英语听力：自然百科 已知的宇宙：外星生命 Alien_Contact-1

 For thousands of years, we’ve wondered if we are alone in the cosmos¹. Life, is it a one-time event, or it’s something that's occurred lots of times throughout the universe.?

 

And at this very moment, new discoveries are bringing us closer to the answers.

 

We are right on the course of being able to say life exists somewhere else.

 

All of our searching is leading to one ultimate goal  -finding intelligent life somewhere in the vastness of universe.

 

If we can discover an advanced civilization, it would be clearly the greatest discovery of humanity, beating out fire.

 

Get ready because The Known Universe is about to take you on a hunt for life out there.

 

Over the next hour we will show you how the hunt for alien life has dramatically changed over the past few decades. The lessons we are learning at the bottom of our oceans and the Yellowstone’s ethane pits are giving us dramatic insight into how life came to be on our planet. And it is helping² us understand and imagine how life might emerge on an alien world. We will take you on a journey to far away planets where amazing creatures may roam their lands,creatures that make the wildest science fiction movies look like reality shows.  And finally we will show you how new technologies are being used to search for, and possibly communicate with at best alien civilizations.

 

So is earth the only planet where life has emerged in this vast cosmos? Are we alone or are we part of something bigger, a web of life that stretches light years through the universe?

1 cosmos   

n.宇宙；秩序，和谐

参考例句：

• Our world is but a small part of the cosmos.我们的世界仅仅是宇宙的一小部分而已。
• Is there any other intelligent life elsewhere in the cosmos?在宇宙的其他星球上还存在别的有智慧的生物吗？

2 helping   

n.食物的一份&adj.帮助人的，辅助的

参考例句：

• The poor children regularly pony up for a second helping of my hamburger. 那些可怜的孩子们总是要求我把我的汉堡包再给他们一份。
• By doing this, they may at times be helping to restore competition. 这样一来, 他在某些时候,有助于竞争的加强。