Sunspots托福聽力原文翻譯及問題答案

Sunspots托福聽力原文翻譯及問題答案

一、Sunspots托福聽力原文：

Narrator:Listen to part of a lecture in an astronomy class.Male Professor:We're going to start a study of sunspots today,and I think you'll find it rather interesting.Now I’m going to assume that you know that sunspots,in the most basic terms,are dark spots on the Sun's surface.That’ll do for now.The ancient Chinese were the first to record observations of sunspots as early as the year 165.

When later European astronomers wrote about sunspots,they didn't believe that the spots were actually on the Sun. That's because of their belief at the time that the“heavenly”bodies…the Sun,moon,stars and planets…were perfect…without any flaws or blemishes.So,the opinion was,the spots were actually something else…like shadows of planets crossing the Sun's face.And this was the thinking of European astronomers until the introduction of the telescope.Which brings us to our old friend,Galileo.

In the early 1600s,based on his observations of sunspots,Galileo proposed a new hypothesis.He pointed out that the shape of sunspots…well,the sunspots weren't circular.If they were shadows of the planets,they would be circular,right? So that was a problem for the prevailing view.And he also noticed that the shape of the sunspots changed as they seemed to move across the Sun’s surface.

Maybe a particular sunspot was sort of square,then later it would become more lopsided,then later something else…So there's another problem with the shadow hypothesis…because the shape of a planet doesn't change.What Galileo proposed was that sunspots were indeed a feature of the Sun.But he didn't know what kind of feature.

He proposed that they might be clouds in the atmosphere,the solar atmosphere.Especially because they seemed to change shape…and there was no predicting the changes.At least nothing Galileo could figure out.That random shape-changing would be consistent with the spots being clouds.Over the next couple hundred years,a lot of hypotheses were tossed around…the spots were mountains,or holes in the solar atmosphere through which the dark surface of the Sun could be seen.Then in 1843 an astronomer named Heinrich Schwabe made an interesting claim.Schwabe had been watching the sun every day that it was visible for seventeen years…looking for evidence of a new planet.

And he started keeping track of sunspots…mapping them so he wouldn't confuse them with any potential new planet.In the end there was no planet,but there was evidence that the number of sunspots increased and decreased in a pattern…a pattern that began repeating after ten years.And that was a huge breakthrough.Another astronomer,named Wolf,kept track of the sun for an even longer period—forty years actually.

So,Wolf did forty years of research and Schwabe did seventeen years of research.I think there’s a lesson there.Anyway,Wolf went through old records from various observatories in Europe,and put together a history of sunspot observations going back about 100 years.From this information,he was able to confirm the existence of a pattern,a repeating cycle.But Wolf detected an eleven-year cycle,not a ten-year cycle.Eleven year cycles?Does that sound familiar to anyone?No?Well,geomagnetic activity…the natural variations in the Earth’s magnetic field…it fluctuates in eleven-year cycles.Um,

well we'll cover this later in the semester…but for now…well,scientists in the late 19th century were aware of geomagnetic cycles,so when they heard that the sunspot cycle was also eleven years…well,they just had to find out what was going on.Suddenly everyone was doing studies of the possible relationship between the Sun and the Earth.Did the sunspots cause the geomagnetic fields,or did the geomagnetic fields cause the sunspots,or was there some other thing that caused both…

And astronomers did eventually figure out what sunspots have to do with magnetic fields.Actually,they are magnetic fields.And the fact that sunspots are magnetic fields accounts for their dark appearance.That's because magnetic fields reduce the pressure exerted on the gases inside of them,making the spots cooler than the rest of the sun’s surface.And since they're cooler,they're darker.

二、Sunspots托福聽力中文翻譯：

旁白：在天文學(xué)課上聽一節(jié)課的一部分。男教授：我們今天要開始研究太陽黑子，我想你會發(fā)現(xiàn)這很有趣?，F(xiàn)在我假設(shè)你知道太陽黑子，從最基本的角度來說，是太陽表面的黑點?，F(xiàn)在就這樣吧。早在165年，中國古代就首次記錄了對太陽黑子的觀測。

后來歐洲天文學(xué)家在寫關(guān)于太陽黑子的文章時，他們不相信這些黑子實際上就在太陽上；這是因為當(dāng)時他們相信“天體”…太陽、月亮、恒星和行星…都是完美的…沒有任何瑕疵或瑕疵。因此，人們的觀點是，這些斑點實際上是其他東西……就像行星的陰影穿過太陽的臉。這是歐洲天文學(xué)家在望遠鏡問世之前的想法。這讓我們想到了我們的老朋友伽利略。

17世紀初，伽利略根據(jù)對太陽黑子的觀測，提出了一個新的假設(shè)。他指出，太陽黑子的形狀……嗯，太陽黑子不是圓形的。如果它們是行星的陰影，它們就會是圓形的，對嗎&nbsp；因此，這是主流觀點的一個問題。他還注意到，當(dāng)太陽黑子似乎在太陽表面移動時，其形狀發(fā)生了變化。

