【英语时差8,16】行星撞地球了怎们办？（下）

Oh come on, you say. Would a collision really have been that bad? After all, the earth has a diameter of eight thousand miles. Being hit by a half-mile wide asteroid¹ would be like being tapped by a B-B. In one sense, that is true. The earth itself would not be moved from its orbit, or anything that dramatic. But we who live here would definitely have noticed. Calculations have shown that the explosion would have been equivalent to one thousand million tons of TNT going off all at once. Dusty Conditions A cloud of dust and debris² would have been thrown up into the stratosphere, gradually darkening the skies and chilling the planet for months or even years. Many scientists believe just this kind of thing wiped out the dinosaurs³, by changing the environment rapidly.

1 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。

2 debris   

n.瓦砾堆，废墟，碎片

参考例句：

• After the bombing there was a lot of debris everywhere.轰炸之后到处瓦砾成堆。
• Bacteria sticks to food debris in the teeth,causing decay.细菌附着在牙缝中的食物残渣上，导致蛀牙。

3 dinosaurs   

n.恐龙( dinosaur的名词复数 )；守旧落伍的人，过时落后的东西

参考例句：

• The brontosaurus was one of the largest of all dinosaurs. 雷龙是所有恐龙中最大的一种。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Dinosaurs have been extinct for millions of years. 恐龙绝种已有几百万年了。 来自《简明英汉词典》