英语听力：自然百科 穿越银河系的旅行 Through Milky Way—10

 To understand how these calamities¹ occur, astronomers² need to catch a massive star in its death throes. 

 

Astronomers are like detectives. We have to figure out what's going on in the universe, sometimes based on a minimum number of clues. And in the case of most astronomers, the clues come from only the light. 

 

Andy Howell knows that catching³ light from a supernova, it's all about timing⁴. 

 

Supernovae happen about once every 70 years in the galaxy⁵ on average, so about the human life time. So chances are, you are not gonna see one in your life time. In fact the last one in our galaxy that anybody saw was about 400 years ago. So it's been a long time, and you know, I study supernovae for a living. I couldn't do this if I had to just wait/ for one in our galaxy. 

 

Thankfully, there is no shortage of galaxies⁶. 

 

So what we do is, we look at other galaxies, more distant galaxies. There are billions of galaxies out there. 

 

This is a supernova that Andy and his colleagues were lucky enough to catch, an exploding star on the outskirts⁷ of a galaxy 55 million light years away. It briefly⁸ outshone the entire galaxy, the light to the billion suns distilled⁹ into one dying star. 

 

It takes supernova/ light a million, or even a billion years to get here. They are millions of billions of light years away. But they only shine for about a month. So we have this little tiny window to study these things before that light has gone forever. 

 

It's so critical that in the workshop Andy and his team are preparing to survey as much of the sky as possible. 

 

 

We are building a network of telescopes so that we can study supernovae in greater numbers, in greater detail than we've ever been able to before.

1 calamities   

n.灾祸，灾难( calamity的名词复数 )；不幸之事

参考例句：

• They will only triumph by persevering in their struggle against natural calamities. 他们只有坚持与自然灾害搏斗，才能取得胜利。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》
• One moment's false security can bring a century of calamities. 图一时之苟安，贻百年之大患。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》

2 astronomers   

n.天文学者，天文学家( astronomer的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Astronomers can accurately foretell the date,time,and length of future eclipses. 天文学家能精确地预告未来日食月食的日期、时刻和时长。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Astronomers used to ask why only Saturn has rings. 天文学家们过去一直感到奇怪，为什么只有土星有光环。 来自《简明英汉词典》

3 catching   

adj.易传染的，有魅力的，迷人的，接住

参考例句：

• There are those who think eczema is catching.有人就是认为湿疹会传染。
• Enthusiasm is very catching.热情非常富有感染力。

4 timing   

n.时间安排，时间选择

参考例句：

• The timing of the meeting is not convenient.会议的时间安排不合适。
• The timing of our statement is very opportune.我们发表声明选择的时机很恰当。

5 galaxy   

n.星系；银河系；一群(杰出或著名的人物)

参考例句：

• The earth is one of the planets in the Galaxy.地球是银河系中的星球之一。
• The company has a galaxy of talent.该公司拥有一批优秀的人才。

6 galaxies   

星系( galaxy的名词复数 )； 银河系； 一群（杰出或著名的人物）

参考例句：

• Quasars are the highly energetic cores of distant galaxies. 类星体是遥远星系的极为活跃的核心体。
• We still don't know how many galaxies there are in the universe. 我们还不知道宇宙中有多少个星系。

7 outskirts   

n.郊外，郊区

参考例句：

• Our car broke down on the outskirts of the city.我们的汽车在市郊出了故障。
• They mostly live on the outskirts of a town.他们大多住在近郊。

8 briefly   

adv.简单地，简短地

参考例句：

• I want to touch briefly on another aspect of the problem.我想简单地谈一下这个问题的另一方面。
• He was kidnapped and briefly detained by a terrorist group.他被一个恐怖组织绑架并短暂拘禁。

9 distilled   

adj.由蒸馏得来的v.蒸馏( distil的过去式和过去分词 )；从…提取精华

参考例句：

• The televised interview was distilled from 16 hours of film. 那次电视采访是从16个小时的影片中选出的精华。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Gasoline is distilled from crude oil. 汽油是从原油中提炼出来的。 来自《简明英汉词典》