2. 外语
  3. Determining the Age of the Planets and the Universe P1: As the solar nebula, a large rotating cloud of interstellar dust and gas

Determining the Age of the Planets and the Universe P1: As the solar nebula, a large rotating cloud of interstellar dust and gas

admin2018-10-18  30
问题 Determining the Age of the Planets and the Universe
P1: As the solar nebula, a large rotating cloud of interstellar dust and gas, contracted, the vast majority of materials collected in the center to form the sun. The remainder formed a flattened, spinning disk. Within this spinning disk, matter gradually formed clumps of material that collided, stuck together and grew into planets, which revolve in the same direction and in orbits that lie in nearly the same plane. This is strong evidence that the planets formed simultaneously from a single disk of material that rotated in the same direction as modern planets.
P2: Scientists generally agree that the answer to the riddle of the age of the earth is carefully concealed within the earth’s crust. Since the earth’s surface is subject to inevitable erosion and igneous and metamorphic processes, with huge amounts of material blown or washed out to sea each year, it seemed very likely that the rocks and other material measured might not be quite as old as the earth itself. In fact, the current estimate of the earth’s age derives from extraterrestrial rocks—meteorites—which collided with the earth and escaped the erosion at its surface.
P3: Since meteorites come in all sizes, from miniscule particles to the "small" planets known as asteroids, much of meteorite classification is based, in fact, on the kind of substances a specimen primarily contains rather than its scale. The largest group of meteorites is stony meteorites, which once formed part of the outer crust of a planet or asteroid. Iron meteorites are made of pure nickel and iron, with some occasional impurities such as graphite and the mineral troilite, which may originate from within the metallic cores of asteroids. Stony-Iron meteorites are almost even mixes of metallic and rocky material. They were probably formed by mixing between metal cores and the rocky magma within asteroids. This makes them extremely rare because there is only a small region inside asteroids where metallic and stony material can mix.
P4: The age of the chemical elements within a meteorite can be estimated using radioactive decay to determine how old a given mixture of atoms is. The most definite ages that can be determined this way are measurements of time elapsed since the solidification of rock samples. When a rock solidifies, the chemical elements often get separated into different crystalline grains in the rock. When this method was applied to many different meteorites, it was gratifying to find that the oldest ages obtained for rocks gathered on the surface of the moon tend to cluster around 4.6 billion years. This makes for a very convincing measurement of the age of the solar system, for the simple reason that as no water exists on the lunar surface, which varies from that of the earth, ancient rocks found on the moon should be of the same age as the solar system.
P5: Determining the age of the universe has been far more complicated because the universe is comprised of many enormous disk-like galaxies, each including innumerable stars. What’s more, the universe is constantly expanding: according to the Big Bang theory, the matter that forms galaxies has been spreading in all directions ever since the explosive event occurred several billion years ago. It is not the galaxies themselves that are expanding, but rather the space between them. What is happening is analogous to inflating a balloon with small coins attached to its surface. The coins behave like galaxies: although they do not expand, the space between them does.
P6: In the 1910s, astronomers noticed that the light from nearly every galaxy was redshifted, which means light waves passing through those galaxies were stretched toward the red end of the visible spectrum of wavelengths. In 1929, American astronomer Edwin Hubble matched up these redshifts with distance estimates to these galaxies and uncovered something remarkable: the farther away a galaxy, the faster it is receding. Hubble had stumbled upon a startling truth: the universe was uniformly expanding. What came to be known as the cosmological redshift was the first piece of the Big Bang theory and ultimately a description of the origin of our universe. Calculations based on these redshifts indicate that about 13.7 billion years ago all of the galaxies would have been at one spot, the site of the big bang. This, then, is the approximate date of the big bang and the age of the universe.
P3: ■ Since meteorites come in all sizes, from miniscule particles to the "small" planets known as asteroids, much of meteorite classification is based, in fact, on the kind of substances a specimen primarily contains rather than its scale.■ The largest group of meteorites is stony meteorites, which once formed part of the outer crust of a planet or asteroid. ■ Iron meteorites are made of pure nickel and iron, with some occasional impurities such as graphite and the mineral troilite, which may originate from within the metallic cores of asteroids. ■ Stony-Iron meteorites are almost even mixes of metallic and rocky material. They were probably formed by mixing between metal cores and the rocky magma within asteroids. This makes them extremely rare because there is only a small region inside asteroids where metallic and stony material can mix.
An introductory sentence for a brief summary of the passage is provided below. Complete the summary by selecting the THREE answer choices that express the most important ideas in the passage. Some answer choices do not belong in the summary because they express ideas that are not presented in the passage or are minor ideas in the passage. This question is worth 2 points. Drag your choices to the spaces where they belong. To review the passage, click on View Text.
There is strong evidence that all the planets of our solar system were formed from the same disk of matter at the same time.
-
-
-
Answer Choices
A Determining the age of the planets by examining rocks on Earth is difficult because Earth’s crust is constantly changing.
B Meteorites found on Earth and rocks from the Moon’s surface are the best evidence for estimating the age of the planets.
C The expansion of the universe makes it possible to estimate its age by measuring the amount of the redshift of light coming from distant galaxies.
D All three kinds of meteorites are similar in composition to Earth in that they have an inner core, a rocky mantle, and an outer crust.
E Radiometric dating of meteorites recovered from the Moon shows that they are older than those that are found on Earth.
F The redshift phenomenon measures the rate at which the stars in a galaxy are moving away from each other.
选项
答案A，B，C
解析 【文章总结题】本文主要讲了三种测定地球与宇宙年龄的方法。第一种是通过测算落在地球上的陨星的年龄，而不是测定地球上的岩石，因为地壳的构成在不断变化；第二种是通过测算月球上岩石的年龄；第三种是通过星系间光波的红移来测算。所以涉及测算方式的A、B、C三个选项正确，分别对应2段、3一4段、5-6段。F属于细节偏离主旨，DE与文章内容不一致。
转载请注明原文地址:https://www.kaotiyun.com/show/EufO777K
0

托福（TOEFL）

相关试题推荐
随机试题
最新回复(0)