外星移民不是梦 超级地球被确认存在

Astronomers believe mysterious signals - previously dismissed as stellar bursts - are coming from an Earth-like planet.

早前被认为是由附近星体出现磁场爆炸造成的光的Gliese 581d近日被天文学家确认存在。

The Gliese 581d planet has conditions that could support life, and is likely to be a rocky world, twice the size of Earth.

Gliese 581d行星有着适合人类居住的环境，可能和地球一样存在岩石，体积是地球的两倍。

Signals from the planet were initially discovered in 2010, but last year dismissed as noise from distant stars.

2010年天文学家第一次发现来自Gliese 581d的信号，但是去年这些信号又被科学家认为是其他遥远星球发出的噪音。

Now, a further study claims that the 2017 research was based on 'inadequate analyses of the data' and that Gliese 581d does exist.

而最新研究表明，2017年的数据分析方法不适当，所以Gliese 581d行星可能确实存在。

Last year, Pennsylvania State University researchers said Gliese 581d - and its companion Gliese 581g - were simply a trick of the light caused by magnetic bursts from a local star 22 light-years away.

去年，美国宾夕法尼亚州州立大学的研究人员曾指出Gliese 581d和581g发出的信号不过是距离地球约22光年的一颗星体出现磁场爆发继而造成的光把戏。

The new British research, however, argues the method used by the Pennsylvania team was only suitable for large planets, and that it could miss small ones like GJ 581d.

但是来自英国的最新研究称，宾州大学研究团队之前使用的研究方法只适合较大行星，所以可能会漏掉如GJ 581d这样的小行星。

The study, by Queen Mary University, London and the University of Hertfordshire, claims to use a more accurate model on the existing data.

英国伦敦大学玛丽皇后学院与赫特福德郡大学联合进行的这项研究称对现有数据使用了更加准确的分析模型。

'The existence (or not) of GJ 581d is significant because it was the first Earth-like planet discovered in the 'Goldilocks'-zone around another star ,' said lead author, Dr Guillem Anglada-Escudé.

该研究的负责人古伊勒姆·安格拉达·埃斯库德博士说：“GJ 581d是否存在意义重大，因为它是在宜居带内发现的第一颗绕其他恒星运转的类地行星。”

'There are always discussions among scientists about the ways we interpret data but I'm confident that GJ 581d has been in orbit around Gliese 581 all along.

“在我们解释数据使用的方法上科学家们一直存在争议，但我相信GJ 581d一直都在绕着Gliese 581的轨道上运行的。”

GJ 581d is believed to be the first planet outside our solar system in the Goldilocks zone around its star – an area not too hot and not too cold for life.

GJ 581d被认为是在太阳系之外宜居带内发现的绕恒星运动的第一颗行星。宜居带不冷不热，适合生命生存。

To find Gliese 581d, University of California, Santa Cruz astronomers originally looked for subtle changes in light caused by the gravity of an orbiting planet tugging back and forth on the star.

为寻找Gliese 581d，加利福尼亚大学的圣克鲁斯天文学家们最初发现了由绕恒星运行的行星来回摆动造成的光变化。

The strength of the tugging, they believed, showed them a planet was about three times as massive as Earth.

他们认为这种摆动的强度表示这颗行星的体积是地球的三倍。

At the time, the discovery of Earth-like planets around Gliese 581 caught the public imagination.

绕Gliese 581运行的类地行星发现之后，激发了公众的想象力。

Documentary-maker RDF and social-networking site Bebo used a radio telescope in Ukraine to send a powerful focused beam of information - 500 messages from the public in the form of radio waves - to Gliese 581.

英国RDF电视传媒和社交网站Bebo使用乌克兰的无线电天文望远镜将以无线电方式收集的500条来自大众的信息发送了给了Gliese 581。

And the Australian science minister at the time organised 20,000 users of Twitter to send messages towards the distant solar system in the wake of the discoveries.

澳大利亚的科学部长还组织2万多名的推特用户给遥远的太阳系发送信息。

Other exoplanets have previously been doubted, most notably Alpha Centauri Bb, the closest Earth-sized world to us, which some scientists claim could just be noise in the data.

之前其他很多外星球的存在都被质疑过，最著名的就是与地球大小相当、离我们最近的Alpha Centauri Bb，一些科学家称它的发现只是源于数据干扰。