首页
外语
计算机
考研
公务员
职业资格
财经
工程
司法
医学
专升本
自考
实用职业技能
登录
外语
According to the professor, how does Titan’s ITCZ differ from that of Earth?
According to the professor, how does Titan’s ITCZ differ from that of Earth?
admin
2018-08-16
9
问题
According to the professor, how does Titan’s ITCZ differ from that of Earth?
Listen to part of a lecture in an astronomy class. The professor has been discussing the planet Saturn.
Professor: As you know, we’ve been exploring the flat disk of rocky material that forms the rings which orbit the planet, but there are also over 16 moons orbiting Saturn, each one unique in its own right. Let’s start today by discussing one that’s particularly unusual: Titan. Does anyone remember what make Titan so unusual? Lauren?
Student 1: Well, it’s Saturn’s largest moon and it’s even larger than the planet Mercury.
Professor: Correct. Anyone else? Robert?
Student 2: It’s the only other world we know of, aside from Earth, that has something like a hydrologic cycle.
Professor: Ok, good and what does that mean exactly, hydrologic cycle?
Student 2: It’s a cycle where, where water is moved between liquid and gaseous states, so there’s evaporation, condensation, and precipitation.
Professor: Correct. Of course on Titan, it’s not water that’s involved in the cycle. It’s actually methane and ethane. I know we’re used to thinking of methane as a gas, but on Titan methane can take the form of a liquid and can be found in lakes and puddles. That’s because methane becomes a liquid at about minus 108 degrees Celsius. On Titan, that’s nothing. Titan is so cold, it can reach temperatures as low as minus 183 degrees Celsius. Now, for the past few years we’ve been observing Titan and its atmosphere from a spacecraft called Cassini that’s in orbit around Saturn. And one thing we’ve noticed about Titan’s surface is that it only has lakes at the poles. The equator on the other hand is unusually dry and covered with sand dunes, but there’s also what appear to be dried-up channels and rivers pointing to the possibility of rainfall at some point in the past, which may well be the case because recently we think we’ve seen evidence of rainfall near Titan’s equator. Of course, we can’t actually see it raining from Cassini because it would be obscured by the clouds, but we did see images of a large dark spot near Titan’s equator just after the clouds that passed over that area.
Student 1: Oh, I get it. It’s like when it rains on Earth and the wet sidewalk turns dark.
Professor: Exactly. Also, the dark spot started fading very fast, like when evaporating. Now, this evidence of rain is very significant. Why? Well, it’s the first example of extraterrestrial rain we’ve ever observed, and what may be even more significant is the timing of this rain. See, there’s a model of Titan’s precipitation that predicts that equatorial rain would only occur during spring or autumn, and it was spring on Titan when Cassini took these images. This model is based on something we call the Inter-Tropical Convergence Zone or ITCZ. Can anyone tell me what that is?
Student 1: Yeah, isn’t the ITCZ the area of a planet where like the surface winds from the northern and southern hemispheres meet or converge? It’s an area of precipitation.
Professor: That’s exactly right. Now, on Earth this zone stays within the tropics because the weather systems on both the north and the south sides of the equator block the ITCZ in and don’t allow it to move much. That’s why there’s rainfall on our equator year round, but on Titan, we think the ITCZ migrates almost from pole to pole every half year, so it basically never remains over the equator for a long time. That may be why we hadn’t seen scenes of equatorial precipitation until now when Titan’s ITCZ was passing over its equator at the same time Cassini was in the neighborhood.
Student 2: So what we have to address is what explains Titan’s ITCZ migration?
Professor: Well, most likely because of Titan’s slow rotation period. See, we think that slow rotations cause simpler atmospheric circulation patterns, and simpler circulation patterns mean that there aren’t large weather systems surrounding the ITCZ that would keep it from shifting, from moving from one pole to the other. Not like on Earth and Titan takes nearly 16 Earth days to rotate just once. At any rate, Titan, with its quasi-hydrologic cycle, is definitely a world that we should be doing research on. You see, even though it’s too cold to sustain life, Titan, with its methane clouds, its methane and ethane lakes, Titan may give us some clues as to what our planet was like before the development of life, so this make it imperative that we study Titan to better understand how Earth may have started out.
