SSS 2009-02-23
时间：2018-12-24 作者：英语课 分类：Scientific American(二)月
This is Scientific American's 60-Second Science. I'm Steve Mirsky . Got a minute ?
“We’re on the verge 1 of finding out how frequently habitable planets occur in the universe.” That was astronomer 2 Alan Boss at the AAAS meeting on February 14th. “And I think we’re going to find out that that number is very close to one.” Meaning that each solar-type star is probably orbited by, on average, one Earth-type planet. So how many habitable planets might be out there?
“10 to the 11th in our galaxy 3 and then there are something like 10 to the 11th galaxies 4. We’re up to about 10 to the 22 Earths, plus or minus a few.
“You don’t have to just believe that this speculation 5 is going to be correct or not. NASA will be launching the Kepler space mission, and Kepler’s entire purpose is to count how many Earths there are around a population of stars in the constellation 6 Cygnus.” Kepler launches on March 5th.
“Then about three or four years from now, there’ll be a press conference at NASA headquarters, and Bill Borucki, the Kepler PI will stand up and tell us just how frequently Earths occur. And once we know that we’ll know how to take the next steps in the search for living planets, and some of that work will involve not only telling if the planets are habitable, but actually searching for signatures in their atmospheres if they could be inhabited, as well.”
Thanks for the minute for Scientific American's 60-Second Science. I'm Steve Mirsky .
- The country's economy is on the verge of collapse.国家的经济已到了崩溃的边缘。
- She was on the verge of bursting into tears.她快要哭出来了。
- A new star attracted the notice of the astronomer.新发现的一颗星引起了那位天文学家的注意。
- He is reputed to have been a good astronomer.他以一个优秀的天文学者闻名于世。
- The earth is one of the planets in the Galaxy.地球是银河系中的星球之一。
- The company has a galaxy of talent.该公司拥有一批优秀的人才。
- Quasars are the highly energetic cores of distant galaxies. 类星体是遥远星系的极为活跃的核心体。
- We still don't know how many galaxies there are in the universe. 我们还不知道宇宙中有多少个星系。
- Her mind is occupied with speculation.她的头脑忙于思考。
- There is widespread speculation that he is going to resign.人们普遍推测他要辞职。
- A constellation is a pattern of stars as seen from the earth. 一个星座只是从地球上看到的某些恒星的一种样子。
- The Big Dipper is not by itself a constellation. 北斗七星本身不是一个星座。