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
The Discovery of Astronomers The discovery of planets around distant stars has become like space-shuttle launches—newsworthy
The Discovery of Astronomers The discovery of planets around distant stars has become like space-shuttle launches—newsworthy
admin
2013-01-10
37
问题
The Discovery of Astronomers
The discovery of planets around distant stars has become like space-shuttle launches—newsworthy but just barely. With some 50 extrasolar planets under their belt, astronomers have to announce something reafly strange to get anyone’s attention.
Last week they did just that. Standing in front of colleagues and reporters at the American Astronomical Society’s semiannual meeting in San Diego, the world’s premier planet-hunting team—astronomer Geoffrey Marcy of the University of California, Berkeley, and his colleagues—presented not one but two remarkable finds. The first is a pair of planets, each about the mass of Jupiter, that whirl around their home star 15 light-years from Earth in perfect lockstep. One takes 30 days to complete an orbit, the other exactly twice as long. Nobody has ever seen such a configuration. But the second discovery is far stranger—a solar system 123 light-years away, in the constellation Serpens, that harbors one " ordinary" planet and another so huge—17 times as massive as Jupiter—that nobody can quitefigure out what it can be. It is, says Marcy, "a bit frightening. "
What’s frightening is that these discoveries make it clear how little astronomers know about planets and they add to the dawning realization that our solar system— and by implication Planet Earth may be a cosmic oddball. For years theorists figured that other stars would have planets more or less like the ones going around the sun. But starting with the 1995 discovery of the first extrasolar planet—a gassy monster like Jupiter but orbiting seven times as close to its star as Mercury orbits around our sun— each new find has seemed stranger than the last. Searchers have found more "hot Jupi-ters" like that first discovery. These include huge planets that career around their stars not in circular orbits but in elongated ones; their gravity would send any Earthlike neighbors flying off into space. Says Princeton astronomer Scott Tremaine: "Not a single prediction for what we’d find in other systems has turned out to be correct."
Last week’s giant was the most unexpected discovery yet. Conventional theory suggests that it must have formed like a star, from a collapsing cloud of interstellar gas. Its smaller companion, only-seven times Jupiter’s mass, is almost certainly a planet, formed by the buildup of gas and dust left over from a star’s formation.
Yet the fact that these two orbs are so close together suggests to some theorists that they must have formed together—so maybe the bigger one is a planet after all.
Or maybe astronomers will have to rethink their definition of "planet." Just because we put heavenly objects into categories doesn’t mean the distinctions are necessarily valid. And as Tremaine puts it, "When your classification schemes start breaking down, you know you’re learning something exciting. This is wonderful stuff."
The author believes that______.
选项
A、the discovery of planets is as important as the launch of space shuttles
B、astronomers have been making a lot of discoveries of planets
C、the public have no interest in astronomical discoveries
D、there is little for astronomers to discover now
答案
B
解析
事实细节题。文章中提到“with some 50 extrasolar planets under their belt”来说明为什么天文发现已经很多,难以吸引公众,所以应该选[B]。
转载请注明原文地址:https://kaotiyun.com/show/MDhK777K
0
专业英语四级
相关试题推荐
ItispossibleforstudentstoobtainadvanceddegreeinEnglishwhileknowinglittleornothingabouttraditionalscholarlymet
WriteonANSWERSHEETTWOanoteofabout50~60wordsbasedonthefollowingsituation:Youhavepromisedtojoinyourfriend
GuiltyorNotGuiltyManyattemptshavebeenmadeinthepasttoassesstheeffectsofalcoholonroadsafety./Forseveralr
Stressisawordcommonlyfoundintoday’svocabulary,andisoftenusedtodescribemodernworkingandlivingpatterns,especia
Stressisawordcommonlyfoundintoday’svocabulary,andisoftenusedtodescribemodernworkingandlivingpatterns,especia
SinceWorldWarII,therehasbeenaclearlydiscernibletrend,especiallyamongthegrowinggroupofcollegestudents,towarde
SinceWorldWarII,therehasbeenaclearlydiscernibletrend,especiallyamongthegrowinggroupofcollegestudents,towarde
Whatisthefirstguidelinetoinvestingaccordingtothespeaker?
Chinaisbecomingstrongerandstronger.Itisnolonger______.
Everyoneknowsthattaxationisnecessaryinamodernstate:withoutit,it【C1】______notbepossibletopaythesoldiersandpol
随机试题
以下哪个不是孤独症的高危因素
监理单位接受建设单位委托对工程项目实施全过程监理时,需要在设计准备阶段( )。
会计科目按其所()不同,分为总分类科目和明细分类科目。
某公司经营规模迅速扩张,但由于人员储备不足,造成很多重要岗位无人填补,这说明该公司的()工作没有做好。(2008年真题)
甲股份有限公司(以下简称“甲公司”)为一家从事贵金属进口、加工生产及相关产品销售的企业,其2×15年发生了下列交易或事项:(1)为促进产品销售,甲公司于2×15年推出贵金属产品以旧换新业务。甲公司在销售所生产的黄金饰品时,承诺客户在购买后任一时点,若
中华人民共和国16周岁以上的公民普通护照有效期一般为()年。
(1)新来的年轻鸬鹚突然集体罢工,不肯下海(2)老鸬鹚因为老得不能出海了,被杀掉炖汤(3)渔夫百思不得其解,抱怨自己待它们不薄(4)一群鸬鹚,辛辛苦苦跟着一位渔夫十几年(5)因为老了,还不落个老鸬鹚一样的下场?
窗体上有1个名称为Commandl的命令按钮,事件过程如下:PrivateSubCommandl_Click()DimhumAsInteger,xAsIntegernum:Val(InputBox(“请输入一个正整数”))Selec
Whyisthewomancalling?
Cultureisactivityofthought,andreceptivenesstobeautyandhumanefeeling.【1】ofinformationhavenothingtodowithit.Am
最新回复
(
0
)