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It's just a newborn in planetary terms, and it's drifting all alone in space without a star to orbit. |
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The solitary life of this newly discovered planet, with the catchy name PSO J318.5-22, has astronomers excited. |
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就行星的標準而言，這只是一顆新星，而且孤零零地飄浮在太空裡，沒有恆星可以繞行。這顆新發現的行星有個一點都不繞口的名字，叫做 PSO J318.5-22，其孤獨存在的狀態讓天文學家深感興奮。 |
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Only 80 light-years from Earth, the 12-million-year-old planet has properties similar to those of gas-giant planets orbiting young stars. |
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But because it is floating alone through space rather than around a host star, astronomers can study it much more easily. |
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這顆年齡有一千兩百萬年的行星，距離地球只有八十光年，和那些繞行年輕恆星的氣體巨行星具有類似的性質。不過，由於這顆行星是單獨飄浮於太空中，而不是環繞著主恆星運行，因此天文學家研究起來比較容易。 |
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"We have never before seen an object free-floating in space that looks like this," said Dr. Michael Liu of the Institute for Astronomy at the University of Hawaii at Manoa, who led the international team that discovered the planet. |
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「我們以前從來沒見過像這種的物體單獨飄浮在太空中，」夏威夷大學馬諾阿分校天文研究所的麥可．劉博士表示，他領導發現了這顆行星的跨國團隊。 |
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"It has all the characteristics of young planets found around other stars, but it is drifting out there all alone. |
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I had often wondered if such a solitary object exists, and now we know they do." |
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「繞行其他恆星的年輕行星所具備的特質，這顆行星都有，但它卻是獨自一個飄浮著。我以前經常納悶這種孤立的物體是不是存在，現在我們知道這種東西確實存在。」 |
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While about a thousand planets have been discovered outside our solar system in the past decade by indirect means -- such as observing the wobbling or dimming of their host stars as they orbit -- only a handful of new planets have been directly imaged, all of them around young stars, according to a release from the Institute for Astronomy. |
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過去十年來，人類雖以間接方式在我們的太陽系之外發現了一千顆左右的行星──方法包括觀察那些行星繞行的主恆星是否出現影像晃動或變暗的情形──卻只有少數幾顆新行星被直接拍到影像，而且這些行星全都環繞著年輕的恆星運行，天文研究所發布的一份新聞稿指出。 |
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Young stars are those less than 200 million years old. |
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所謂的年輕恆星，是指年齡不到兩億年的恆星。 |
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PSO J318.5-22's solitary existence and its similarity to those directly observed planets makes it a rare find. |
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The planet, which has six times the mass of Jupiter, was identified by its faint and unique heat signature. |
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PSO J318.5-22 因為單獨存在，又與那些受到直接觀察的行星頗為相似，因此是一項非常難得的發現。這顆行星的質量是木星的六倍，因其微弱而獨特的熱訊號而被辨識出來。 |
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The astronomers were actually searching for failed stars known as brown dwarfs when they came across PSO J318.5-22, which stood out because of its red color. |
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Subsequent infrared observations using other telescopes in Hawaii showed it was no brown dwarf, but rather a young, low-mass planet. |
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天文學家原本是在尋找失敗恆星，即棕矮星，卻無意間發現了 PSO J318.5-22。這顆行星因為呈紅色而顯得特別醒目。後來利用夏威夷其他的望遠鏡進行紅外線觀測，才發現這顆天體不是棕矮星，而是一顆年輕、低質量的行星。 |
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