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(单词翻译:双击或拖选)
世界末日距离我们还有多远?
近期,法国的研究人们员对地球未来的环境状况有着不甚理想的预计和预测。
French researchers are predicting doom1 for Planet Earth.
They believe neighboring planets could stray out of orbit and collide with the Earth billions of years from now. The BBC's David Shukman explains their theory.
A view of Earth from orbit and a strange question "how long would it last?" Scientists have long known about the violent event that formed solar system. But now they study the movements of our nearest neighbors. Mars, they reckon, could drift uncomfortably close or do this. If we are really unlucky, it can actually collide with us. Literally2, the end of the world.
"So what exactly is this research saying? Well,one key thing that the orbits of the planets which look steady aren't all that regular. Over the years, some start to move pretty wildly.These are the projected tracks. And the odds3 are that will lead to a very big collision in about threebillion years'time."
With that long to go, the researcher involved doesn't look too worried. But amid the old instruments of the observatory4 in Paris where he works, he has a doom-laden message about the future and what a collision would eventually mean.
"It would be totally devastating5 because the relative speed is very high. They go at ten kilometers per second. So it's ten times the velocity6 of a bullet . And the impact is enormous. Everything will be destroyed on Earth."
Until now, the worry has been one of these, an asteroid7. It's thought one of them finished off the dinosaurs8. Think what a planet would do.But this is just a computer graphic9. The calculations may be wrong. The only people who need to react to this research are film producers in Hollywood. David Shukman, BBC News.
We are gonna have to say those might be the most menacing graphics10 we'd ever used. Watching things collide on the planet that I live on? Can't tell like that very much.
It's almost Biblical-financial meltdown, swine flu and now this. What's next, the rain of frogs?
But still watch the news. We want you to keep watching.
Yeah. Please do. You'll still be here as long as that doesn't happen.
1 doom | |
n.厄运,劫数;v.注定,命定 | |
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2 literally | |
adv.照字面意义,逐字地;确实 | |
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3 odds | |
n.让步,机率,可能性,比率;胜败优劣之别 | |
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4 observatory | |
n.天文台,气象台,瞭望台,观测台 | |
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5 devastating | |
adj.毁灭性的,令人震惊的,强有力的 | |
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6 velocity | |
n.速度,速率 | |
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7 asteroid | |
n.小行星;海盘车(动物) | |
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8 dinosaurs | |
n.恐龙( dinosaur的名词复数 );守旧落伍的人,过时落后的东西 | |
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9 graphic | |
adj.生动的,形象的,绘画的,文字的,图表的 | |
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10 graphics | |
n.制图法,制图学;图形显示 | |
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