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Exoplanet Strikes Carbon Pay Dirt
存在鉆石星球？

Imagine climbing diamond mountains, or hiking around the graphite shores of a lake of tar. Sound a little sci-fi? Well a new discovery suggests planets like that might be out there—planets littered with carbon minerals, instead of the oxygen-rich silicates, like quartz, that cover the Earth. Because astronomers have found the first carbon-rich exoplanet, with more carbon than oxygen in its atmosphere—instead of the 1 to 2 carbon to oxygen ratio found in our solar system.
想像著去攀登鉆石山脈， 或者去焦油湖的石墨岸邊遠足，聽起來有點科幻小說的味道。不過一項新發(fā)現(xiàn)表明那樣的星球有可能是存在的，行星上富氧硅酸鹽，比如遍布地球的石英被遍地散落 的碳礦物取代。原因就在于天文學家發(fā)現(xiàn)了首顆富碳地外行星，它的大氣中碳含量多過氧含量，而不是我們太陽系里所發(fā)現(xiàn)的碳氧比1:2的系數(shù)。

The exoplanet, called WASP 12 b, is a gas giant, like Jupiter. By taking the spectrum of heat radiating from the planet, the researchers found that the planet's atmosphere was loaded with carbon, in the form of carbon monoxide and methane. The study appears in the journal Nature. [Nikku Madhusudhan et al., "A high C/O ratio and weak thermal inversion in the atmosphere of exoplanet WASP-12b"]
這顆被稱為WASP 12 b的地外行星是一個巨大的氣體行星，就像木星那樣。研究人員從它的熱輻射光譜中發(fā)現(xiàn)它的大氣層中存在著以一氧化碳和甲烷形式存在的碳元素。這項研究發(fā)表在《自然》雜志上。

The finding suggests one commonly accepted model of planetary formation, where icy chunks glom into a core, wouldn't work here. Instead the core may have formed from carbon-rich fragments, like tar. But more than that, this unusual planet is more proof of the diversity of the universe—and it makes those dreams of diamond planets a tiny bit more plausible.
這項發(fā)現(xiàn)表明行星形成的一個普適模型并不適用于其核心有冰凍塊存在的行星。相反，該核心可能由富碳物質(zhì)比如說焦油中形成。但更重要的是，這顆不尋常的星球就是宇宙多樣化的更好證據(jù)，鉆石星球的說法也變得更加的靠譜。

—Christopher Intagliata

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