选项
A、The position of Titan’s ITCZ ensures that tropical precipitation occurs all year round
B、The position of Titan’s ITCZ shifts from one polar region to the other
C、Titan’s ITCZ does not result from the convergence of surface winds
D、Titan’s ITCZ remains at the north pole most of the time
答案
B
解析
细节题。线索词为“but”,为了说明泰坦星上ITCZ移动模式,教授拿我们熟悉的地球上的降水分布做对比,地球的降水终年分布在赤道附近,但泰坦星上不同:but on Titan,we think the ITCZ migrates almost from pole to pole every half year,so it basically never remains over the equator for a long time.即ITCZ是变动的,每半年就会从一极移动到另一极,因此B选项正确。地球的热带降水持续整年,泰坦星上则不会,因此A选项不正确。根据ITCZ的解释:the area of a planet where like the surface winds from the northern and southern hemispheres meet or converge,可以得出ITCZ是南北地表风集合形成降雨,因此C选项与定义矛盾,不正确。同时教授未对南北极的雨季长短进行对比,因此D选项不正确。
转载请注明原文地址:https://kaotiyun.com/show/ANfO777K
0
托福(TOEFL)
相关试题推荐
Whatisthedesiredoutcometoeachofthefollowingcourseofaction?ChooseFIVEanswersfromtheboxandwritethecorrectle
What’sthethemeofeachcontinentbasedontheroomsoftheclubhouse?ChooseSIXanswersfromtheboxandwritethecorrectle
Completethenotesbelow.WriteNOMORETHANTHREEWORDSforeachanswer.GIVINGASPEECHReasonsfornervousnessLecturers
Completethesentencesbelow.WriteONEWORDAND/ORANUMBERforeachanswer.Studentsdecidingtochangetopicsmustdelivera
Completethesentencesbelow.WriteONEWORDAND/ORANUMBERforeachanswer.MountRushmoreThepurposeoftheconstructiono
Completethenotesbelow.WriteNOMORETHANTHREEWORDSforeachanswer."CVandInterviewSkills"SeminarThespeakersuggests
Whichattitudeisassociatedwiththefollowingpeopleduringtheconversation?ChooseSIXanswersfromtheboxandwritetheco
Whatproblemsdothespeakersidentifyforthisproject?ChooseSEVENanswersfromtheboxandwritetheletters,A-H,nexttoq
Choosethecorrectletter,A,BorC.WhatdoestheprofessoradviseDouglastodoabouttheformationofthefocusgroups?
随机试题
肾水分容易通透而Na+不容易通透的部位是
女性,67岁,不慎右髋跌地,即感有右髋疼痛,活动限制(无昏迷史)。平素体尚健,生活自理,家人陪送来急诊。在作X线检查前,临床的拟诊最可能的是
某泵站工程由于征地工作未完成导致工期延误且时间较长,尽管承包人采取了赶工措施仍无法实现按期完工。根据《水利水电工程施工合同和招标文件示范文本》(GF—2000—0208),上述的赶工费用应由()承担。
《文物保护法》规定,在进行建设工程或者在农业生产中,任何单位或者个人发现文物,应当保护现场,立即报告当地文物行政部门,文物行政部门接到报告后,如无特殊情况,应当在24h内赶赴现场,并在()日内提出处理意见。
计量应付职工薪酬时,国家规定了计提基础和计提比例的,应当按照国家规定的标准计提;没有规定计提基础和计提比例的,企业不得预计当期应付职工薪酬。
的值等于().
福州船政局
急性视网膜坏死综合征是由疱疹病毒引起的眼部炎症综合征。急性视网膜坏死综合征患者大多临床表现反复出现,相关的症状体征时有时无,药物治疗效果不佳。这说明,此病是无法治愈的。上述论证假设反复出现急性视网膜坏死综合征症状体征的患者:
Itistheworld’sfourth-most-importantfoodcrop,aftermaize,wheatandrice.Itprovidesmorecalories,morequickly,usingl
A、Tofixabutton.B、Topreparebreakfast.C、Towaitfortheschoolbus.D、ToplaybasketballBM:Willyoupleasefixthebutton
最新回复
(
0
)