GRE阅读练习：桌面上的天体物理学研究.docxVIP

Word文档下载后（可任意编辑） 第 第 PAGE 1 页 共 NUMPAGES 1 页 GRE阅读练习：桌面上的天体物理学研究 GRE阅读练习：GRE阅读练习：桌面上的天体物理学研究 GRE考试精品课程训练  THE heavens do not lend themselves to poking and prodding.  天空不会帮助任何企图研究它的行为。  Astronomers therefore have no choice but to rely on whatever datathe cosmos deigns to throw at them.  因此，天文学家们只能听天由命，任何宇宙透露出的一些数据，他们都当做宝贝一样。  And they have learnt a lot this way.  不过他们通过这种方式也学到了很多。  Thus you can even study chemistry in space that would beimpossible in a laboratory.  因此，人们甚至能在太空中研究化学，而这在实验室是无法做到的。  Some astronomers, though, are dissatisfied with being passiveobservers. Real scientists, they think, doexperiments.  虽然，一些天文学家们对成为被动的观察者很是不满，他们认为真正的科学家应该是有所行动的。  It is impossible—not to mention inadvisable—to get close enough toa star or a black hole to manipulate itexperimentally.  要想接近一颗星或者一个黑洞，进行实验性地操作是不可能的，其实也是不可取的。  But some think it might be possible to make meaningful analoguesof such things, and even of the universe itself, and experiment on thoseinstead.  但是，一些人认为，如果进行类似方面，甚至宇宙方面的有意义的研究，而不是试验，是有可能的。  Ben Murdin of the University of Surrey, for example, has beenmaking white dwarfs.  比如说，萨里大学的本-穆迪一直在制作白矮星。  A white dwarf is the stellar equivalent of a shrunken but feistyold-age pensioner.  从某种程度上说，白矮星是一颗虽然已经萎缩，但仍旧不服老的高龄恒星。  It has run out of fuel and is contracting and cooling as it headstowards oblivion—but taking its time about it.  当它正慢慢淡出宇宙这个大家庭时，它的动力已渐渐耗尽，而且正在缩小，渐渐变冷，但是还是值得花些时间的。  As they shrink white dwarfs pack a mass up to eight times thesuns into a volume the size of Earth.  当它们缩小时，这些白矮星把自己相当于八个太阳那么大的个头压缩到了地球这么大的个头。  A consequence of stuffing so much matter into so little space isthat white dwarfs have powerful magnetic fields.  把如此之大的东西压缩到了这么小空间的结果是，白矮星拥有强大的磁场。  Many aspects of a white dwarfs mechanics, including how long itwill last, are thought to depend on its magnetism.  天文学家认为，白矮星形成过程的许多问题，包括它会存在多久，都基于它的磁场。  But it is hard to measure