I am a planet hunter?and keeper of the keys at NASA's Exoplanet Archive.?In March 2022, we reached a major milestone in space exploration:?5,000 known exoplanets.?For thousands of years,?we've wondered about planets outside of our solar system,?now called exoplanets.?But our technology only recently caught up with our imaginations.?And yes, 5,000 planets is incredible.?What's even more incredible?is how space research will change as a result.

我是?NASA 系外行星檔案館的行星獵人和鑰匙保管員。?2022 年 3 月，我們達(dá)到了太空探索的一個(gè)重要里程碑：?5,000 顆已知系外行星。?幾千年來，?我們一直想知道太陽系外的行星，?現(xiàn)在稱為系外行星。?但我們的技術(shù)最近才趕上了我們的想象力。?是的，5,000 顆行星令人難以置信。?更令人難以置信?的是，太空研究將因此發(fā)生怎樣的變化。

When I started grad school,?there were about 100 known exoplanets,?all radically different from the Earth and from each other.?I was determined to find more.?I spent four years looking at nearly 87,000 stars, one by one.?Now you might have this romantic idea?that I was gazing intently through a telescope,?pondering some gorgeous view of the universe.?I was not.?I was looking at data like this,?measuring the brightness of each star over time.?If the brightness dipped, just briefly, just a little bit,?it could be because a planet had orbited in front of that star,?blocking some of the light from reaching my telescope.

當(dāng)我開始讀研究生時(shí)，?大約有 100 顆已知的系外行星，?它們都與地球截然不同，彼此之間也截然不同。?我決心找到更多。?我花了四年時(shí)間，一顆一顆地觀察了近 87,000 顆星星。?現(xiàn)在你可能會(huì)有這樣一個(gè)浪漫的想法?，那就是我正在通過望遠(yuǎn)鏡專心凝視，?思考宇宙的一些壯麗景色。?我不是。?我正在查看這樣的數(shù)據(jù)，?隨時(shí)間測量每顆恒星的亮度。?如果亮度下降，只是短暫地下降一點(diǎn)點(diǎn)，?那可能是因?yàn)橐活w行星在那顆恒星前面繞行，?阻擋了一些光線到達(dá)我的望遠(yuǎn)鏡。

So I spent four years looking for decimal-level changes in these data.?And after four years, I'd found ...?nothing.?Zero exoplanets.?Thankfully, they still gave me the PhD, I think, for effort.

于是我花了四年時(shí)間尋找這些數(shù)據(jù)的小數(shù)位變化。?四年后，我發(fā)現(xiàn)……?一無所獲。?零系外行星。?值得慶幸的是，我認(rèn)為他們?nèi)匀慌Φ亟o了我博士學(xué)位。

Then I moved to Harvard, where I worked on my first NASA mission, called EPOXI.?I still didn't find any exoplanets.?Then in March 2010, I joined the Kepler Mission,?NASA's grand experiment?with putting one of our planet-hunting instruments into space.?Monday was my first day on the base in Silicon Valley.?It was mostly spent in HR.?Tuesday, I sat down and looked at the data for the first time,?and I found my first exoplanet.

然后我搬到了哈佛，在那里我參與了我的第一個(gè) NASA 任務(wù)，名為 EPOXI。?我仍然沒有發(fā)現(xiàn)任何系外行星。?然后在 2010 年 3 月，我加入了開普勒任務(wù)，這是NASA?將我們的一種行星搜尋儀器送入太空的大型實(shí)驗(yàn)。?星期一是我在硅谷基地的第一天。它主要花在人力資源上。星期二，我第一次坐下來查看數(shù)據(jù)，發(fā)現(xiàn)了我的第一顆系外行星。

A few minutes later, I found another one.?There's a saying that we're the generation that was born too late to explore Earth?and too soon to explore space.?That's not true anymore.?That day and every day since, I've gotten to explore space.?Kepler made it possible for us?to measure stellar brightness much more precisely?than we had before.?And eventually I helped find thousands of exoplanets.?And we've really only searched our local corner of the galaxy?to find those planets.?That means there's likely tens of billions of planets just in our Milky Way.

幾分鐘后，我又找到了一個(gè)。?有句話說，我們這一代人出生得太晚，無法探索地球?，而太早無法探索太空。?這不再是真的了。?那天和之后的每一天，我都開始探索太空。?開普勒使我們?能夠比以前更精確地測量恒星亮度?。?最終我?guī)椭业搅藬?shù)以千計(jì)的系外行星。?我們實(shí)際上只搜索了銀河系的本地角落?來尋找這些行星。?這意味著我們的銀河系中可能有數(shù)百億顆行星。

Now with so much data,?we can start sorting and grouping and categorizing these planets?to find trends.?Think of it this way:?if you wanted to learn about dogs and you had five dogs in your study,?well, you'd learn a lot about those five dogs.?That they're all good dogs.?But maybe not about dogs in general.?If you had 5,000 dogs in your study,?then you’d start to see that there were German Shepherds and Dobermanns?and beagles,?and that these different breeds have different features.?With demographic-level data on exoplanets,?we can start asking some of these big questions for the first time,?like: Of those thousands and billions of planets in our galaxy,?how many are like the Earth, or like Jupiter??How many planets does a typical star have??Can a planet orbit more than one star??Yes.?Can a planet exist without any star at all??Also yes.

