英语听力：探索发现 2014-07-09 BBC 地平线：陨石的真相-25

 Luckily, the very biggest asteroids² are few and far between. But there are still plenty of rocks out there that represent a significant danger to us. So, at the summit of an extinct Hawaiian volcano, Professor Nick Kaiser and his colleagues are searching the skies for killer³ asteroids. Every night, using a revolutionary billion-pixel sensor⁴, the team scans a vast swathe of the sky. 

 

Follow me up to the next floor, you’ll see a better view of the telescope itself. They are looking for any unidentified objects that could be heading our way. By capturing several images of the same patch of sky, separated by several minutes, the team can see if anything’s changed against the background of stars. 

 

You can see that there’s a dark thing and a white thing. What that means is, in these two exposures, there was an asteroid¹, which was here in the first exposure and there in the second one. It’s kind of cute. Here’s another one in the same image. 

 

And in fact, we’ll detect hundreds of asteroids in a single exposure. Their observations are collated⁵ at the nerve centre of asteroid detection—the Minor⁶ Planet Centre, just outside Boston. 

 

Its director is Tim Spahr. And his job is to keep track of every asteroid in the solar system.

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 asteroids   

n.小行星( asteroid的名词复数 )；海盘车，海星

参考例句：

• Asteroids,also known as "minor planets",are numerous in the outer space. 小行星，亦称为“小型行星”，在外太空中不计其数。
• Most stars probably have their quota of planets, meteorids, comets, and asteroids. 多数恒星也许还拥有若干行星、流星、彗星和小行星。

3 killer   

n.杀人者，杀人犯，杀手，屠杀者

参考例句：

• Heart attacks have become Britain's No.1 killer disease.心脏病已成为英国的头号致命疾病。
• The bulk of the evidence points to him as her killer.大量证据证明是他杀死她的。

4 sensor   

n.传感器，探测设备，感觉器（官）

参考例句：

• The temperature sensor is enclosed in a protective well.温度传感器密封在保护套管中。
• He plugged the sensor into a outlet.他把传感器插进电源插座。

5 collated   

v.校对( collate的过去式和过去分词 )；整理；核对；整理（文件或书等）

参考例句：

• When both versions of the story were collated,major discrepancies were found. 在将这个故事的两个版本对照后，找出了主要的不符之处。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Information was collated from several data centers around the country. 信息从城市四周的几个数据中心得到校对。 来自互联网

6 minor   

adj.较小(少)的，较次要的；n.辅修学科；vi.辅修

参考例句：

• The young actor was given a minor part in the new play.年轻的男演员在这出新戏里被分派担任一个小角色。
• I gave him a minor share of my wealth.我把小部分财产给了他。