not too optimistic to think that in the future, “the issue of life on another planet will be solved.”
「如果我們保持這種出色而熱情的工作，」他補充道，並認為將來「(人類)會解決在另一顆行星發現生命的問題」並非一個過於樂觀的想法。

Astronomers say they now know from Kepler that about 10 percent of the 200 billion stars in the Milky Way have potentially habitable Earth-size planets, Kepler 452b probably among them. This means that of the 600 stars within 30 light-years of Earth, there are roughly 60 E.T.-class abodes, planets that could be inspected by a future generation of telescopes.
天文學家們表示，通過克卜勒望遠鏡，他們現在知道在銀河系2000億顆恆星中，大約有10%可能擁有與地球大小相近的具備居住潛力行星，而克卜勒452b很可能就是其中之一。這意味著，在距離地球不超過30光年的600顆恆星中，大約有60顆地球級別的宜居行星，而這些行星或許可以透過將來新一代的望遠鏡觀測到。

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