NASA discovers new exoplanet that could support liquid water

美国宇航局发现了一颗可能存在液态水的系外行星

A group of scientists used reanalyzed data from NASA’s Kepler space telescope to discover an Earth-size exoplanet orbiting in its star’s habitable zone.

一组科学家利用美国宇航局开普勒太空望远镜重新分析的数据，发现了一颗地球大小的系外行星，该行星在其恒星的宜居带内绕行。

For the space agency’s purposes, habitable zone means the area around a star where a planet could support liquid water — and, potentially, other forms of life.

对于美国宇航局来说，宜居带是指在一颗恒星周围的区域，在那里一颗行星可能存在液态水，也可能存在其他形式的生命。

This artist’s illustration shows what Kepler-1649c could look like from its surface.

这幅艺术家的插画展示了Kepler-1649c表面的样子。

The planet was found when scientists examined older observations from Kepler, which was retired by the agency in 2018.

这颗行星是在科学家研究开普勒望远镜的旧观测数据时发现的，开普勒望远镜于2018年退役。

“While previous searches with a computer algorithm misidentified it, researchers reviewing Kepler data took a second look at the signature and recognized it as a planet,” the space agency said.

“虽然之前用计算机算法进行的搜索错误地识别了它，但研究人员在审查开普勒数据后，重新审视了这个信号，并将其识别为一颗行星。”航天局说。

According to NASA, this distant world located 300 light-years from Earth is most similar to our home planet in size and estimated temperature.

根据美国宇航局的说法，这个距离地球300光年的遥远星球在大小和估计的温度上与我们的母星最为相似。