英语听力精选进阶版 7182（在线收听）

Background: 文学家发现宇宙中实际的星球数量比原先想象的要多三倍。《自然》期刊的最新研究称宇宙中的行星数量应该更多，有些或许和地球很相似。

Astronomers have assumed that the composition of all galaxies is the same as our own.

But using a new, more powerful instrument on the Keck telescope in Hawaii, researchers have discovered that older galaxies contain twenty times more small dim stars, called red dwarves, than younger galaxies such as our own.

Doctor Marek Kukula of the Royal Greenwich Observatory describes what the view from a planet in an older galaxy might be like.

"When one of these galaxies that we now know contain lots and lots of small red stars, it may well be true that the night sky is dotted with these small red stars, glowing like embers, and that might produce a very pretty effect."

According to Professor Pieter van Dokkum of Yale University, the discovery also increases the estimate of the number of planets in the universe and therefore makes it even more likely that there's life somewhere else in the cosmos.

"There's been particular attention recently to these red dwarf stars. In one galaxy there's about a trillion of these stars and there's hundreds of billions of these galaxies. Even if the planet is quite close to the star, you could have liquid water on the planet, because the star is not as bright as the sun, and so a planet can be a lot closer and still be kind of balmy, rather than scorching hot."

The discovery that there are many more stars means that our universe is a much brighter, more crowded place than we previously thought.

Glossary 词汇表

astronomers 天文学家 

composition 组成、构成 

powerful instrument 强有力的工具 

galaxies 银河系 

to be dotted with 点缀、布满 

glowing like embers 像余烬一样闪烁 

the cosmos 宇宙 

balmy 暖和的 

scorching hot 灼热的 

universe 宇宙

Questions and Answers

1. What helped to help astronomers to make this new discovery? 

The new, more powerful instrument on the Keck telescope helped to make this discovery.

2. What does this mean about the number of planets that we know about? 

It increases the estimate of the number of planets in the universe and could mean there is life on another planet.

3. True or False. There are around a billion red dwarf stars in each galaxy. 

False, there are around a trillion red dwarf stars in each galaxy.

4. True or False. Astronomers made the discovery of new stars at the Royal Greenwich Observatory. 

False, the discovery was made in Hawaii.