【英语时差8,16】行星撞地球了怎么办？（上）

One day you walk down to the local deli for lunch and are on the way back to work when you find a piano has fallen on the sidewalk, right where you pass every day. Gosh, you think, ten minutes later and I would have been standing¹ right there. Close one. You think that’s close? Imagine how the earth feels. In nineteen-eighty-seven an asteroid² measuring a whopping half a mile in diameter came by, missing our planet by a measly six orbital hours. An orbital hour is simply a measure of how far the earth moves around the sun in one hour. So, had we been six hours ahead of where we are, or had the asteroid come by six hours later, hello enormous rock. And, quite possibly, goodbye everything else.

1 standing   

n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的

参考例句：

• After the earthquake only a few houses were left standing.地震过后只有几幢房屋还立着。
• They're standing out against any change in the law.他们坚决反对对法律做任何修改。

2 asteroid   

n.小行星；海盘车(动物)

参考例句：

• Astronomers have yet to witness an asteroid impact with another planet.天文学家还没有目击过小行星撞击其它行星。
• It's very unlikely that an asteroid will crash into Earth but the danger exists.小行星撞地球的可能性很小，但这样的危险还是存在的。