To find biological indications of life , he said , astronomers will need to know something about the atmospheres of the potential planets . And that work requires planets that pass in front of their parent stars .
One class of white dwarfs has almost pure helium atmospheres .
有一类白矮星的大气层几乎完全由纯氦气构成。
Those atmospheres may bear signatures of life , such as oxygen , which researchers believe can be produced only by biological processes .
这些大气层可能具有明显的生命特征,比如氧气研究人员相信只有在生命产生和发展的过程中才能产生氧气。
Already , researchers are planning new ground - and space-based instruments to take spectra of the atmospheres of some of those habitable planets .
而且,研究者们正在计划建立新的地基和空基观测设备,以记录部分新发现适合居住的类地行星大气层的光谱。
The tidal effect , as it 's called , is probably why astronomers have not been finding more hot jupiters practically grazing the outer atmospheres of their stars .
And the terrestrial planet finder , an even more ambitious project that might have been able to study alien atmospheres , has been postponed indefinitely .
而作为将可能具有研究外星大气功能的更具雄心的项目,“类地行星搜索者”已被无限期延期。
These data would help to resolve the competing theories about the origins of the solar system , planetary atmospheres and solar wind dynamics .
这些数据将有助于解决太阳系起源,行星大气和太阳风动力学的各种相互竞争的理论。
A lost generation of planets may now be no more than a whiff of pollution in the atmospheres of their dead parent stars .
死去的一代行星如今可能已经变成了其死亡母星大气中的一丝污染物。
For one , nascent stars are incredibly active and their changing outer atmospheres can at the very least make for background noise .
比如,新生恒星是异常活跃的,它们不断变化的外层大气至少会导致背景噪声。
Not only will these instruments be able to identify which stars have planets , and calculate their orbital parameters , they will be able to make basic spectroscopic searches for biosignatures in their atmospheres .