2022-01-03 Transit Survey seeks armchair astronomers “凌日搜索计划” 招募志愿者在家中参与太空观测

“行星猎人下一代凌日搜索计划（The Planet Hunters Next-Generation Transit Survey）” 正在招募志愿者在线参与太空观测，安坐家中就能当 “天文学家”。该项目正在向公众寻求帮助，查看五年来拍摄到的天空中最亮恒星的数字影像。

Queen’s University is a key partner in the Next-Generation Transit Search, a collaboration between universities in Europe and South America focused on discovering unknown planets. 

英国贝尔法斯特女王大学是 “下一代凌日搜索计划” 的重要合作伙伴，这是欧洲和南美洲一些大学间的合作项目，致力于发现未知的行星。

The team have collected data on the light levels of thousands of stars. They’re looking for the moment when a star gets just slightly dimmer, which may indicate that a planet has temporarily blocked the light, known as a ‘transit‘.

研究小组已经收集了成千上万颗恒星的光照水平数据。他们正在寻找恒星稍微变暗的时刻，这可能表明有一颗行星暂时挡住了恒星的光，被称作 “凌日现象”。

Computers have helped to find most of the relevant transits, but they can’t be 100% accurate. Scientists are calling on volunteers to help sift through data looking for patterns that might just possibly indicate an undiscovered world.

电脑已经帮助人们找到了大多数相关的凌日现象，但还做不到百分百准确。科学家呼吁志愿者帮助筛选数据，寻找可能预示有未知世界存在的固定模式。

词汇表

collaboration 合作项目
unknown 未知的
dimmer 更暗的
blocked 阻挡了
transit （天文现象）凌
accurate 准确，精确
sift through 筛选
patterns 模式
undiscovered 未被发现的

阅读理解：请在读完上文后，回答下列问题。

1. True or false? Computers have accurately found all the relevant transits.

2. What is the Next-Generation Transit Search focused on?

3. What data have the team collected?

4. What is the moment the team are looking for?

答案 

1. True or false? Computers have accurately found all the relevant transits.
False. Computers have helped to find most of them, but they can’t be 100% accurate.

2. What is the Next-Generation Transit Search focused on?
It is focused on discovering unknown planets.

3. What data have the team collected?
The team have collected data on the light levels of thousands of stars.

4. What is the moment the team are looking for?
They’re looking for the moment when a star gets just slightly dimmer, which may indicate that a planet has temporarily blocked the light, known as a ‘transit’.