地球科学视频的对应英文文本.docVIP

磁场倒转As we always see it, the earth magneticfield acts as a shield, protecting our planet from much of sun’s dangerousradiation. But in 1906, a French geologist named XXXX made a startlingdiscovery about the field. XXXX was examining newly formed volcanic rocks nearlava flow in the central France.Lava from volcano contains minerals from deep side of the earth. Inside themolten lava, iron particles are free to move. But the flow begins to cool andform into rocks. The iron particles align themselves according to the earthmagnetic field, like a compass. They become fossilized snapshot（快照）the earth magnetic fieldactions. But during his research, XXXX found some rocks contains iron particlesthat were magnetized in the opposite direction. Their compass needle （罗盘针）had flipped, pointing southinstead of north. This was the moment of discovery. XXXX realized that at somepoint in the past the earth magnetic field had changed the direction andreversed itself. It was a significant discovery. It meant that the earth wasfar more dynamically planet than many had imagined, constantly changing. We cansee that the earth magnetic field has reversed about 60 times in the last 20million years, that is once every a couple of hundreds of thousands years so.And we may be going through reverse right now because the earth magnetic fieldhas decreased the strength about ten percent in only last century and a half.Now, none exactly is sure why this happens. But XXXX’s discovery does raiseprovocative questions. What happens when the earth magnetic field goes to zero?The answer may lie on the Mars. Scientists had detected the red planet once mayhave magnetic field powered by a furnace like a core, just like one on theearth. But at some point in the past, the heat source of Mars wasdistinguished. Without internal furnace, the planet died and its magnetic fielddisappeared. And harmful cosmic and solar rays bombarded the planet, wiping out(抹净，彻底去除) anychance for lives like we know it. Could that ha