天文学家推断系外行星存在的手段有好几种，美国宇航局的开普勒项目使用的是凌日法。
While there are a number of different ways that astronomers infer the existence of exoplanets, NASA's Kepler mission USES what's known as the transit method.
“开普勒”小组首先根据凌日法获得地外行星的讯息，然后由开普勒望远镜和其他太空望远镜(包括运行在轨道上的和地球上的)对行星做进一步的观测，最后才将它确定为候选行星。
Kepler identifies these slight changes in starlight as candidate planets, which are then confirmed by further observations by Kepler and other telescopes in orbit and on Earth.
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