也許一個特定的太陽黑子是方形的，然后它會變得更不平衡，然后是其他的……所以陰影假設(shè)還有另一個問題……因為行星的形狀不會改變。伽利略提出的是，太陽黑子確實是太陽的一個特征。但他不知道這是什么特征。

他提出，它們可能是大氣中的云，太陽大氣。尤其是因為它們似乎在改變形狀……而且無法預(yù)測這些變化。至少伽利略什么都搞不清楚。這種隨機形狀變化將與云斑一致。在接下來的幾百年里，人們提出了很多假設(shè)……這些斑點是太陽大氣中的山脈或洞，通過這些洞可以看到太陽黑暗的表面。1843年，一位名叫海因里?！な┩卟嫉奶煳膶W(xué)家提出了一個有趣的說法。十七年來，施瓦布每天都在觀察太陽，尋找一顆新行星的證據(jù)。

他開始跟蹤太陽黑子……繪制它們的地圖，這樣他就不會把它們與任何潛在的新行星混淆。最終沒有行星，但有證據(jù)表明，太陽黑子的數(shù)量以某種模式增減……這種模式在十年后開始重復(fù)。這是一個巨大的突破。另一位名叫沃爾夫的天文學(xué)家，實際上跟蹤太陽的時間更長，長達四十年。

所以，沃爾夫做了四十年的研究，施瓦布做了十七年的研究。我想這是一個教訓(xùn)。無論如何，沃爾夫查閱了歐洲各天文臺的舊記錄，整理了大約100年前的太陽黑子觀測歷史。從這些信息中，他能夠確認一種模式的存在，一種重復(fù)的循環(huán)。但沃爾夫發(fā)現(xiàn)了11年的周期，而不是10年的周期。十一年周期？這聽起來有人熟悉嗎？不嗯，地磁活動……地球磁場的自然變化……它以11年為周期波動。嗯，

嗯，我們將在本學(xué)期晚些時候討論這個問題……但現(xiàn)在……嗯，19世紀末的科學(xué)家們都知道地磁周期，所以當(dāng)他們聽說太陽黑子周期也是11年時……嗯，他們只是想知道到底發(fā)生了什么。突然，每個人都在研究太陽和地球之間可能的關(guān)系。是太陽黑子導(dǎo)致了地磁場，還是地磁場導(dǎo)致了太陽黑子，還是有其他什么東西導(dǎo)致了這兩者…

天文學(xué)家最終發(fā)現(xiàn)了太陽黑子與磁場的關(guān)系。實際上，它們是磁場。太陽黑子是磁場這一事實解釋了它們的暗外觀。這是因為磁場降低了對內(nèi)部氣體施加的壓力，使這些斑點比太陽表面的其他部分更冷。因為它們更酷，所以顏色更暗。

三、Sunspots托福聽力問題：

Q1:1.What is the lecture mainly about?

A.The importance of record keeping in the development of hypotheses

B.The relationship between sunspots and Earth’s geomagnetic cycle

C.The progression of scientific knowledge about sunspots

D.The effect of sunspots on Earth’s climate

Q2:2.Why did European astronomers before the time of Galileo not believe sunspots were on the Sun’s surface?

A.They based their beliefs on earlier observations by Chinese astronomers.

B.The idea was contrary to their beliefs about objects in space.

C.The sunspots often changed their shape.

D.The sunspots were not always visible.

Q3:3.Which hypothesis regarding sunspots did Galileo challenge?

A.Sunspots are shadows of planets crossing the Sun.

B.Sunspots are clouds in the solar atmosphere.

C.Sunspots are evidence of the Sun’s rotation.

D.Sunspots are evidence of magnetic fields.

Q4:4.What was the importance of Schwabe’s observations?

A.They determined the age of sunspots.

B.They established that sunspots appear in cycles.

C.They proved that sunspots were actually on the Sun.

D.They showed the reason that sunspots change their shape

Q5:5.What is the professor’s attitude toward Schwabe’s and Wolf’s research?

A.He is surprised that the research is contradictory.

B.He is impressed by how many years were spent on the research.

C.He has difficulty believing that research should take so long.

D.He doubts that the research is given enough credit by modern astronomers.

Q6:6.Whatdoes the professor imply about the discovery of a relationship between the sunspot cycle and Earth’s geomagnetic cycle?

A.It proved that Galileo’s cloud hypothesis was correct.

B.It showed how conditions on Earth can affect the Sun.

C.It was the start of modern astronomy.

D.It led to a period of intense scientific research.

四、Sunspots托福聽力答案：

A1:正確答案：C

A2:正確答案：B

A3:正確答案：A

A4:正確答案：B

A5:正確答案：B

A6:正確答案：D

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