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"Well, the way we look for planets is actually very easy. We can't see the planets orbiting other stars because the glare of the star is just simply too great. It wipes out the planets' light. But what we can do is look for the response of the star due to the gravitational pull by the orbiting planet. And so we watch to see if the stars wobble in space, and if they do wobble, we can infer the presence of the planet. "
The work involved in discovering new planets is a real grind.
"I wanted to give up several times. In fact, I've thought carefully about suicide even occasionally when things were so dismal, but the success now makes up for all of it."
"This is one that we previously discovered. It's the Star 47 Ursa Majoris, and these data show the wobble of the star just within the last year, and this last point, we just got last night. And you can see it fits right in line with all the other points. So this is a confirmed planet around 47 Ursa Majoris."
"And it's a good thing it is confirmed. Because we've already announced it, we would have to kill ourselves." "Yes. "
Without their unique working relationship, Marcy and Butler doubt whether they would have achieved their current success.
(Oh, that is beautiful.)
"Well, my working relationship with Paul Butler is really quite special. He brings attributes to this project that I certainly couldn't have brought, and vice versa, I believe. And we have a sort of symbiosis going in which we work together, we each make up for each other's failures, and because of that we have an excellent sort of dovetailed working relationship."
"We have very different styles, and we complement each other very nicely. Jeff is very methodical, and he wants to absolutely understand every step and he forces me to go back and, and really work hard, and I just like to just dive forward, you know. If there's some problem, I just like to attack it twenty different ways until something works. So it's, it's a good collaboration."
Marcy and Butler's double act goes on. They're constantly on the lookout for wobbles in the heavens, new planets that might upon closer inspection, cradle life.
Most of the planets discovered to date are similar distances from their stars as Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars are from the sun, but they are much more massive. They are at least the size of Jupiter, some, much bigger. Gas giants with powerful gravity. However, unlike Jupiter, we haven't a clue what they look like. Detecting new planets is one thing, getting snapshots of them is quite another. In fact, some astronomers think that the new planets can't truly be verified until they are imaged. On earth, scientists are building giant mirrors to construct the super ground-based telescopes of the future.
Telescopes will lead the search for snapshots of distant planets. Most astronomers believe the best images of new planets will come not from earth but from the skies, from a new generation of space telescopes.
Astronomer, and Hubble expert, Chris Burrows, "All of the new planets that people have found have been inferred indirectly. There've no, been no pictures of the new planet, but I'm very hopeful that in the next ten years, we are gonna get pictures of planets around other stars, direct pictures. And of course, with a picture, you can tell so much more."
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words and expressions
wobble:to (cause something to) shake or move from side to side in a way that shows a lack of balance摇晃, 摇摆, 游移不定, 抖动
grind:a difficult or boring activity which needs a lot of effort:苦差事；枯燥乏味的工作
eg:Having to type up my handwritten work was a real grind.
dismal:sad and without hope:阴沉的, 凄凉的, 暗的
makes up for :补偿
Ursa: [天]大熊星座, [天]小熊星座
vice versa:used to state that what you have just said is also true in the opposite order:反之亦然
symbiosis :a relationship between people or organizations that depend on each other equally合作(或互利,互依)关系
attack: to deal with something quickly and in an efficient way:开始处理（某事）
eg:She attacked the difficulties at once.她立即开始处理难题。
be on the lookout for sth/sb: to search for something or someone
eg: I'm always on the lookout for interesting new recipes.
to date :up to the present time:到此为止
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