現(xiàn)在有了這么多數(shù)據(jù)，?我們可以開始對(duì)這些行星進(jìn)行分類、分組和分類?，以尋找趨勢。?可以這樣想：?如果你想了解狗，而你的研究中有五只狗?，那么，你會(huì)對(duì)這五只狗了解很多。?他們都是好狗。?但也許不是一般的狗。?如果您的研究中有 5,000 只狗，?那么您會(huì)開始發(fā)現(xiàn)有德國牧羊犬、杜賓犬?和比格犬，?并且這些不同的品種具有不同的特征。?借助系外行星的人口統(tǒng)計(jì)數(shù)據(jù)，?我們可以首次開始提出其中一些重大問題，?例如：在我們銀河系中的數(shù)千億顆行星中，?有多少像地球，或像木星？?一顆典型的恒星有多少顆行星？?一顆行星可以繞多顆恒星運(yùn)行嗎？?是的。?一顆行星可以完全沒有任何恒星嗎？?也是的。

One surprising result from the study of planet populations?is that the most common kind of planet in our galaxy?might be one we don’t have in our solar system:?a super-Earth up to twice as big and ten times as heavy as our Earth.?We've found evaporating planets, disintegrating planets,?planets clustered together in a clockwork dance,?ultra-puffy planets, ultra-dense planets.?It's truly a wild and wonderful menagerie?that I get to corral at the NASA Exoplanet Archive.?But it gets even more interesting than that.?With so much data, we might finally be able?to figure out how planets are made.

行星數(shù)量研究的一個(gè)令人驚訝的結(jié)果?是，我們銀河系中最常見的行星類型?可能是我們太陽系中沒有的行星：?一顆比地球大兩倍、重十倍的超級(jí)地球.?我們發(fā)現(xiàn)了正在蒸發(fā)的行星、正在分解的行星、?以發(fā)條舞蹈的方式聚集在一起的?行星、超膨脹的行星、超致密的行星。?我在 NASA Exoplanet Archive收養(yǎng)的這真是一個(gè)狂野而美妙的動(dòng)物園。?但它變得比這更有趣。有了如此多的數(shù)據(jù)，我們也許最終能夠弄清楚行星是如何形成的。

We see baby stars being born in stellar nurseries?surrounded by dust and gas.?And we see all the stars surrounded by completed planetary systems.?But we still don't really know what happens in between.?With more data, we might find planets?at some middle stage or many middle stages.?And from there, be able to map out a timeline of planetary development.?What triggers these diffused clouds of dust and gas to collapse and transform??And how does the chaos and turmoil of dust become pebbles,?and pebbles become boulders, and boulders become planetesimals??And from there,?after an intense series of bombardments?eventually settle into an ordered series of planets.?How often is one of those planets solid and warm,?with a water ocean lapping a sandy shore??Where do we come from, and how did we get here?

我們看到嬰兒恒星在?被塵埃和氣體包圍的恒星托兒所中誕生。?我們看到所有的恒星都被完整的行星系統(tǒng)包圍著。?但我們?nèi)匀徊恢肋@兩者之間會(huì)發(fā)生什么。?有了更多的數(shù)據(jù)，我們可能會(huì)發(fā)現(xiàn)處于某個(gè)中間階段或許多中間階段的行星。?從那里，能夠繪制出行星發(fā)展的時(shí)間表。是什么觸發(fā)了這些擴(kuò)散的塵埃和氣體云坍塌和轉(zhuǎn)變？塵埃的混亂和動(dòng)蕩如何變成鵝卵石，鵝卵石變成巨石，巨石變成星子？從那里開始，經(jīng)過一系列激烈的轟擊，最終形成一系列有序的行星。?這些行星中有多少次是固體和溫暖的，?有海水覆蓋著沙質(zhì)海岸？?我們從哪里來，又是如何到達(dá)這里的？

The more we learn about exoplanets,?the easier it is to target the ones we want.?So far, we haven't found any planets that are like the Earth.?But I hope we will.?NASA just spent the last few years?studying the idea of a very large telescope in space?with next-generation technology that would allow us to take an image,?an actual photograph, of a planet like the Earth.?With that photo, we could search for biomarkers, signatures of life.?I'll probably spend the rest of my career working on that mission.?I hope I get to take that photo.

我們對(duì)系外行星了解得越多，就越?容易找到我們想要的目標(biāo)。?到目前為止，我們還沒有發(fā)現(xiàn)任何像地球一樣的行星。?但我希望我們會(huì)。?美國國家航空航天局在過去幾年里剛剛研究了在太空?中使用下一代技術(shù)建立超大型望遠(yuǎn)鏡的想法，該望遠(yuǎn)鏡將使我們能夠拍攝?像地球這樣的行星的圖像，即真實(shí)照片。有了那張照片，我們就可以搜索生物標(biāo)志物，生命的特征。我可能會(huì)用余下的職業(yè)生涯來完成這項(xiàng)任務(wù)。我希望我能拍下那張照片。