Unit 1 Growing up 外刊撷英-【优学精讲】2024-2025学年高中英语选择性必修第二册教用Word(外研版)

How a Discovery Is Proved Adapted from National Geographic 202308 If a scientist sees a unicorn①， she'll probably want to see more than one before telling the world about her discovery. But sometimes one unicorn is enough. It's not unheard of for one event to kick off② a whole new field of scientific inquiry③. In 2007 an astronomer④ named Duncan Lorimer reported finding a new kind of celestial⑤ event. It was a brief bolt⑥ of energy. He called his discovery a fast radio burst (FRB), because it lasted less than a second and it was only detectable⑦ using a radio telescope⑧. It was a remarkable . If real, FRBs could be used to measure the amount of matter⑨ in the space between galaxies⑩. The problem was, Lorimer found only one of these spectacular new events. He predicted⑪ there would be many more—but in 2007 he just one. Sometimes, what seems like a remarkable scientific discovery turns out to be an error in the data. Were these so-called Lorimer bursts just a technical glitch⑫？ The glitch explanation gained momentum⑬ from a paper by a young graduate student named Sarah Burke-Spolaor. Her thesis adviser her the task of finding more FRBs. Using the same radio telescope Lorimer used to detect his FRB, she found more bursts that looked like FRBs. But she was virtually⑭ certain what she was seeing was some kind of Earth-based radio interference⑮. She gave them a name: perytons. As the years ticked by⑯ and no more FRBs were discovered, some astronomers began to conclude Lorimer had found nothing more than an unusual example of one of these perytons. There were, however, some hopeful signs that FRBs were real. In 2011 there was a report of a second one, but doubters were quick to point out that this FRB came from the same Parkes radio telescope that the Lorimer burst and the perytons came from. In 2013 four more were found, again from Parkes. Finally, in 2014, there was a report of an FRB from another radio telescope, at the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico. More discoveries started trickling in⑰ from other telescopes on a somewhat regular basis. At last the conversation about FRBs shifted⑱—from whether they were real to where do they come from. Another question was how astronomers could be so sure FRBs were coming from a distant galaxy. A to the story: now, using better techniques, astronomers reanalyze the data and find more FRBs. Other teams have analyzed even older data and found FRBs in those datasets⑲ too. “They were just sitting there, waiting to be discovered，” Lorimer says. ①unicorn n.　　　　 独角兽 ②kick off 开始 ③scientific inquiry 科学探究 ④astronomer n. 天文学家 ⑤celestial adj. 天体的 ⑥bolt n. 闪电 ⑦detectable adj. 可观测到的 ⑧radio telescope 射电望远镜 ⑨matter n. 物质 ⑩galaxy n. 星系 ⑪predict v. 预测 ⑫glitch n. 故障 ⑬gain momentum 获得动力 ⑭virtually adv. 实际上 ⑮interference n. 干扰 ⑯tick by 时光流逝 ⑰trickle in 鱼贯而入 ⑱shift v. 改变 ⑲dataset n. 数据集　 答案：1.an　2.detectable　3.be used　4.events　5.explanation　6.who　7.however　8.on　9.shifted　10.waiting 1．spectacular adj.　 A．the end of sth. such as a book or a speech 2．find n. B．an interesting or valuable thing or person that has been found 3．spot v. C．to give sb. a particular task or responsibility　 4．assign v. D．to see or notice a person or thing, especially suddenly 5．coda n. E．very impressive 答案：1～5.EBDCA What do you think leads to a great scientific discovery? One possible version： First of all, it needs tireless efforts. Over the course of a scientific discovery, one must invest in much time and energy. Besides, perseverance is another factor. As there are a number of failures, one must learn to keep it up and stick to the goal without giving up. 学科网（北京）股份有限公司 $