Phát hiện 6 hành tinh mới

Các nhà khoa học Mỹ nghiên cứu dữ liệu từ kính viễn vọng không gian Kepler đã xác định sáu hành tinh lớn quay quanh một ngôi sao giống mặt trời các trái đất 2.000 năm ánh sáng. Hệ mặt trời mới đang thu hút các nhà khoa học NASA.

Finding six new planets around a single star represents an impressive haul. Nasa is calling it the best find since the first so-called 'exoplanet' was discovered 16 years ago. It might not be the most populated solar system yet found - six or possibly seven planets have been found in a rival system, but it's the nature of this new discovery which is getting the astronomers scratching their heads in wonder.

Five of the six planets are crammed tightly in around the Kepler-11 star, with orbits of between just ten and 47 days. That means they're all super hot, but the data suggests they're also made mostly of gas.

That's strange, because small hot planets this close in should have been ripped asunder by their parent star in their formative years, say the scientists. One possible explanation is that the planets started out bigger and further out and were slowly dragged into tighter orbits, as part of a contracting belt of dust and asteroids.

Từ vựng

impressive
hugely admirable

haul
large group of items which have been gathered or collected at the same time

so-called
commonly named

exoplanet
a planet which is outside the Earth's solar system (the series of planets which goes around our Sun)

scratching their heads
intrigued or puzzled by something

crammed
here, forced together into a small space

ripped asunder
separated violently into two or more parts (used in very dramatic circumstances) 

formative years
 
here, a period in a planet's existence during which it is still being shaped into its final form

dragged
pulled violently

contracting
shrinking or pulling inwards