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It used to be that finding even one new planet was enough to make an astronomer's career.
曾經即便是找到一顆新衛星都足以成就一名天文學家的事業。
Uranus was discovered in 1781 by William Herschel, who these days has, among other things, space telescopes, asteroids, schools and a street in Paris named in his honour.
威廉·赫舍爾于1781年發現天王星。如今，還有那些為了紀念他而以他的名字命名的太空望遠鏡、小行星、學校和巴黎街道。
Urbain le Verrier, who predicted the existence of Neptune in 1846, based on its gravitational influence on Uranus,
1946年，基于海王星對天王星的重力影響，奧本·勒維耶預言了海王星的存在。
has likewise given his name to craters, asteroids and bits of the French capital. It is one of 72 engraved into the sides of the Eiffel tower.
同樣也有以他名字為名的火山口和小行星。他的名字和其他71人的名字一同被刻在了法國埃菲爾鐵塔的一側。
These days, though, astronomers can do better. William Borucki has thousands to his name.
雖然，如今的天文學家可以做得更好。威廉·博魯茨基有上千個屬于他的榮譽。
He is the researcher who conceived of and ran Kepler, a planet-hunting space telescope that was launched in 2009.
他是一名研究人員，是開普勒的構想和運行者。行星探測太空望遠鏡開普勒于2009年發射。
On October 30th NASA announced that, after nearly a decade in space, Kepler had run out of fuel and would be retired.
10月30日，開普勒在太空服役近十年之計，美國國家宇航局（NASA）宣布它的燃料已耗盡，并將退役。
Kepler has discovered around 2,600 exoplanets— those that orbit stars other than the sun.
開普勒發現了約2600顆外星行星—那些圍繞恒星而非太陽運行的行星。
Another 3,000 candidates await confirmation from ground-based telescopes. The result has been a revolution in astronomy.
另外3000名候選者在等待著陸基望遠鏡的確認。這是天文學史上的一個革命性成果。
Its practitioners had long assumed that other stars were likely to have planets of their own. These days, they know that to be true.
其實踐者一直都認為其他恒星可能擁有自己的行星。如今他們知道事實確實如此。
The first exoplanets were detected in 1992, thanks to the gravitational effect they had on the pulsar around which they orbited.
首批外星行星于1992年被探測出來，這多虧了它們對圍繞在它們運轉軌道周圍的脈沖星的重力影響。
(A pulsar is the dead, ultra-dense remnant left over after a supernova.) A trickle of subsequent discoveries followed.
（脈沖星是在超新星階段后超高密度的死亡殘余。）隨后小發現接踵而來。
Kepler transformed that trickle into a flood. Yet it almost did not happen. Dr Borucki proposed the mission four times to NASA before it was accepted in 2001.
開普勒將細流轉變成一次涌現。但它差一點就沒能發生。博魯茨基博士四次向NASA提議該望遠鏡，直到2001年NASA才同意。
Rather than look for stellar wobbles caused by a planet's gravity, he suggested monitoring a star's light itself—
他并沒有建議尋找由一顆行星重力引起的恒星搖晃，而是提議監視恒星光線的本身—
looking for tiny dips in brightness as planets, if any, crossed in front of the stellar disc.
尋找當行星從星盤前邊穿過時（如果有的話）亮度中的微小傾角。
It is a simple idea. But it required the construction of a light detector 1,000 times more sensitive than anything that had been built before.
這是個簡單的想法，但它對光探測器的要求非常高，其靈敏度需要是之前那些望遠鏡的1000倍之多。
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