考研英语报刊文章阅读及剖析十一

　　考研英语报刊文章阅读及剖析(11)

　　A distant, oversize world causes cosmic confusion

　　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 really 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 quite figure 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 Jupiters 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.

　　By Michael D. Lemonick Time; 01/22/2001, Vol. 157 Issue 3, p51, 2/3p, 1 diagram

　　1. The author believes that ____________.

　　[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

　　2.The two finds are remarkable in that ___________.

　　[A] the planets are far from our solar system

　　[B] the sizes of the plants are too huge.

　　[C] astronomers have never seen similar orbiting pattern and size before

　　[D] scientists can not figure out what they can be

　　3. By saying that our solar system may be a cosmic oddball, the author intends to render

　　the idea that ______________.

　　[A] other stars have planets more or less like the one going around the sun

　　[B] the orbits of extrasolar planets around their stars are elongated ones

　　[C] the way planets orbiting around the sun in our solar system is quite unique

　　[D] planets in other systems are generally huger than the ones in ours

　　4. The case of the giant heavenly body demonstrates that _________.

　　[A] conventional theory can not explain such astronomical phenomenon satisfactorily

　　[B] it is either a star or a planet

　　[C] it was formed like a star and orbits like a planet

　　[D] theorists give a wrong definition of planet

　　5. The best title for this passage could be ___________.

　　[A] New Planetary Puzzlers

　　[B] Two Remarkable Finds

　　[C] A Redefinition of Planet

　　[D] Hot Jupiters Challenging Conventional Theory

　　答案：B C C A A

　　篇章剖析：

　　本篇文章讲述了安第斯山区的最新考古发现以及这一发现的重大意义。第一段想象了当年印加人参加活人祭祀前后的场景，引出话题;第二段简要介绍考古学家莱茵哈德及他这次发现的三具印加儿童遗体。第三段、第四段描述了同时发现的陪葬品，最后一段则说明这次发现对于考古学家的重要意义。文章层次分明，结构清晰。

　　词汇注释：

　　semiannual: [5semi5AnjuEl] adj. 半年一次的

　　premier: [5premjE] adj. 第一的, 首要的

　　Jupiter: [5dVu:pitE] n. 木星

　　lockstep: [`lCkstep] n. 前后紧接, 步伐一致

　　configuration: [kEn7fi^ju5reiFEn] n. 【天】相对位置， 方位

　　constellation: [kCnstE5leiFEn] n. [天]星群, 星座

　　Serpens: [5sE:penz] n. [天]巨蛇座

　　oddball:[ 5RdbC:l] n. 古怪的人;古怪的事物

　　Mercury: [5mE:kjuri] n.〈天〉水星

　　elongate: [5i:lCN^eit] v. 拉长, 伸长, 延长

　　interstellar: [5intE5stelE] adj. 星际的

　　orb: [C:b] n. 球, 天体, 圆形物

　　难句突破：

　　Whats 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.

　　主体句式：whats frightening is that

　　结构分析：本句是个复杂句，包含主语从句，表语从句，宾语从句，同位语从句，插入语等，另外一些成语词组的出现也增加了句子的难度，比如dawning realization，by implication等。阅读本句的时候应该先看各个分句在句中的成分以及相互之间的关系，然后再看各部分具体的意义。

　　句子译文：真正令人震惊的是，这些发现说明天文学家对于行星的了解十分有限，并且让人们清醒地认识到我们的太阳---不言而喻，还有地球这颗行星---也许是宇宙中的异数。