Chilean astronomer Maritza Soto has discovered a planet three times as large as Jupiter orbiting a red giant star larger than the Sun and the planet is located some 290 million light years from the Earth.
Soto,a 25-year-old Ph.D.student in sciences at the University of Chile,worked for eight months using two telescopes at the La Silla Observatory,about 370 miles north of Santiago.Last November,she discovered the planet now bearing the designation HD 110014c and her work has now been published in a journal of the London Royal Astronomical Society.The discovery of planets orbiting red giant stars is “rare”,with only five such planets located around stars of that magnitude to date,she told EFE.
HD 110014c orbits its star at a distance about six-tenths the distance from the Sun to the Earth—or about the distance between Venus and the Sun.“It’s like imagining a planet three times bigger than Jupiter with the orbit of Venus around the Sun,” she said,adding that the red giant star is about twice the size of the Earth’s Sun.
Another planet had already been discovered orbiting the star,and now Soto’s work has added a second planet to that solar system.To find the planet,she used the so-called radial velocity (径向速度) methods of measuring the slight jiggling (晃动) movement of a star as a planet orbits around it considering that the planets themselves send only a very weak signal and are quite difficult to detect on their own.“The planets are very weak compared to the stars and you have to use indirect methods to detect them.I analyzed the data that had been gathered over years to confirm the first planet and I discovered the second one orbiting the star,” she said.
1.What can we know about HD 110014c from the passage?
A.It’s about three times the size of Jupiter.
B.It is the first planet discovered in that solar system.
C.Its star is about 290 million light years from the Sun.
D.It orbits its star at the distance between the Sun and the Earth.
2.Why are planets not easy to discover?
A.It takes years to gather data.
B.They’re far away from the Earth.
C.Their signal is too weak to catch.
D.The existing technology is not mature.
3.What is the purpose of the passage?
A.To describe how to discover a planet.
B.To tell an inspiring story of Maritza Soto.
C.To inform readers of a new discovery of a planet.
D.To stress the importance of discovering a planet.
4.Which section of a newspaper is the passage most likely to come from?
A.Geography. B.Science. C.Business. D.Environment.
语篇解读:本文是一篇说明文。介绍了智利的天文学家Maritza Soto发现了新行星,它的体积是木星体积的三倍。
答案及剖析:
1.A 细节理解题。根据“Chilean astronomer Maritza Soto has discovered a planet three times as large as Jupiter”可知,HD 110014c大约是Jupiter的体积的三倍大。故选A。
2.C 细节理解题。根据“...considering that the planets themselves send only a very weak signal and are quite difficult to detect on their own”可知行星发出的信号很弱所以很难被发现。
3.C 写作目的题。根据文章第一段可知天文学家发现了一颗是木星的体积三倍大的行星,故本文目的是告知读者有关一个行星的新发现。故选C。
4.B 推理判断题。文章的内容是有关科学发现的,所以很可能出自于报纸的科技专栏。
